Hi. Welcome to the blog for my IB English B class at Jur Hronec High School in Bratislava, Slovakia. Below you will find links to other websites and discussion questions. My students are required to comment on one of these postings every month and also respond to each other's comments. Feel free to add your two bits, but be aware that all comments are monitored before being posted.
Evidently, grading is a complex and not fully solved problem. This is a consequence of one of the main purposes of grading which is to sort people into a scale. It is simple; everybody wants to be at the top. Moreover, schools and their teachers also try to make the students’ grades the best possible. Unluckily, sometimes they use a shortcut. For example, they might not intentionally obey the rules of objective grading or simply lower the level of required knowledge during examination. This results in grade inflation so that the grading system does not fulfil its purpose to make an image of distribution of students in context with their knowledge.
As stated in the article, some top universities in U.S. assign their students almost the best possible grade. In fact, there is no another choice to promote their quality as some average university gives their students the grades convenient only for them. On the contrary, in England there is a different situation. Referring to the article, their policy is based on limiting the number of students considered as enormously educated and setting a lower group which still has a certain quality. As this group creates the majority of the students they are treated by their future employers as employees with not the best but sufficient knowledge. On the other hand, in a case of a top university it partly disables its students, majority of whom are above average, as only some of them get deserved evaluation and maybe in their future jobs or job interviews they would be treated worse, according to their grades, even though the university might have higher quality (referring to a ranking of universities).
Therefore, I find it reasonable to use a combination, respectively, a compromise between these two systems. The idea is that the schools (or even the concrete classes) would be ordered according to their quality, referring to an annual whole-country examination (considered technical problems could be reduced using the Internet). Then there would be schools or particular classes given obligatory limitations of percentage of students receiving a concrete grade on a test on a certain subject. The higher the rank of the school, respectively, the concrete class in the subject is, the more freely the teacher may grade.
All in all, there were two main types of grading: uncontrolled which resulted in inflation and controlled that did not assign some students deserved grades. Nevertheless, I have shown you my solution of the situation. It is to scale the quality of schools and according to it the teachers would be allowed to assign various percentage of the certain grade at different schools. I hope my idea will improve the grading system followed by increasing its precision of reflecting the level of knowledge of each student.
Juraj tried to make a compromise between the too lenient and the too harsh grading systems, but I think that his solution has many flaws in it.
Firstly, I think that different schools (e.g. Oxford, Cambridge) do not have totally the same education programs. Even the students from one school may be differently specialised. However, according to my opinion, the annual tests (which Juraj suggests) could uniform the schools or their students by prescribing them what their standard knowledge should be. This I consider a big disadvantage of his solution.
Secondly, if a lot of students did not manage to get good results in the tests just because of their momentarily not good state (for example, being under stress) they would be limited for the whole following year. Furthermore, the students having good results would be negatively influenced by the others with the worse ones, because they would also have to bear the limits.
Thirdly, the marks would not be based on the quality of the education offered by the university. What students know for a test does not necessarily talk about the potential knowledge the school could give them during the year. So people from classes unsuccessful on the test that attend better universities could get worse marks during the term (because of the limits created by Juraj's system), in spite of the fact that at the end of it they could know more than students from the other schools.
All in all, I would rather support another system. Personally, I think that the three-grade-class United Kingdom's solution is better than the Juraj's one. The students are not really limited in their grades. Nor they have to prepare for examinations with so big effect on their nearest term's marks. Finally, as for the problem Juraj tried to solve, together with the final marks (1, 2:1, 2:2 or 3), the employers might simply consider the quality of the universities. In fact, companies want only the best employees. So probably they will do it in this way.
