“Overall, research suggests that students benefit from preparing for college admissions exams and that individual tutoring or coaching is likely to be more effective than other approaches such as classes, online programs, or self-study. However, the effects of test prep are generally modest, especially compared to the claims of some test prep programs. Notably, there […]
“Two quick disclaimers on the research findings that I will discuss in this blog post. These studies concerned feedback on student-produced mathematical proofs, and much of the data came from clinical interviews that were not connected to a specific course. Although this specific research focused exclusively on student proofs, many of the findings could apply […]
“There was a clear benefit on performance for handwritten notes compared to typed notes. The researchers calculated how the strength of the benefit would translate to grades in a hypothetical scenario and suggested that 9.5% of the students who take their notes by hand would achieve an A whereas only 6% of the students who […]
“Three Dartmouth economists and a sociologist then dug into the numbers. One of their main findings did not surprise them: Test scores were a better predictor than high school grades — or student essays and teacher recommendations — of how well students would fare at Dartmouth… A second finding was more surprising. During the pandemic, […]
“Without test scores, admissions officers sometimes have a hard time distinguishing between applicants who are likely to do well at elite colleges and those who are likely to struggle. Researchers who have studied the issue say that test scores can be particularly helpful in identifying lower-income students and underrepresented minorities who will thrive. These students […]
“Many commenters said, in no uncertain terms, that students need to be held accountable for their academics and behavior… They said policies like the 50 percent rule were unfair… And that leniency didn’t prepare young people for post-high school success… But some saw the benefits of a “grade floor” in certain situations… While others suggested […]
“The course will launch for credit next fall, and is currently being taught as a pilot program in 700 schools across 40 states… African American studies is an interdisciplinary field, melding history with the study of contemporary politics, culture and law.”
“In my three years of teaching this powerful text, this was the most rewarding. I had a mixture of creative sequels, vocabulary journals, research on thematic topics like censorship and control, and character analysis… Then, I asked it: Write a 500 word dystopian story taking place in Newark, New Jersey for 800 Lexile Level. I’ve […]
“Other research on test design suggests that all too often, we’re not just assessing what students know, but also getting a peek into the psychological and cognitive eddies that disrupt a student’s thinking—a high-stakes test that causes anxiety can become a barometer of a student’s poise, rather than their knowledge. A well-designed test is rigorous […]
“While various theories of motivation and engagement have gained – and lost – traction over the years, one of the most widely accepted is the theory proposed by Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris in 2004. It presents engagement as a mash-up of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive factors.”
“In two gold-standard, randomized, controlled trials of thousands of students in diverse school systems across the U.S., project-based learning significantly outperformed traditional curricula, raising academic performance across grade levels, socioeconomic subgroups, and reading ability.”
“Maintaining the traditional scope of AP Exams was a challenging decision… Please know we honor and respect choices you may make to focus on fewer topics in a difficult year. The skills students develop in your course are often more valuable than how much content they get through, and students who cover fewer topics in […]
“In other words, instead of changing the assessment context or altering the severity of consequences, teachers simply take away students’ reasons for cheating. Why cheat on an assessment if that hurts your chances of getting the individualized assistance you need to do well? Some teachers go so far as to make every assessment formative until […]
“The analysis yielded six major findings. Among them: Students of all racial/ethnic groups learn more from teachers with high grading standards, and these standards tend to be higher in schools serving more advantaged students. Moreover, the impact of rigorous grading practices can improve student performance in subsequent math classes up to two years later.”
“Sometimes it takes a long time and lot of painful grading in order to figure out the mistakes. You have to be open to your own errors in the assignment. When you see kids all making the same kind of mistake, you need to notice that maybe it’s how you phrased the question, or the […]
“Page concluded that grades can have a beneficial effect on student learning only when accompanied by standard or individualized comments from the teacher. Studies conducted in later years confirmed these results.”
“Every 10 days, on average, another university makes these tests optional for admission. Forty-one schools have jettisoned this requirement in the last year, the largest number ever.”
“Different opinions reflect different values, different attitudes towards assessment, and different understandings of how learning happens. I’ll take a stab at unpacking this, and (as is my wont) I will not be shy about sharing my opinions along the way. I will present this as a discussion with imaginary colleagues, whose contributions are in bold type. “
“In place of a straightforward transcript listing letter grades and a grade point average, admissions officers received the growth transcript, which provides rich information on student progress in four broad areas: Mindset, knowledge, creativity and skills. Under each of those four categories, eight subcategories provide a granular look at students’ progress over their three years […]
“As a country we have moved past the idea that the basics of a decent life should be hoarded by an aristocracy, a hereditary class with a monopoly on wealth, power and property. Allocating resources on the basis of merit is arguably a better system, or at least, less unjust. Still, it is far from […]
“The decision to give students who take the SAT test a numerical rating that reflects the challenges they have overcome in life is the most telling sign yet that universities across the country are searching for ways to diversify their classes without considering race or ethnicity… In the initial data the College Board has collected on some […]
“The evidence is clear: Academic excellence is not a strong predictor of career excellence. Across industries, research shows that the correlation between grades and job performance is modest in the first year after college and trivial within a handful of years. For example, at Google, once employees are two or three years out of college, their grades have no bearing on their […]
“After almost two decades of its use, we’ve raised an entire generation of students around the notion of test-based accountability, and yet the fruits of that seem…. well, elusive. Where are the waves of students now arriving on college campuses super-prepared?”
