Well if not a grade, I would definitely want to know if students have achieved or not achieved the required knowledge and skill competencies. 

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_91.htm

I'm sorry, by "ungraded" I mean each student advances at their own pace. Examples: If a student learns a topic much faster than the average, she/he can advance to the next topic, as soon as she/he has mastered the current one. In the opposite case, if a student learns a topic much slower than the average, she/he can take more time, get more personalized help from the teacher, and then, once she/he has mastered the topic, she/he can proceed to the next topic. 

The end result is that each will have fully mastered a given topic, but each will be proceeding at their own pace.

This is the opposite of what schools do now (what I would call a graded structure, where all the  students  are to proceed, in lockstep - according to their age - through the school's curriculum until they graduate.) Currently, the slower learners end up having learned precious little and having low self-esteem; the fast learners end up having been bored by many of their classes and having a low opinion of schools, in general; and the average learner will end up probably feeling satisfied with what they learned and will have a positive opinion of schools, in general. (Except that you and I expect that the average learner could have had a better experience without the likely classroom distractions emanating from individuals from the other two groups.)   

There is a definite shift in trends towards differentiated teaching and learning for students where the teacher is a facilitator and students can work to a certain extent at their own pace. You mentioned Khan academy, there are also structured programs such as K-12 education which provide curricula in all areas for the grade ranges mentioned. There are prescribed goals that students are expected to achieve, if the system employed is effective all students would achieve at least the minimum goals and others would be able to progress to advanced goals. 

Despite these efforts there is still conflict between the trends and the expectations of parents, teachers and ultimately school boards. Each student must be treated as an individual not as part of a group in this situation, the teacher needs to be a facilitator and  allow students to grow at their own pace  with the support of stakeholders. Yet, the experience of the student should be balanced so that the classroom experience and social skills are nurtured through group activities and interactions with their peers.  

Implementation in schools is challenging but not impossible as regular assessments can show the student's process one such assessment is MAP (measurement of Academic Progress). Digital platforms such as Pearson Mylab and Mastering for high school students allow personalised learning but also incorporate assessments where students can check their understanding and the system suggests the tasks to completed for further improvement. 

At the end of the day grades are needed but the time taken to get the expected grades should be flexible.

Well, ideally students need to master one skill before moving on to the next irrespective of whether it ends with a grade or is not graded. 

However, the current education system, right from early childhood to post-graduate is so complicated and depended upon achievement grades that it is practically impossible to not use letter grades, yearly promotion, admission tests etc. without doing the whole thing from scratch.

Theoretically, yes, students should learn at their own pace , irrespective of the amount of time they take to master a skill but practically it is impossible to achieve so when there are 25-50 students in one class who need to be moved to the next class in a year's time to accommodate the fresh batch of 25-50 coming from the lower year group. Yes, there is differentiation, skill-based grouping and so many other techniques that are used but at the end of the day, it does not make any significant difference to the end result.

Ungraded approach to many is equated with self-learning programs, where any comparison with other students is avoided. It does add a value to the individual, however fails to assess the competence vis-a-vis others. This strategy, in isolation, does not cater to the social/professional requirements of people. 

The example of Khan Academy is not appropriate in this context, as people approach it to add to their understanding within an outside need which acts as motivation.

I believe that the ungraded approach to education is what has caused the home-school population to increase significantly in the United States.  For varying parental reasons--whether it be for students who grasp material quickly and are not challenged by the typical grade level classrooms, or students for whom response to intervention programs are not meeting needs--it appears that this external force upon the institution of school may fuel an internal change to schools as we currently know them to be comprised.  

Schools that are adopting standards-based grading are doing so with great care to inform and educate parents about the absence of  A-E grades.  Because change is difficult ("it was good enough for me, it should be good enough for my child"), when parents who do not understand the change start attending their local school board meetings to complain, the instinctive reaction is to stop the adoption of non-graded (or standards-based grading) curriculum. (School boards are elected officials.)

In contrast to M. Gaur's statement, Khan Academy is used by teachers (depending on their comfort with the technology) to set up electronic classrooms within the physical classroom for remediation, re-teaching, and stretching students.  

