A NOTE ON GRADING AND GRADES We have been living in the information age, arguably for decades now. Unfortunately, there are many in the 昀椀elds of education, and educational administration, as well as those who are politicians and taxpayers who think we are still living in the in industrial age. What this means to you, the frontline educational worker, is that you are asked to assess your learners with misaligned measurements and tools. Those in charge, or their representatives, want proof that the money spent for your salary, school buildings, and school budgets is providing a good return on investment. You know—have known—that this old style of assessment doesn’t reveal or measure the acquisition of knowledge or the amount of enduring understanding that is being created in the minds of your learners. What we’re proposing is a pretest/post-test scenario. By comparing the results of the tests, this construct enables an educator to measure the change in a learner’s understanding. There are two immediate bene昀椀ts to you: 1. Responsibility of acquiring the knowledge is on the learner, and 2. This practice moves assessment from an industrial to an information age model. Example (note that the following numbers aren’t statistically reliable, rather they are based on observation of human behavior): • You have a class of 23 learners. • You pretest them with a 10-question pretest (The pretest is the exact same test you will use for the post-test.) • 5 questions are True/False, 5 questions are short answers. The results: 10 9 s 8 er 7 w t ans 6 ec 5 corr 4 f o 3 2 Number 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 pretest post-test Number of Students Determining the 昀椀nal grade for this activity/unit: C. You can go strictly by the correct number of questions answered. D. Or, add a second criteria—e昀昀ort expended. State this up front, before the activity begins. Observe your learners: for those fully engaged, add 3 points; for those who are somewhat engaged add 1 point; for the disengaged learner, zero points added. Conclusions: 1. This sort of assessment puts gaining of knowledge on the learner, fostering maturity and an appropriate level of responsibility, and provides a more accurate measurement. 2. The spread of grades will be based on e昀昀ort expended, not a statistical curve which is an outmoded and inappropriate industrial model. 3