“In a joint statement, they said that they were responding to the diminished utility of AP courses and the desirability of developing our own advanced courses that more effectively address our students’ needs and interests. Collectively, we believe a curriculum oriented toward collaborative, experiential, and interdisciplinary learning will not only better prepare our students for […]
“Whether you are designing a completely new learning model or updating your approach as part of ongoing efforts to learn and improve, identifying the outcomes that learners will achieve as a result of their time with you [is a] critical step.”
The source of the trouble is that when people are judged by performance metrics they are incentivised to do what the metrics measure, and what the metrics measure will be some established goal. But that impedes innovation, which means doing something not yet established, indeed that hasn’t even been tried out. Innovation involves experimentation. And […]
“I haven’t put grades on student work since I started teaching as instructor of record in 2001… none of the institutions where I’ve worked (including R1s, community colleges, liberal arts colleges) has entirely dictated how I had to approach assessment—at every single one there was sufficient wiggle room for experimentation.”
Consider that holy grail of learning outcomes, critical thinking… Teaching it is not a cheap or efficient process. It does not come from… emphasizing short, quantifiable, standardized assignments at the expense of meandering, creative and difficult investigation. Producing thoughtful, talented graduates is not a matter of focusing on market-ready skills. It’s about giving students an […]
Filling out surveys isn’t something you can always do, so it came to my mind that maybe there could be an easier way to give feedback, and to send the data directly to people who are interested in the results… We saw that, if you make it easy, people will give feedback every day, even […]
I had read many accounts of individual faculty members… but in mid-August, I discovered Starr Sackstein’s book Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School, which gave me some cover in case students or administrators challenged this.”
A high GPA reflects skills like being prompt, working really hard, following directions, and being well rounded, all important skills for high-level careers.”
The first finding [is] regarding feedback. Butler examined 3 types of feedback: scores alone, comments alone, and scores with comments. Her study showed that scores alone made students either complacent or unmotivated depending on how well they did. Scores with comments were just as ineffective in that students focused entirely on the score and ignored […]
Too often, grades are the period at the end of any conversation on learning. Turn these numbers and letters into meaningful measures of mastery by looking for ways to amplify formative feedback, treating failures as beneficial to learning, and giving students opportunities to revise their work. Read on for more ways to create a learning-centered […]
Do presentations, projects and portfolios give a better idea of what a student has learned than a class grade or a score on a standardized exam? And are they particularly valuable for students who have struggled in traditional high school classes? Many advocates believe that adopting such an approach to assessment for all students could […]
Already, the U.S. Department of Education has approved three states—Connecticut, Maine, and New Hampshire—to use the SAT as a high school assessment for federal accountability purposes… With the transition time and resources that ESSA provides, educators have an optimal moment to consider whether college prep tests can play the role of a national testing standard—or […]
Formative assessment is one of the most widely used—but poorly understood—instructional techniques. This special report highlights common misconceptions about the approach and shows how formative assessment differs from other kinds of assessments, such as summative or benchmark tests.”
The answer is not to abandon testing, but to measure the things we most value, and find good ways to do that… After all, in the past 50 years economists and psychologists have found ways to measure things as subtle and dynamic as the mechanisms that explain when and why we give in to impulse, […]
“The practice of using single point rubrics is slowly but surely catching on. The simplicity of these rubrics — with just a single column of criteria, rather than a full menu of performance levels — offers a whole host of benefits.”
Our businesslike efforts to measure and improve quality are now blocking the altruism, indeed the love, that motivates people to enter the helping professions. While we’re figuring out how to get better, we need to tread more lightly in assessing the work of the professionals who practice in our most human and sacred fields.”
“Contrary to popular belief, it’s not just first-year college GPA that SAT scores predict. In a four-year study… [researchers] found that test score (SAT or ACT—whichever the student took) correlated strongly with cumulative GPA at the end of the fourth year.”
“By now enough has been written about academic assessment to fill a library, but when you stop to think about it, the whole enterprise really amounts to a straightforward two-step dance. We need to collect information about how students are doing, and then we need to share that information (along with our judgments, perhaps) with […]