Grades and assessment of students have been dilemmatic for me since the first grade when, for the first time, I was thinking more deeply about the sense of grades. Are they really needed? What is their purpose? There are millions of opinions about this controversial issue. As we could read in the article, the main problem is that grading policies are usually either too strict or too tolerant. So how can we reach 'the Goldilocks principle of grading' mentioned in the article? In my opinion, the larger scale of grades we have, the better and more exact the assessment is. For example, I have a Polish friend and his grades can range from 1 to 7. I am sure it more objectively shows skills and knowledge of a particular student than grades ranging from 1 to 5, which is common for Slovakia. Even better idea is to put grades aside and substitute them with percentages which is the most accurate way of the assessment. But grades are just letters. Can they really show actual abilities of students? I don't think so. Students usually study when a test is coming. Personally, I don't know anyone who studies regularly which proves that abolishing grades would mean a serious problem. Decline in students’ knowledge would be considerable. I know there are a few students who would study despite the fact no one would test whether or not they studied, but they would createthe minority. On the other hand, the majority of students would just go through days, weeks, months and years without having a look at their notes which would mean a total disaster. They would forget how to learn. Even though we will probably not need quadratics and equations of state in our future lives and jobs, we will definitely need the ability to learn new things and that is the thing school is trying to teach us. So what would be the solution? I love the idea of dual track system. Professor Harvey Mansfield, mentioned in the article, gives his students two grades – the first appears on students’ transcripts and the second one reflects what the professor believes they deserve. I believe this is one of the best ways to balanced grading. In conclusion, I am convinced that grades play an important role in school system. Abolishing them would cause a huge disaster because grades are probably the only way how to somehow force and motivate the majority of students to study. Moreover, making the scale of grades larger or using dual track system can offer more accurate information about students, their knowledge and skills.
For the part of the comment referring to the unsuitable system of grades in schools, I absolutely agree with Miška. It is obvious that the majority of students learn merely due to the grade they will receive and the actual knowledge is almost irrelevant if they get A, or in our case, one. However, I do not dare to say the same thing about the students at Harvard, since according to the article the most common grade there for 20 years has been A.I am convinced the school of such a quality guarantees well-deserved grades. Although the author of the article mentioned many new grading systems, even the abolishing of grades, neither Miška nor the author dedicated to percentage system very much, which I consider the most appropriate since the scale in our Slovakian schools, as Miška remarked, is not an adequate indicator of the knowledge. The percentages would be more specific and the differences between students could be more visible. Therefore I must disagree with Miška in her opinion about the dual track system, mainly for the part of system regarding to the professor’s belief. I would not like to claim professor’s personal opinion is not right, however, the opinion can be strongly subjective and therefore inappropriate. Many teachers and professors have favourite students or they become the favourite after paying a bribe. On the other hand, students who are not lucky to be special and rich could be boldly disadvantaged. Consequently, students would not be rated equally and this is exactly what we should omit.
As a high school student, I find the topic of this article actual though grades and grading system is my everyday issue. Grades are the general way to evaluate students′ knowledge and work at schools but it is contentious whether grading policies are too harsh or too lenient as the article says. The description of specific grading systems of some U.S. and U.K. schools has caught my attention the most. In my opinion grading policies are controversial topic and we can never find perfect solution. But government and school itself should always look for the BEST solution. Coming up with just perfect and objective grading is very complicated because it has to mirror objectively the knowledge of individual, but also the group. The example is situation in France, grading scale is overly punitive which result in bad results on a baccalauréatexam. Here are grading policies justified too high and they are unmanageable. On the other hand it gives a space for very good students to stand outwhat is definitely positive. Quite similar to France is U.K.’s system of 3 classes of grades. The best students are provided with enough space to stand out and get the first class degree. Average students are divided into 2 categories, which also profiles them a bit more, 2:1 and 2:2. I was not surprised that the majority of students received the second degree.The minimum students received the third. I associate myself with the idea of having 3 types of degree. It could be a solution of a problem with absolvent’s unemployment in Slovakia. Employers would have better possibility to employ the best candidate with particular degree for concrete position. I am not a fan of Wellesly’s policy. Average grade B+ and less is too low and for some students it is sufficient just to pass and they are not much motivated to learn more and reach the best result. We could also doubt if and how lenient grading affects student’s general knowledge and results in their future job. I like the idea of U.S. schools, which abolished grades and encourage students to focus on the learning rather than on the letter they will earn at the end of the course. It is very important to lead students towards education itself not to make top priority of getting good grades. Anyway from my point of view I see grades as necessary feedback on my work, so I do not agree with abolishing grades altogether. Analyzing the student’s grading policies made me think a bit further. The higher level of objectivity could be reached by multiplication of student’s individual result with the school index. The value this index would represent would mirror the quality of each school. Of course this idea can work just after the implementation of index assignment according to the schools quality rating. Another stage may resemble to 3 classes degree in U.K.