I think ungraded and graded projects and contract work in schools are all possible.  Since we are focusing on ungraded, I would say that simply completing the steps in a contract or in doing a project provide a variety of intrinsic motivations for students.   It is particularly important when doing projects or doing performance based on projects to do test runs of new procedures, new projects, or other new acitivities.  In many cases, the unmarked assignment can provide much learning and motivation. 

Interesting discussion. I always felt that teachers and instructors should develop their own material for class room interaction. Resources like Khan Academy - which of course is very valuable - and other similar sources - can have a limited use for the teacher. It should act as an extension and not as a substitute. Such sources are extremely helpful for any self-learning of course. But can we have a social structure in which graded education would have a value akin to the ungraded? Education does mean self-improvement. But it also have a marketability - and this aspect allows us to rank colleges and universities and establish brand values. The intrinsic value of ungraded education cannot be denied of course. However it cannot be an wither or situation. They have to complement each other in a systematic way to be meaningful for the society. In a developing economy like India, the social connotations of graded education may not be side-trekked easily.

I have read the different comments as well as the introductory paragraph. First, distinctions must be made. The question posed refers to an ungraded approach to education; individual pace is not a concern, according to the question.

Second, I would agree with an ungraded approach to education but hardly to an un-assessed approach. If education is the way by society re-builds and reproduces itself, then assessment is a must. 

Third, and in a deeper level, the question about what kind of curriculum are we thinking of. Current "normal" approaches and the practical conditions of schooling that make non-viable both individual pace, and indidiually tailored curriculum.

Finally, I understand that this discussion (this thread at least) does not face the crucial questions about education itself, curriculum, teaching and learning, as well as assessment. 

This is a very interesting question for several reasons.

Firstly it challenges us to consider the degree to which the technology of the school, its structures and processes, are built to progress the learning of the individual and to accommodate the need to “deliver” education in the context of mass schooling. Of course prior to mass schooling learner centred education was provided by a tutor (or not at all). Trades were learned through apprenticeship etc. Schooling en-mass as we understand it now is a relatively modern invention and a process designed of necessity and within economic and technological constraints. Interestingly many parents are choosing to homeschool where we are seeing a return to individualised education. How much of homeschooling is undertaken for reasons related to the acquisition of knowledge and how much related to a desire to detach a child from what is seen to be an undesirable social and cultural experience is an interesting question.

Secondly we might consider the degree to which individualised learning equates to a model of knowledge building based on social construction and shared experiences. We might ask - beyond facts and procedures, can we learn “on our own”?

Thirdly we are challenged to consider the degree to which learning is a process of cultural assimilation. Certain aspects of learning cannot be decoupled from a collective and shared experience.

To construct and answer we must decouple education, teaching, learning and schooling.

All very interesting answers.

For various reasons, economic, cultural, political, institutional, and inertial, the quality of education appears to be dropping steadily over many years. Fundamental changes are overdue.

We, the "teachers," need to question all the fundamental assumptions. We need to examine new (and ancient) ways of learning. We need to understand the seat of learning, as revealed in neuroscience. We need to appreciate the psychological needs of people, especially with regard to learning and motivation. We need to work to provide a supportive environment for teachers which treats them as the professionals they are (or can be) so that they can innovate in how they teach. Most important of all, we need to provide a learning experience that is centered on the student.

It is apparent that we cannot depend on government to make the needed changes.It is also apparent that we cannot depend on the upper 10% economic class to support the necessary changes. (Both of these power bases are intertwined.)

Instead,we, at the grassroots - the caregivers, the teachers, and the students  working cooperatively - have to depend on ourselves, We have to supplement/replace what is offered in regular school - combining internet resources with one-on-one tutoring. Remember that individualized learning is much more efficient than classroom learning - so it takes, perhaps, 1/4 the time for a student to master a topic. We have to encourage a love of learning (something that we are all born with). And just remember, high marks in the student's subjects (say, straight A's) does not necessarily translate to having a successful career (by some personally meaningful measure) in later life. Having "grit" is often much more important. 

