Assessment

Some grading thoughts:

1. Grades and scores can be used to communicate understanding. Or they can be used to communicate achievement. Or adherence to policies and procedures. Problems arise in interpreting scores and grades when a single score or grade is used to communicate many of these at the same time.

2. It is probably not an accident that we've settled on a 4-point scale referred to five letters. It's hard to figure out what's in somebody else's mind. It is certainly folly to try to extract this information to the 0.1% accuracy many grading program offer. 20% feels like a more realistic degree of fuzziness - so five letter grades each taking up about 20% of the grading scale just strikes me as a natural evolution. Maybe 6 maybe 4 maybe even (at a stretch) 10, but certainly not 100.

3. Points-bucket grading systems discourage several important aspects of learning in the real world: the need for revision and subsequent growth that absolutely forgives early (later corrected) misconceptions; the fact that IF not WHEN the student learns is what matters; the quickly learned lesson that a "points hole" that seems inescapable is a powerful deterrent towards effort.

At prom gotta go.