I agree with Sunny’s opinion on grading system in UK, and also on the Wellesley’s policy however, I don’t share the same opinion in the case of the U.S. schools. To be precise, I consider the statement that students should be led to education itself true, but i don’t think that only omission of the grading system will make them focus on the knowledge. I can prove this on myself, and also, I believe that this would apply for majority of students. Imagine the situation when your teacher gives you an optional homework. As a student, would you rather stay at home and accomplish it, or spend that exact time with your friends, or doing other activities? I suppose majority of young people would go for the second option- the soft one. Some kind of grading system ought to be present in our education, because without it, students would tend to lose their motivation to study sooner or later. Therefore grades, serve as some kind of motivation tool for education, and I also disagree with their omission.
In the world I live, bearing in mind the school and people, it is absolutely natural to try hard to be the best and to outsmart the best ones. As a recognition of being the best, we most usually use grades as a kind of a scale on which the higher we are, the better we are. Therefore, I cannot imagine schools without grades whatsoever. At high schools, good grades are something what we thrive for because we have always been taught that people with bad grades are less likely to get a good job in the future. Also, they might give us good feelings that we are good at something. And if anyone from GJH says that grades do not matter to them at all, try to watch their expression when they get a bad grade, like 4 or 5. I am sure they will mull over it as the pressure from their surroundings, for example the high level of our school, is just too high to be resisted and ignored. As a result, grades build up rivalry between individual students, which might not be perfect as it may have fatal consequences, like depressions. However, abolishing grades altogether would be a bad idea as the motivation and interest in learning of many students could drop. So what is the best grading system? In my opinion, the grading system at high schools should stay unaltered. On the other hand, at universities, there should not be just one grading system. Every college should have its own grading system which would diversify and differentiate all the universities and students could choose what suits them the best. But of course the school would have to choose them according to their high school grades.
People are talking and complaining about this grade inflation, and also it was confirmed by a variety of diagrams of which some were shown in the article, however I do not think it is such a big deal. I would say that it is not because of a bad grading system or teachers being too benevolent, but because people simply care more about education, are more educated and more intelligent. And there are still people who get bad grades. And as the conditions for learning are much better now when we have the internet and a very simple access to all kinds of data, I am not surprised we are getting better. Therefore, I do not consider grade inflation as a subject which is given more attention than needed. On the contrary, I still believe that having a range of grading systems available to choose from is a really helpful idea.
The mentioned systems were: limiting the amount of A grades, abolishing grades altogether and a 3-classes-of-grades system. I really agree with the article that the UK's class system can solve the grade inflation, as the most common results was the second class. However, I assume this system is the most suitable for people with average grades and without a particular interest in their future career. For students who have always had good results and are very talented and skilled in the department they study, as well as very convinced about their future, the best choice would be abolishing the grades altogether. It would be nothing but beneficial for them if they had a possibility to only study without caring about grades. I am certain that they could get even better results and gain more knowledge. In this case, grade inflation would become a subject not bothering anyone anymore which is a good solution for those who take it really seriously. Lastly, limiting the amount of A grades and exactly setting the bar of the average semester grade seem rather wrong to me. It is really advantageous neither for students, nor for teachers as even the article proved that this system is not quite right as the results as well as students' performances worsened. This would in some point solve the grade inflation, but consequently lower the level of the school because of miserable results. Nevertheless, I am sure there are still some maniacs who would take this as a challenge and would attend such a university to prove themselves a mastery. That is why I still insist on the system like this to exist.