Antonio,

I was learning easily in math,sciences, history, sports and less easily in arts and languages.  One of the difficulties that I experienced in math and sciences was not that the teaching was too slow but too fast.  Sound strange!  You have to understand that in these domains, the reason that I was strong is that I want to understand everything perfectly.  So when at some point in the class I was not understanding something, I was stopping listening to the teacher and thinking about the step of the explanation that I was not fully comprehending.  This also help me to be autonomous in my learning because I had to learn from the book all the part of the course that I did not follow while trying to figure out.  I also notice that when one does not cut corners and really demand to understand everything to his/her satisfaction then learning become much better integrated and we do not forget such knowledge.  For example, in mathematics it is common to learn a demonstration through a long list of steps and each one has to be understood.  I usually had to understand all the demonstration but I was never satisfy only by understanding the steps.  I had also to intuitively understand the theorem in such a way that it was evident like 2+2=4.  I had to see its truth directly.  By doing that mathematics has always remains intuitive to me and not abstract. 

Exactly!

Dear Louis,

It is extremely important for a student to confront a "disconcerting dilemma" (especially near the outset of studying a topic); and for the student to have the "grit" to continue trying to figure out what you are doing wrong until you have an in-depth understanding of how to proceed.

In my own studies, this happened to me in three cases: 1) first course in high school algebra; 2) first course in high school chemistry; and 3) first course in university English composition.

In the first two cases, after overcoming my initial difficulties (without any outside help), I excelled.

In the third case (being an art form), I needed help from the instructor, and I requested many extra writing assignments which were critiqued by the instructor. In a fairly short time, I excelled here too.

Antonio,

The first time I experience a disconfort at not understanding was when I was shown to multiply fraction by first multiplying the numerators and then multiplying the denominators.  I was perfectly understanding the rule but I was not able to understand why applying that rule  amount to multiply the fractions.  I  remembered that I invented a method which was giving the same result but which I could understand why the results was a multiplication.  I do not remember how I was doing this but I remembered that the method was slow and I was not able to do the exercises as fast as the other kids and I finally gave up and just used the standard method.  This experience is revealing to me because although it was my first experience of creativity in math , it was my first experience of getting in trouble for it.   

The first time I was creative in physics was when I was maybe 10 years old.  I was very interested to understand everything about the atoms.  I might have read something about it that I forget later.   One morning I made the thought experiment of taking a small block of gold and cutting it, and repeating the process and then it occured to me that this process could not continue to infinity.  It had to stop at some point otherwise there would be noting to be called gold.  For gold to exist the process of division had to stop.  This realisation came as a flash of intense understanding and certainty. I remember trying to wake up my mother early in the morning trying to explain to her my discovery!    She did not wake up.

Dear Louis,

What you describe is extremely important. One is sometimes shy to describe these intimate, personal experiences - for fear of seeming overly absorbed with oneself. But, for me and for you, it is the key to success - both in one's studies and in one's chosen career.

In my experience with algebra, the teacher was teaching the rule of transposition to solve a simple linear equation in one variable. To me, it was a recipe. It did not relate to anything I already knew. So, when I was doing my homework, rather than apply the recipes without understanding, I would ask myself: what does X have to be to make the equation hold? I solved all the problems my way. Then, I reviewed the problems from the point of view of transpositions. At that point, I understood why these rules worked. From that point on, I could accept them and build upon them the remaining algebraic rules in the course with great success and understanding.

In my experience with chemistry, after receiving a grade of C on two successive quizzes, I couldn't understand why I received such low marks. I had studied diligently and thought I understood the material well. I figured that I must be missing something. I compared my quiz results with the textbook material. I then realized, that EVERY WORD COUNTS. I had been reading the textbook in the same fashion as reading a novel - where there is a lot of redundancy, so every word is not essential and overall context is what counts. So, once I realized that my error was in how I was in reading scientific, I changed my approach to reading and studying scientific material. From that point on, I excelled.

My experiences have taught me that real learning is a highly personal activity that depends on introspection and grit and finding one's own way of approaching a subject. This is something that cannot be taught. It has to be experienced.

What can help prepare children for such epiphanies is for children to nurtured to feel autonomous, competent, and included in their homes and in their schools. 

Antonio,

My best experiences at learning are those where I almost had the impression that I was discevering it myself. This are epiphanies that we remember and that give us confidence.  It is not knowing for the sake of knowing. It is discovering for the sake of discovering.  Once we get this satisfaction , we want more of it and the good news is that it only depend on us.  Although in high school I was motivated to get good marks, I gradually became less and less motivate by them because this motivation was conflicting with my interest to learn.  In my bachelor in engineering, we had much too many courses.  If I would have chosen to maximize my marks, I would had to cut corners and focus less on what I like to learn and focus more on succeeding.  I think that at some point these two objectives conflict.  I choose to privilege understanding. Education is like an industry now and there is very few people that have a passion in what there are doing. 

