Are Your Students Obsessed with Grades?

       Here's a quick checklist to see if your students are obsessed with grades:

1. They are constantly asking, "Is this going to be graded?"
2. They refuse to do anything if it is not being graded.
3. They ask for "extra credit" or make-up work at the end of the marking term to raise their grade to the next letter grade.
4. They only see the grade at the top of their returned work and ignore the helpful comments that the teacher has written.
5. They try to memorize the information they need to know for tests.
6. They follow procedures in mathematics for unknown reasons just to get the right answer.

       In short, students who are obsessed with grades are just "going through the motions" at school; they do what they're told, but they learn very little.  And when they take a test that can't be beat by memorizing (like a final exam) they show their true ability or lack thereof.  The challenge for these students is to do as little as possible to earn the grade they want.

THIS IS NOT THE WAY SCHOOL IS SUPPOSED TO WORK.

       School is supposed to be all about learning.  If students aren't learning, than we are wasting their time.  And if we are (somehow) justifying how these grades-obsessed students are getting A's and B's, then we are giving them (and their parents) a false sense of accomplishment.  Eventually someone will tell these students the truth about their academic abilities, and it would be a shame if they are in college (and paying for college) when they are hit with this truth-bomb.

       Teachers can help their students to de-emphasize grades by praising them for their thinking and reasoning.  They can emphasize learning by asking students to explain how they got the right answer instead of just accepting the right answer and moving on.  Formative assessments that require thinking and reasoning and justifying instead of just repeating information tell students that memorizing isn't good enough.

       We have to help students to be less obsessed about grades.

We Should Value Good Thinking More Than We Value Good Memorizing

       Stanford professor, Dr. Jo Boaler, recently published an article titled, "Memorizers are the lowest achievers...".  In it she makes the point that some students are really good at memorizing math facts and memorizing math procedures, but (sometimes) these same students are very poor at understanding the concepts connected to these math procedures.  To those who believe that "mathematics" is nothing more than adding and multiplying, it may seem odd that we (educators) view this issue of memorizing as a bad thing.  It may also seem untrue that these memorizers are low achievers.

       Dr. Boaler goes on say that here in the United States, we (often times) reward students for being good at memorizing math facts, but offer very few compliments and rewards for being good thinkers and reasoners.  She says that, "We need students who can ask good questions, map out pathways, reason about complex solutions, set up models, and communicate in different forms."  These are the skills that help students to be good and successful learners, as well as helping them to understand the abstract, higher-math skills taught in upper Algebra classes and Calculus.

       The same thinking that favors memorization (often) also believes that students who are able to come up with answers quickly must be smarter than those who are slower to answer questions.  This, too, is not true but (sadly) is often the message that is given to students in school.  Former NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) President, Cathy Seeley, wrote a great book titled, Faster Is Not Smarter.  In this book, Ms. Seeley stresses the importance of teaching mathematics for understanding and not just for "getting the right answer".

       High school mathematics teachers will tell you that it is a common situation to have students in (say) an Algebra 2 class or a Pre-Calculus class that were consider great "math students" in elementary and (maybe) in middle school, but then suddenly began to struggle in mathematics in high school because they never really "learned" and understood the mathematics; instead, they just did their best to memorize facts and procedures.  This sort of "learning" is not permanent.  The basic skills of (say) operations with fractions and integers (positive and negative numbers) are quickly forgotten because they were never really learned in the first place.

       But this situation can be changed.  For some it is a huge change from the way we were taught and from the trainers we received as teachers.  For others, it is a very welcome change to the way mathematics teaching needs to be.

       It isn't about grades.  It's about learning.  We need to have a good balance between procedural knowledge and conceptual knowledge.  If we intend to truly prepare our students the best we can for their futures, we need to equip them with the tools to success.  It isn't fair to give students (and their parents) the false impression that they are highly-able just because they are good at memorizing or getting the answers fast.