In conclusion, I personally do not see the case of grade inflation as very severe and the attention given to it is too much. I believe there is not just one particular grading system which would solve this grade inflation, but each of the grading systems discussed in the article would be helpful in some way. Therefore, to support universities' diversity and differentiation, every college should be allowed to choose its own grading system.
As my comment is going to be the seventh and therefore the last one I would not be very satisfied if I vaguely and needlessly summarized what was in the comments above. However, there are still some terms, which were in the text and also repeatedly mentioned afore me, which I have to define and analyse the causalities and possible consequences of.
The status quo is that, globally, the school system is reported to be facing a huge problem which is grade inflation. As the article explains and shows on several statistics, it can be a lot more easier or at least it happens more often that you will receive an A as a nowadays student than as it was 30 or even 15 years ago. How comes? In the article, this is profoundly explained by grade inflation. It states that, there are about 8% more students who graduate with the first-class grade now than several years ago and that the percentage of students who receive a first class grade has exceptionally increased by almost 600% since 1980s (back then it was 3-5% of students and nowadays the number fluctuates around 20%). The numbers cannot lie and here we see the huge threat a grade inflation can pose. However, is it a threat though? Did the numbers rise because of the inflation or is it because of the fast-developing technological equipment we can use to help ourselves with our studying?
Researchers do not regard inflation to be the cause of this rapid increase in number of achieved A diplomas. They claim that the students are better prepared, provided with more sources to study from and are now more competitive as they are under constant pressure these days. The pressure is a result of the number of students who want to be perfect which forms an unnatural competition and rivalry. This can sometimes result into very edgy cases of students having depression and being very over-motivated and even malevolent to each other. Furthemore, as there are more and more of these students, other students want to join the competition too. As a result, the classes are now more full of eager (sometimes even too much) students competing within the class trying to succeed at being the best one. Consequently, the reason of the increase in number of students getting a better mark does not have to be only a result of grade inflation, but can simply be a proof of rivalry. Basing my opinion on these facts, I do not think that the grade inflation is a neglected and insolvable problem. Indeed, it is not that serious to be dealt with and we actually have a plane to proceed. Specifically there are three suggestions included and these are: definite abolishing of grades, limiting the amount of the best grade available and a 3-grades-class system. Even though I think the grade inflation is not the cause of more students having a first class grade, I think these should be bear in mind while considering the enhancement of the grading system.
These three suggestions, inspite being very different, might all result in a similarly big catastrophe, when applying where they are not needed. Abolishing all grades would cause in my opinion more harm than good whereas it can completely demotivate students. On the contrary, limiting number of A-grade students does not sound that harsh, but imagine you are a teacher and you got a bunch of students who are a C-quality, B- quality, B+ quality and alike number of students of A-quality. Would you give some of the A-quality students a worse mark only because you are limited? Thirdly, functioning in UK , is the 3-classes -of-grades system. The mechanism is in my opinion well-working but I do not think it solves any problem. It does not limit or lower the number of students achieving the good grade, which I think they deserve if they had studied for it.
All in all, I think that the grade inflation is not a serious problem because, despite all the arguments we were provided from my classmates, I think it is not the cause of more students getting their A-diplomas. As I explained you in my comment, it is the students, who got better over the years, got more prepared using more enhanced sources and technologies for their preparation and the teachers evolving into more capable lecturers to learn us all we need to know to achieve a good grade. So, as I believe the grade inflation is not a problem of a serious type, it is not needed to be solved by any of these rigorous measures and in my opinion, grading system should stay the same because it is efficient and objective enough. Receiving a mark based on your work is the best evaluation a student can achieve nowadays because it is the only possible way to mirror his skills and effort.