Regards

Dear,

I agree with part, and not agree with some points in this, because some times students need to listen to work with others to became in sucess in out side home, school, so we can use this approach carefully in some topics but in my oponion it cant use instead of school, teacher all the time.

Antionio,

As you have read so far in my esteemed colleagues' responses, there are many reasons for an un-graded approach to education.  However, the conversation has seemed to go off into more of a self-paced discussion rather than non-graded.  The current trend in non-grading is to use a rubric to assess student achievement, with the end result being either pass or fail.  This assessment may be used in a common-paced or a self-paced environment.  The concept of grading (A-B-C-D-F) ranks students in comparison (often with each other), whereas the concept of Pass-Fail simply acknowledges whether the student has met the minimum standard necessary to move forward.  The pass-fail system does away with class ranking and student comparison, whereas the graded system rewards higher student achievement, whether it comes through hard work and studying or through natural talent. There are valid arguments for both of these methods of assessment.  The worry for most educators in the pass-fail system is that students will only do the minimum needed, "why bother putting forth all that effort if there is no more reward than the person who barely does anything?" On the other hand, the pass-fail system takes pressure off of students to achieve that high level needed for the A, and allows them time to focus on other areas in which they may need more work.  Will the self-motivated student still work at a high level and reach the knowledge base they would have with the A-B-C system?  Most say yes, generally.  At the graduate and professional level (most notably the Mayo Clinic program), the motivation is already there, and pass-fail lessens stress and actually increases student group comeraderie.  Do high school students who graduate from a completely pass-fail system perform any differently in the work place than those who graduate from a graded system?  Some anecdotal research says pass-fail leads to lazy learners and poor performers.  I have not seen much research at the high school level yet in this area, but I do know the graduate education world is looking more and more into the rubric an pass-fail system, and many programs have started using this in lieu of grades.  Time will tell if the results are similar, more, or less effective, especially at the secondary and undergraduate levels.   

Dear Tahani,

What ages of students do you have in mind? Would your ideas change according to their ages?

Dear Patsy,

What we should strive for, as teachers, is to foster intrinsic motivation and grit in our students. These are the most important factors for success throughout life. Grades are useful to measure how well students have mastered a topic. Pass-fail is useful for classes with exceptionally motivated and talented students, such as at CalTech or CalArts.

Grading, even simple pass-fail grading is not the problem in itself. The problem is the attribution the student places on the grading. As Antonio says, pass-fail is no problem for highly motivated students because they regard the grade as 'informational' rather than judgemental, and use the grade to inform their next action. Unfortunately this is not common in the general population who attribute judgement to grades. ie that some grades are good and others bad. Other forms of attribution include statements like 'this grade means I can't do maths' or 'this grade means I'm stupid' etc. These attributions are tied up with concepts like efficacy and resilience. eg One student will attribute the statement 'I can't do this' and another will say 'I can't do this YET'. These attributions are internal and personal to each student. What it means is that educators must manipulate the environment to maximise the chances that positive attributions are preferred. One area that I have had some success is to reframe grading from a measure of 'how good am I' to 'how far have I progressed' by describing grades as a continuum of learning from start to finish of school. This is conceptually different from standards based grades and results in more positive attribution by students. ACER in Australia is examining this idea currently.

I am against grading. because the grades should not be the rewards, learning in itself should be the rewards and one cannot serve two masters.   The more we insist on grading and the more we hollow out the students and making them  grades worshipper and umotivated learners.   If I learn carpentry , my reward will be my carpentry skill and not a phony carpentry grade.  Only competent carpenter should be given a diploma of carpenter but it is not through grading student that we get there and it is not by providing a mark associate with a diploma that we can assess the value of a carpenter.

(I had written an extended commentary on grades, but I hit the wrong button and lost is all. So here is an abbreviated version.)

For roughly the past four decades, US society is driven by the all mighty dollar. A tertiary result is of this is that receiving very high grades and gaming the system is a student's ticket to landing the all-important high-paying job upon graduating. (Incidentally, studying for high grades often precludes you from long-term retention of what you learned - the process has already achieved its purpose of getting the high grade, so why is it important to retain what you had learned? 

