Philosophy
A couple colleagues of mine were wringing their hands a little while back about grade inflation. I don't know whether it really exists or not, but let's grant that grades are higher now than they were 10, 20, 50 years ago. Is it really a problem?
The unstated cause assumed by those who are upset about it is that faculty grade too easy. But is that true? We get price inflation when people have more money. Often they have more money because they work harder, are more efficient at doing what they do, or find higher paying jobs for the same effort. Could it be that students, are more talented academically? I actually am seeing better students, so it would be weird if my given GPA wasn't going up. could it be that they are no smarter, but more attuned to the grade game, they know how to make the same effort gain more grade value? Could it be that their increased access to information has made them able to write normal papers that would have taken several times longer if restricted to the stacks and microfilm, assuming that your institutions library would even have the sources they needed?
But even if faculty do give away higher grades more cheaply now, so what? The only problem would be if the wrong people are getting into graduate school, medical school, or law school because GPA is utterly irrelevant to all else in life. Is this the case?
It is one of those dirty little secrets that we perpetuate because insecure professors think it is the only way they can get respect. Grades mean nothing for the vast majority of people who pass through our classrooms. So, given that they are meaningless outside of higher ed, is there really a problem with grade inflation, even if it is real?
- The Objectivity Of Grades
I was going to respond to the ongoing thread in yesterday's post, but thought that the argument deserved its own space in order to be thorough. The claim has been put forward and agreed to that grades on work like papers is subjective and thereby...
- How Can You Have Any Pudding If You Don't Eat Your Meat: The Effectiveness Of Grades
Thinking about grades for obvious reasons. I am ambivalent about grades. On the one hand, it is certainly true that students rise to expectations and the mechanism by which those expectations are communicated is grading work. If one teacher gives the...
- Elementary School Ontology
Yesterday was the last day of school for the shorties. The shorter was in kindergarten and the question arose whether he is now a first-grader. It was generally accepted that he now has the status of "going into first grade," but the question was whether...
- Another Grading Question
It is one of those unquestioned beliefs in the world of higher ed that grading is subjective. Some instructors are easy graders and others are hard graders and there is no fact in the world about what an assignment really deserves. But I had an experience...
- Do Grades Hurt As Well As Help The Educational Process?
It's early in the semester and grades and grading does not yet have the bite it will have later, so this distance may allow for some more open minded consideration. For the project on Maria Montessori that I've been working, I came across this...
Philosophy
Is Grade Inflation Really a Problem?
A couple colleagues of mine were wringing their hands a little while back about grade inflation. I don't know whether it really exists or not, but let's grant that grades are higher now than they were 10, 20, 50 years ago. Is it really a problem?
The unstated cause assumed by those who are upset about it is that faculty grade too easy. But is that true? We get price inflation when people have more money. Often they have more money because they work harder, are more efficient at doing what they do, or find higher paying jobs for the same effort. Could it be that students, are more talented academically? I actually am seeing better students, so it would be weird if my given GPA wasn't going up. could it be that they are no smarter, but more attuned to the grade game, they know how to make the same effort gain more grade value? Could it be that their increased access to information has made them able to write normal papers that would have taken several times longer if restricted to the stacks and microfilm, assuming that your institutions library would even have the sources they needed?
But even if faculty do give away higher grades more cheaply now, so what? The only problem would be if the wrong people are getting into graduate school, medical school, or law school because GPA is utterly irrelevant to all else in life. Is this the case?
It is one of those dirty little secrets that we perpetuate because insecure professors think it is the only way they can get respect. Grades mean nothing for the vast majority of people who pass through our classrooms. So, given that they are meaningless outside of higher ed, is there really a problem with grade inflation, even if it is real?
- The Objectivity Of Grades
I was going to respond to the ongoing thread in yesterday's post, but thought that the argument deserved its own space in order to be thorough. The claim has been put forward and agreed to that grades on work like papers is subjective and thereby...
- How Can You Have Any Pudding If You Don't Eat Your Meat: The Effectiveness Of Grades
Thinking about grades for obvious reasons. I am ambivalent about grades. On the one hand, it is certainly true that students rise to expectations and the mechanism by which those expectations are communicated is grading work. If one teacher gives the...
- Elementary School Ontology
Yesterday was the last day of school for the shorties. The shorter was in kindergarten and the question arose whether he is now a first-grader. It was generally accepted that he now has the status of "going into first grade," but the question was whether...
- Another Grading Question
It is one of those unquestioned beliefs in the world of higher ed that grading is subjective. Some instructors are easy graders and others are hard graders and there is no fact in the world about what an assignment really deserves. But I had an experience...
- Do Grades Hurt As Well As Help The Educational Process?
It's early in the semester and grades and grading does not yet have the bite it will have later, so this distance may allow for some more open minded consideration. For the project on Maria Montessori that I've been working, I came across this...