Evidently, grading is a complex and not fully solved problem. This is a consequence of one of the main purposes of grading which is to sort people into a scale. It is simple; everybody wants to be at the top. Moreover, schools and their teachers also try to make the students’ grades the best possible. Unluckily, sometimes they use a shortcut. For example, they might not intentionally obey the rules of objective grading or simply lower the level of required knowledge during examination. This results in grade inflation so that the grading system does not fulfil its purpose to make an image of distribution of students in context with their knowledge.
ReplyDeleteAs stated in the article, some top universities in U.S. assign their students almost the best possible grade. In fact, there is no another choice to promote their quality as some average university gives their students the grades convenient only for them. On the contrary, in England there is a different situation. Referring to the article, their policy is based on limiting the number of students considered as enormously educated and setting a lower group which still has a certain quality. As this group creates the majority of the students they are treated by their future employers as employees with not the best but sufficient knowledge. On the other hand, in a case of a top university it partly disables its students, majority of whom are above average, as only some of them get deserved evaluation and maybe in their future jobs or job interviews they would be treated worse, according to their grades, even though the university might have higher quality (referring to a ranking of universities).
Therefore, I find it reasonable to use a combination, respectively, a compromise between these two systems. The idea is that the schools (or even the concrete classes) would be ordered according to their quality, referring to an annual whole-country examination (considered technical problems could be reduced using the Internet). Then there would be schools or particular classes given obligatory limitations of percentage of students receiving a concrete grade on a test on a certain subject. The higher the rank of the school, respectively, the concrete class in the subject is, the more freely the teacher may grade.
All in all, there were two main types of grading: uncontrolled which resulted in inflation and controlled that did not assign some students deserved grades. Nevertheless, I have shown you my solution of the situation. It is to scale the quality of schools and according to it the teachers would be allowed to assign various percentage of the certain grade at different schools. I hope my idea will improve the grading system followed by increasing its precision of reflecting the level of knowledge of each student.
Juraj tried to make a compromise between the too lenient and the too harsh grading systems, but I think that his solution has many flaws in it.
DeleteFirstly, I think that different schools (e.g. Oxford, Cambridge) do not have totally the same education programs. Even the students from one school may be differently specialised. However, according to my opinion, the annual tests (which Juraj suggests) could uniform the schools or their students by prescribing them what their standard knowledge should be. This I consider a big disadvantage of his solution.
Secondly, if a lot of students did not manage to get good results in the tests just because of their momentarily not good state (for example, being under stress) they would be limited for the whole following year. Furthermore, the students having good results would be negatively influenced by the others with the worse ones, because they would also have to bear the limits.
Thirdly, the marks would not be based on the quality of the education offered by the university. What students know for a test does not necessarily talk about the potential knowledge the school could give them during the year. So people from classes unsuccessful on the test that attend better universities could get worse marks during the term (because of the limits created by Juraj's system), in spite of the fact that at the end of it they could know more than students from the other schools.
All in all, I would rather support another system. Personally, I think that the three-grade-class United Kingdom's solution is better than the Juraj's one. The students are not really limited in their grades. Nor they have to prepare for examinations with so big effect on their nearest term's marks. Finally, as for the problem Juraj tried to solve, together with the final marks (1, 2:1, 2:2 or 3), the employers might simply consider the quality of the universities. In fact, companies want only the best employees. So probably they will do it in this way.
This is a comment by Michaela Mozolova:
ReplyDeleteGrades and assessment of students have been dilemmatic for me since the first grade when, for the first time, I was thinking more deeply about the sense of grades. Are they really needed? What is their purpose? There are millions of opinions about this controversial issue. As we could read in the article, the main problem is that grading policies are usually either too strict or too tolerant. So how can we reach 'the Goldilocks principle of grading' mentioned in the article?
In my opinion, the larger scale of grades we have, the better and more exact the assessment is. For example, I have a Polish friend and his grades can range from 1 to 7. I am sure it more objectively shows skills and knowledge of a particular student than grades ranging from 1 to 5, which is common for Slovakia. Even better idea is to put grades aside and substitute them with percentages which is the most accurate way of the assessment.