In the 1950s and 1960s, the US was much more idealistic. Studying what your talents and interests dictate was your guide; grades were important, but secondary to following your natural inclinations. One precept that served that generation well was: "If you are the best at what you do, the world will beat a path to your doorstep." Being the best was not necessarily getting A's in all your subjects; it was knowing that you had fully mastered the subjects that related to your interests. (By the way, what interested you could include wide-ranging liberal arts, as well as science and math.)

I imagine that similar societal changes have occurred in other developed countries.

Education in particular, and society, at large, is missing the balance and confidence exemplified by the 1950s and 1960s. 

Antonio,

When I was a child, I was attracted to science because of the high values attribute to all kind of scientific heroes, real or in children book or movies. They really projected a very high ideal for learning about the world.  It had nothing to do with getting a good paying job which is what it seems to be today for most of the scientists.  I had such high expectations about scientists.  I am totally amazed by the total lack of geniune interest of 90% of my university professors.  I later tried to understand why.  Through my readings I realized that the until 1930's in Europe and in the US and Canada the high scientific ideals were still very much alive in universities and that it quickly went down the drain after the world war II and by the time I registered in University, it was almost dead.  But Why again?  THe immediat cause is the kind of education of University professor after the war was a specialized one restricted to a very narrow scientific domain while the education of earlier generation of scientists was much more general and not restricted to science.   There is another reason :the traditional centers of sciences had been destroyed during the second world wars and they were mostly european into rich european societies.  Half of them got occupied by communists and the other half were badly funded compared to the US centers.  THe spirit does not displaced as easily than funding.  It was OK just after the war because most european professors went to the US but they died and had no progenee in US soil.  The new after world war culture is one dominated by US capitalist with MONEY as supreme value combined with shallow cultural education and hyper specialization of science and here this has been the Death of Science which followed by one hundred year the Death of God.  Bot having been killed by MONEY, the new deity.  Counting is the only culture required for the worship of the new deity.

Hi Antonio,

The following link may provide some insight:

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/you-will-not-get-grades-at-these-colleges/3997985.html

Have a great day!

--Adrian

Thanks for sharing, Daniel. It is interesting. Back in the 1950s and 60s, as I recall, the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH) did not give letter grades - only pass or fail. That is good, but I love the narrative reports that are described in the article. However, the student's performance in the eyes of the teacher, may not be the whole story - the student's unique viewpoint may be invaluable as a potential source of future advances in the arts and sciences. Perhaps the student should get a chance to submit a response to the teacher's evaluation. And both evaluations should be archived.

Dear Daniel and Antonio,

Kindergarden evaluation here in British columbia is a descriptive evaluation on different aspects of the child development. My wife has been a kindergarden teacher for 30 years and have always spent a lot of time trying to provide such description for every child. She always emphasised the strenght first and also the weakest and the thing the child will need to work on. If an area is weak but there is improvements then she will insist on this.

I think that in high school and university, students should be require to submit self-assesment reports of their learning. What they like, what they did not like in the course, etc and this report should be filed. This could help the teacher to improve their teaching.

A grade free educational system involves qualitative assessments which are mainly focused on understanding whether learners have attained the course objectives and the learning experiences it offers (e.g., interviews, focus groups, and observations). Although the system is widely used in various parts of the world, it lacks the rigor and objectivity of the metric systems because of the subjectivity involved in such types of evaluation. As such, many education experts adopt a middle of the road approach integrating both quantitative and qualitative scoring schemes.

Reza Biria I question your statement that qualitative assessment lacks the rigor of quantitative assessment, preferring the statement that it is apparently more rigorous. Yes I agree that quantitative is potentially more objective, though there is evidence to the contrary unless machine marked, but definitely not necessarily more rigorous. For a start, even an excellently constructed quantitative assessment is just a sampling of course objectives and consequently different sampling can favor different students. Secondly quantitative grades are comparable only within one assessment piece and not across different assessment pieces because of different sampling of objectives and do not necessarily correlate strongly with a 'grade' (as in A - E or 1 - 7, or HD - F). There are other reasons for my issue with the statement from research done in Queensland Australia about 20 years ago, which showed that external quantitative assessment was NOT statistically more 'accurate' than individual teacher qualitative assessment performed under the system in place at that time. Queensland has had a system of school based assessment using qualitative criteria since the early 1980s. The system has been developed and improved since then with considerable research into its effectiveness. At this point I can't remember the name of the research but will keep looking.

