Assessing Students in the 21st Century

Daniel Pink's latest book titled Drive discusses the merits of looking at motivation in the 21st Century completely differently than we have in the past. Intrinsic motivation now dominates over extrinsic and so on....great stuff! I want to look at motivation from a slightly different angle.

What if we assessed competencies in the classroom the way video games tend to grade progress? Students would work their way upwards towards mastery without an expectation of previous experience (like having zero points at the start of your favorite game). The vast majority of school grading systems are based on the idea that a student starts with a perfect score, and works downward from there. Failed tests are a sea of red. By that definition, the most successful student is the one that has failed the least. It's like keeping baseball statistics: a hall of fame player fails at the plate nearly 70% of the time! What if students started from a point of being functionally worthless and slowly work their way up towards mastery?

Any job descriptions I have seen are written in terms of competencies such as; “you should be able to do x, y, and z and the ability to do a, b, and c is a bonus.” Any extra skills you might have are generally immaterial to the job. I’m a school administrator and so my ability to spin a basketball on the end of my finger is meaningless.

Could we define grades in terms of competencies, rather than points on a test? Consider grading a unit on Newton’s laws. What if the expectations, presented at the beginning of the unit, looked like this?

A student will receive a grade of D upon: (1) reciting Newton’s three laws, and (2) giving an example of each.

A student will receive a grade of C upon: achieving the requirements for a grade of D, and (3) solving basic force problems using Newton’s second law in one dimension.

A student will receive a grade of B upon: achieving the requirements for a grade of C, and (4) solving basic force problems using forces at right angles using Newton’s second law in two dimensions.

A student will receive a grade of A upon: achieving the requirements for a grade of B, and (5) solving complex force problems involving four or more forces at any angles in two dimensions.

A test would become five questions, corresponding to the numbered entries above. Or maybe 15 questions, three for each item. The student “passes” that competency if he/she gets at least two of three right.

Optimistically, this system gets rid of grade inflation and deflation. Numerical grades tend to be relative to one another, and the entire class can swing up or down as a whole.

If you’re an overachieving student, an average of 97% doesn’t tell you anything about your absolute proficiency at the subject. And worse, it dissuades you from learning even more, since the system says that you’re already at - or very close to - the top of the scale. At the same time, if hours of studying result in a 47% on a test don't we tend to feel defeated and confused?  Why bother?

Maybe students could even choose “majors” in high school. For those who have a good sense of what their career would bring them, this isn’t a bad thing in the least. What if students could direct their energy toward really excelling in those fields, while attaining lesser mastery in those fields in which they have no interest?

Lots of Questions.....

Why even bother having a maximum grade? Why not design assessments around the premise that students start with no knowledge in a particular area and that each student may have a different set of competencies needed to achieve traditional grades? Are we ready for such a system? If not; should we change that fact?