But grades are just letters. Can they really show actual abilities of students? I don't think so. Students usually study when a test is coming. Personally, I don't know anyone who studies regularly which proves that abolishing grades would mean a serious problem. Decline in students’ knowledge would be considerable. I know there are a few students who would study despite the fact no one would test whether or not they studied, but they would createthe minority. On the other hand, the majority of students would just go through days, weeks, months and years without having a look at their notes which would mean a total disaster. They would forget how to learn. Even though we will probably not need quadratics and equations of state in our future lives and jobs, we will definitely need the ability to learn new things and that is the thing school is trying to teach us.
So what would be the solution? I love the idea of dual track system. Professor Harvey Mansfield, mentioned in the article, gives his students two grades – the first appears on students’ transcripts and the second one reflects what the professor believes they deserve. I believe this is one of the best ways to balanced grading.
In conclusion, I am convinced that grades play an important role in school system. Abolishing them would cause a huge disaster because grades are probably the only way how to somehow force and motivate the majority of students to study. Moreover, making the scale of grades larger or using dual track system can offer more accurate information about students, their knowledge and skills.
For the part of the comment referring to the unsuitable system of grades in schools, I absolutely agree with Miška. It is obvious that the majority of students learn merely due to the grade they will receive and the actual knowledge is almost irrelevant if they get A, or in our case, one. However, I do not dare to say the same thing about the students at Harvard, since according to the article the most common grade there for 20 years has been A.I am convinced the school of such a quality guarantees well-deserved grades. Although the author of the article mentioned many new grading systems, even the abolishing of grades, neither Miška nor the author dedicated to percentage system very much, which I consider the most appropriate since the scale in our Slovakian schools, as Miška remarked, is not an adequate indicator of the knowledge. The percentages would be more specific and the differences between students could be more visible. Therefore I must disagree with Miška in her opinion about the dual track system, mainly for the part of system regarding to the professor’s belief. I would not like to claim professor’s personal opinion is not right, however, the opinion can be strongly subjective and therefore inappropriate. Many teachers and professors have favourite students or they become the favourite after paying a bribe. On the other hand, students who are not lucky to be special and rich could be boldly disadvantaged. Consequently, students would not be rated equally and this is exactly what we should omit.
DeleteThis is a comment by Alexandra Rampašeková:
ReplyDeleteAs a high school student, I find the topic of this article actual though grades and grading system is my everyday issue. Grades are the general way to evaluate students′ knowledge and work at schools but it is contentious whether grading policies are too harsh or too lenient as the article says. The description of specific grading systems of some U.S. and U.K. schools has caught my attention the most. In my opinion grading policies are controversial topic and we can never find perfect solution. But government and school itself should always look for the BEST solution.
Coming up with just perfect and objective grading is very complicated because it has to mirror objectively the knowledge of individual, but also the group. The example is situation in France, grading scale is overly punitive which result in bad results on a baccalauréatexam. Here are grading policies justified too high and they are unmanageable. On the other hand it gives a space for very good students to stand outwhat is definitely positive.
Quite similar to France is U.K.’s system of 3 classes of grades. The best students are provided with enough space to stand out and get the first class degree. Average students are divided into 2 categories, which also profiles them a bit more, 2:1 and 2:2. I was not surprised that the majority of students received the second degree.The minimum students received the third. I associate myself with the idea of having 3 types of degree. It could be a solution of a problem with absolvent’s unemployment in Slovakia. Employers would have better possibility to employ the best candidate with particular degree for concrete position.
I am not a fan of Wellesly’s policy. Average grade B+ and less is too low and for some students it is sufficient just to pass and they are not much motivated to learn more and reach the best result. We could also doubt if and how lenient grading affects student’s general knowledge and results in their future job.
