I remember from a few class periods back Dr. Turner stating her dislike for testing in a class such as ours. I tend to agree with her that it is difficult to test students in a class such as ours since it is so deeply rooted in discussion. While thinking about this, I began to think of a different issue I had heard about recently.
Recently, Stanford University's Law school has adopted a system of grading that has been used at other big name schools such as Yale and Harvard. They have decided to drop letter grades and instead give students one of three classifications; Honors Pass, Pass Low, or Fail. (
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/02/stanford) Reading about this made me think about whether a grading system like this could at all work for K-12 schools, both public and private.
My question is, do you think it would ever be feasible for K-12 schools to adopt a grading system for its students such as the one adopted by these great schools? Why do you think that they are switching to this easier form of assessment?
I personally believe that it could possibly work. In today's educational world, I believe too much emphasis is placed on grading and testing. I believe students are too often being asked to answer too many multiple choice questions and not enough critical thinking questions; questions that can turn out to be more applicable in the student's life. Also, when they are asked to think critically, their answers are often graded based on the teachers bias. I believe that a system which allowed teachers to grade students on effort, research, and statement of beliefs and understanding could work better. Additionally, I believe that students and colleges alike are too worried about whether someone has an outstanding GPA or outstanding SAT scores and less worried about the students actual involvement in the learning process and classroom/school.
I believe that an average of the students achievement levels could be used to form a different type of standard to be looked at by higher educational institutions which took more into account students involvement in and outside the classroom.
There are certainly a lot of cons to a system like this, and it may not work at all, but I tend to believe the basic ideals of this kind of grading could be implimented.
What do you think?