To help new students adapt, some colleges are eliminating grades | Hacker News Reader

To help new students adapt, some colleges are eliminating grades

npr.org

> "Grades are not a representation of student learning, as hard as it is for us to break the mindset that if the student got an A it means they learned," said Jody Greene, special adviser to the provost for educational equity and academic success at UCSC,...

The beauty of this is that it breaks the accountability link between elimination of standardized admissions tests, and academic under-performance. Administrators are free to admit whatever young ones present the greatest ideological cachet, and let them coast all the way to graduation!

'But advocates say the most important reason to adopt un-grading is that students have become so preoccupied with grades, they aren't actually learning.

"Grades are not a representation of student learning, as hard as it is for us to break the mindset that if the student got an A it means they learned," said Jody Greene, special adviser to the provost for educational equity and academic success at UCSC, where several faculty are experimenting with various forms of un-grading.

If a student already knew the material before taking the class and got that A, "they didn't learn anything," said Greene. And "if the student came in and struggled to get a C-plus, they may have learned a lot."'

Sounds like these educators are looking for ways to bring learning to forefront of college and not a high GPA.

I think it's worth exploring.

Also the article states a lot of these un-grading ideas seem to be for the first year or so once the students are more upto speed with what they need to do. Grading as usual after.

> If a student already knew the material before taking the class and got that A, "they didn't learn anything," said Greene. And "if the student came in and struggled to get a C-plus, they may have learned a lot."'

Courses are designed to cover material. Learning a lot may indicate being poorly prepared, and would not inherently be cause for advancement, even if cause for celebration.

Having knowledge be the focus does not require the suspense of accountability.

Well if I know what the class requires and I study the material a year ahead before I take the class then aren't I really just waisting time going to lectures/lab just to get the credit?

At that point Universities should just offer tests for credit in every class so students can skip wasting time attending a pointless lecture since learning is no longer the goal here.

i.e. if college is $6k a semester, then just to get tested should be like $3k and let more serious/prepared students to graduate faster. Because at the end of the day you're just paying for accreditation.

Otherwise it's just a giant circle jerk (we all know that it is already though).

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