I like the idea of U.S. schools, which abolished grades and encourage students to focus on the learning rather than on the letter they will earn at the end of the course. It is very important to lead students towards education itself not to make top priority of getting good grades. Anyway from my point of view I see grades as necessary feedback on my work, so I do not agree with abolishing grades altogether.
Analyzing the student’s grading policies made me think a bit further. The higher level of objectivity could be reached by multiplication of student’s individual result with the school index. The value this index would represent would mirror the quality of each school. Of course this idea can work just after the implementation of index assignment according to the schools quality rating. Another stage may resemble to 3 classes degree in U.K.
I agree with Sunny’s opinion on grading system in UK, and also on the Wellesley’s policy however, I don’t share the same opinion in the case of the U.S. schools. To be precise, I consider the statement that students should be led to education itself true, but i don’t think that only omission of the grading system will make them focus on the knowledge. I can prove this on myself, and also, I believe that this would apply for majority of students. Imagine the situation when your teacher gives you an optional homework. As a student, would you rather stay at home and accomplish it, or spend that exact time with your friends, or doing other activities? I suppose majority of young people would go for the second option- the soft one. Some kind of grading system ought to be present in our education, because without it, students would tend to lose their motivation to study sooner or later. Therefore grades, serve as some kind of motivation tool for education, and I also disagree with their omission.
DeleteA comment by Jane Polakova:
ReplyDeleteIn the world I live, bearing in mind the school and people, it is absolutely natural to try hard to be the best and to outsmart the best ones. As a recognition of being the best, we most usually use grades as a kind of a scale on which the higher we are, the better we are. Therefore, I cannot imagine schools without grades whatsoever. At high schools, good grades are something what we thrive for because we have always been taught that people with bad grades are less likely to get a good job in the future. Also, they might give us good feelings that we are good at something. And if anyone from GJH says that grades do not matter to them at all, try to watch their expression when they get a bad grade, like 4 or 5. I am sure they will mull over it as the pressure from their surroundings, for example the high level of our school, is just too high to be resisted and ignored. As a result, grades build up rivalry between individual students, which might not be perfect as it may have fatal consequences, like depressions. However, abolishing grades altogether would be a bad idea as the motivation and interest in learning of many students could drop. So what is the best grading system? In my opinion, the grading system at high schools should stay unaltered. On the other hand, at universities, there should not be just one grading system. Every college should have its own grading system which would diversify and differentiate all the universities and students could choose what suits them the best. But of course the school would have to choose them according to their high school grades.
People are talking and complaining about this grade inflation, and also it was confirmed by a variety of diagrams of which some were shown in the article, however I do not think it is such a big deal. I would say that it is not because of a bad grading system or teachers being too benevolent, but because people simply care more about education, are more educated and more intelligent. And there are still people who get bad grades. And as the conditions for learning are much better now when we have the internet and a very simple access to all kinds of data, I am not surprised we are getting better. Therefore, I do not consider grade inflation as a subject which is given more attention than needed. On the contrary, I still believe that having a range of grading systems available to choose from is a really helpful idea.
The mentioned systems were: limiting the amount of A grades, abolishing grades altogether and a 3-classes-of-grades system. I really agree with the article that the UK's class system can solve the grade inflation, as the most common results was the second class. However, I assume this system is the most suitable for people with average grades and without a particular interest in their future career. For students who have always had good results and are very talented and skilled in the department they study, as well as very convinced about their future, the best choice would be abolishing the grades altogether. It would be nothing but beneficial for them if they had a possibility to only study without caring about grades. I am certain that they could get even better results and gain more knowledge. In this case, grade inflation would become a subject not bothering anyone anymore which is a good solution for those who take it really seriously. Lastly, limiting the amount of A grades and exactly setting the bar of the average semester grade seem rather wrong to me. It is really advantageous neither for students, nor for teachers as even the article proved that this system is not quite right as the results as well as students' performances worsened. This would in some point solve the grade inflation, but consequently lower the level of the school because of miserable results. Nevertheless, I am sure there are still some maniacs who would take this as a challenge and would attend such a university to prove themselves a mastery. That is why I still insist on the system like this to exist.
