Grades and Learning

Through this curriculum course I have been made more aware of my purpose as an educator. I suppose I am lucky to have had some time off, away from the classroom, to ponder and self-reflect on my teaching and the learning of students. I wonder, if it weren't for these graduate classes and having the time to reflect, would I still be teaching the same way? As an undergraduate I was taught all of the key characteristics to good teaching. For example, have a hook or anticipatory set, segue to the "lecturette", individual practice, cooperative learning or pair and share activity, and finally closure.

Having all of these technical aspects to a lesson is important. However, the proper assessments is more valuable. Actually being able to determine what the students are learning, if they are learning at all, is much more effective than making sure we check some technicalities off of a list. In the beginning of this semester I said to myself, "yes it makes sense. But as a math teacher, with so little time, do I have the time to do it?" Then I realized this is my job! Just take away some of the meaningless assessments (like the 500 quizzes I give in a semester) and replace them with the time to observe and monitor student progress.

I suppose we all get bogged down with the paperwork- but truly what is our purpose as educators? Grades? They are definitely important to the students, parents, and administrators. And it is what teachers use to gauge progress of students. But what is a grade if it doesn't measure what the students have learned? It becomes a pointless number- a meaningless way to measure success.

I have had numerous cases in school where a student that is driven to do well, gets the A, regardless of what information that student has been able to conceptualize and apply for deeper understanding of the content. I have also had students who were able to conceptualize and apply the information but did not do their homework and did not test well, so they did not do well in the course. As an educator, I want the best of both worlds: a student who is dedicated to do well and works hard in addition to having the capability to acquire that deeper understanding.

But how can we get around using these numbers? Our society is number driven: tests scores, social security numbers, license plate numbers, etc. While I do not think we will ever get away from using numbers or grades, just being more aware of of this may help to improve our practice. As educators, we must develop ways to ensure student understanding and student learning and do our best to match the student's abilities to a number grade.

One way I plan on observing learning in action is through higher order questioning and essential questions. I just read May's Mathematics Teaching in the Middle Grades, an article titled "The Importance of Equal Sign Understanding." One essential question I could use for my course in sixth grade is "What does it mean to be equal?" Just as so many words in the English Language can be spelled the same but mean different things, so do many symbols in mathematics. This article really showed the (mis)conceptions students have about the equal sign as well as the relationship between their understanding and how they solve algebraic equations. As a sixth grade teacher, I would always assume that the students knew what the equal sign meant, but after this article it is apparent that some may not have a full understanding of what this important symbol stands for. I truly have a new way of looking at my teaching and student understanding after this course!