If education is made to be perceived by the young student as a competition, with the assessments are the result of this competition, and that this competition is just the beginning of a bigger competition for the best jobs, the most money then why would the children care to what is learned. They will only care so far it give them good grades which not at all an interest in learning. By insisting on evalutation we move the attention aways from learning for the pleasure of learning. Motivation throw Evaluation is counter productive. There are other forms of motivations, but at the end of the day if the child has to become self-motivated by learning.

Literasi media sangat dibutuhkan agar masyarakat menjadi cerdas harus memiliki kemampuan untuk mengakses, menganalisis, mengevaluasi dan mengomunikasikan pesan. Dalam demokrasi saat ini akan sulit ditegakkan, jika masyarakatnya tidak melek media (literasi media). Media massa salah satu pilar demokrasi yang berperan optimal dalam memproses informasi yang dibutuhkan dalam era terkinian saat ini. Kompetensi literasi media sebagai syarat utama dalam mengelola kemampuan menganalisa struktur pesan dalam mendayagunakan konsep-konsep dasar ilmu pengetahuan untuk memahami konteks dalam ranah bidang tertentu. Media informasi dan literasi media dalam sebuah komunitas yang dapat pola komunikasi dalam proses kerja dan media informasi dalam menghasilkan “isi dan program” yang dia dirikan, akibatnya perencanaan komunikasi sebagai kerangka konseptual dalam proses pembuatan isi dan program literasi media. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode kualitatif dengan paradigma interpretative. Pertama, telah menemukan content media informasi bahkan mengalami efek budayanya. Kedua, Kompetensi akses media aksi memberikan kontribusi literasi media massa ini sangat berguna bagi kehidupan masyarakat. Dan persyaratan pendamping yang harus ditaati adalah bagaimana literasi media dipergunakan dengan sehat dan teratur. Ketiga, Rangkaian literasi media yang dapat memotivasi penggunanya (bentuk temuan; tipologi konstruksi, ontologis, epistemologis, dan aksiologis) berbagai literasi media dan kompetensi untuk memahami efek di masa depan.

Media literacy is needed so that people become smart must have the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and communicate messages. In today's democracy it will be difficult to enforce, if the people do not literate the media (media literacy). The mass media is one of the pillars of democracy which plays an optimal role in processing information needed in the current era. Media literacy competencies are the main condition in managing the ability to analyze the structure of messages in utilizing basic concepts of science to understand the context in the realm of a particular field. Media information and media literacy in a community that can communicate patterns in work processes and information media in producing "content and programs" that he founded, consequently communication planning as a conceptual framework in the process of making content and media literacy programs. The method used in this study is a qualitative method with an interpretative paradigm. First, it has found information media content to even experience its cultural effects. Secondly, the competence of media access to action to contribute to mass media literacy is very useful for people's lives. And the companion requirements that must be adhered to are how media literacy is used in a healthy and orderly manner. Third, a series of media literacy that can motivate users (form of findings; construction, ontological, epistemological, and axiological typologies) of various media literacy and competencies to understand the effects in the future.

@ Hefri. What you say is valid. I would only add that before we can communicate with one another, we need to be equipped with some knowledge and with some thinking skills. This way we will be able to understand, interpret, analyze, and compare what is being communicated in terms that are meaningful to us.

Oke thanks, I am understand, interpret, analyze, and compare what is being communicated in terms that are meaningful to us. And some knowledge and you thinking skill education is being communicated..

I don';t favor not grading but there is a hundred years of research showing essay tests are unreliable and invalid.

Dear Harold, The answers above would seem to refute what you just said. It doesn't mean much if you learned to game the system in order to get good grades or high scores on standardized tests. By doing this, you may have met your short-term objectives, but often at the expense of long-term retention and full understanding of a subject.

The student must master all knowledge and skills of any subject before moving to another subject.

I agree with you Dr. Reza Biria.

Thanks Hefri Yodiansyah Th.