Jane Polakova's conclusion:
ReplyDeleteIn conclusion, I personally do not see the case of grade inflation as very severe and the attention given to it is too much. I believe there is not just one particular grading system which would solve this grade inflation, but each of the grading systems discussed in the article would be helpful in some way. Therefore, to support universities' diversity and differentiation, every college should be allowed to choose its own grading system.
This comment is by Martina Sabova:
ReplyDeleteAs my comment is going to be the seventh and therefore the last one I would not be very satisfied if I vaguely and needlessly summarized what was in the comments above. However, there are still some terms, which were in the text and also repeatedly mentioned afore me, which I have to define and analyse the causalities and possible consequences of.
The status quo is that, globally, the school system is reported to be facing a huge problem which is grade inflation. As the article explains and shows on several statistics, it can be a lot more easier or at least it happens more often that you will receive an A as a nowadays student than as it was 30 or even 15 years ago. How comes? In the article, this is profoundly explained by grade inflation. It states that, there are about 8% more students who graduate with the first-class grade now than several years ago and that the percentage of students who receive a first class grade has exceptionally increased by almost 600% since 1980s (back then it was 3-5% of students and nowadays the number fluctuates around 20%). The numbers cannot lie and here we see the huge threat a grade inflation can pose. However, is it a threat though? Did the numbers rise because of the inflation or is it because of the fast-developing technological equipment we can use to help ourselves with our studying?
Researchers do not regard inflation to be the cause of this rapid increase in number of achieved A diplomas. They claim that the students are better prepared, provided with more sources to study from and are now more competitive as they are under constant pressure these days. The pressure is a result of the number of students who want to be perfect which forms an unnatural competition and rivalry. This can sometimes result into very edgy cases of students having depression and being very over-motivated and even malevolent to each other. Furthemore, as there are more and more of these students, other students want to join the competition too. As a result, the classes are now more full of eager (sometimes even too much) students competing within the class trying to succeed at being the best one. Consequently, the reason of the increase in number of students getting a better mark does not have to be only a result of grade inflation, but can simply be a proof of rivalry. Basing my opinion on these facts, I do not think that the grade inflation is a neglected and insolvable problem. Indeed, it is not that serious to be dealt with and we actually have a plane to proceed. Specifically there are three suggestions included and these are: definite abolishing of grades, limiting the amount of the best grade available and a 3-grades-class system. Even though I think the grade inflation is not the cause of more students having a first class grade, I think these should be bear in mind while considering the enhancement of the grading system.
Here is the contuinuation of Martina's comment:
ReplyDeleteThese three suggestions, inspite being very different, might all result in a similarly big catastrophe, when applying where they are not needed. Abolishing all grades would cause in my opinion more harm than good whereas it can completely demotivate students. On the contrary, limiting number of A-grade students does not sound that harsh, but imagine you are a teacher and you got a bunch of students who are a C-quality, B- quality, B+ quality and alike number of students of A-quality. Would you give some of the A-quality students a worse mark only because you are limited? Thirdly, functioning in UK , is the 3-classes -of-grades system. The mechanism is in my opinion well-working but I do not think it solves any problem. It does not limit or lower the number of students achieving the good grade, which I think they deserve if they had studied for it.
All in all, I think that the grade inflation is not a serious problem because, despite all the arguments we were provided from my classmates, I think it is not the cause of more students getting their A-diplomas. As I explained you in my comment, it is the students, who got better over the years, got more prepared using more enhanced sources and technologies for their preparation and the teachers evolving into more capable lecturers to learn us all we need to know to achieve a good grade. So, as I believe the grade inflation is not a problem of a serious type, it is not needed to be solved by any of these rigorous measures and in my opinion, grading system should stay the same because it is efficient and objective enough. Receiving a mark based on your work is the best evaluation a student can achieve nowadays because it is the only possible way to mirror his skills and effort.