What's in a Grade?

Today's weather: High = 17 Low = 10
Partly cloudy

As the November report card marks are rapidly approaching, so are the students' application deadlines to various US and Canada universities. They are enthusiastic, or should we say obsessed, with getting the high marks to enter the institutions of their choice. The first reporting period is the most important, as these marks are the basis of what they use for early admissions.

So this begs the question of what's included in their 1st term grade -- which is more like an interim grade. In other words it's gotten me very curious, once again, about the process of assessment and evaluation and the details of what goes into that all-important number on their report card.

The term 'grade inflation' is used a lot these days, in various contexts. The Vancouver Sun newspaper from my hometown has much to say about grade inflation as it relates to the English marks of the school sytem (in general) I teach in -- BC offshore system. Obviously this is a hot-button issue with a lot of controversy, but thankfully as a math teacher it doesn't affect me as much.

Nonetheless I thought I'd do some internet research on what exactly grade inflation is, and more importantly, what are the criteria that go into making a grade. As usual, Wikipedia to the rescue

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_inflation

Another website called grade inflation a dangerous myth!

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/gi.htm

From what I could conclude out of these articles:

(1) Grade inflation is better desribed as grade compression. That is to say, "inflated" grades mean the marks in a sample set are closer together and it is more difficult to tell who is a top student from an average student, and so forth. In other words, the "inflated" grades don't fit a normal distribution. Rather, they are skewed to the right.

(2) There is mixed statistical evidence on whether grade inflation / compression is really happening.

(3) If we accept that it's happening, then nobody has been able to prove whether the standards for getting an "inflated" A are lower than the standards for a "true" A. In other words, nobody talks about the criteria that is used to judge an A or how a mark develops. Unbelievably, the debate rages with that crucial part of information left out.

(4) Marks that are supposed to fit a prescribed standard, i.e. a normal distrubution or a limited number of As ensure there will be "winners" and "losers" in the class. In other words, if the marks are altered to fit some sort of desired pattern, then the grades describe relative standing in a class as opposed to how well students meet an objective set of criteria.

(5) Some educators argue that grades themselves are the problem and should be done away with and replaced with qualitiative comment. I couldn't quite agree with that -- and besides, that scenario is not possible in my world.

My own take on things is that the student marks should reflect, as much as possible, how well they perform to an objective criteria set. The best source of that is the PLOs, or the prescribed learning outcomes, as set by the government.

The idea of altering marks, doctoring them, etc. goes against the entire scientific method and should make any math or science teacher cringe. If the report cards come out and the marks are "too low" or "too high" and as a result they are doctored, it is the same as doctoring the data from a scientific lab because the results didn't fit the ideal model. Obviously I'm not in favor of scaling marks or grading on a curve.

Students need to know ahead of time what the criteria for assessment is, and how they can plan to meet the expectations. I put that information in a course outline at the beginning of the year, for example:

Quizzes -- 15%
Test -- 40%
Projects -- 10%
Homework -- 5%
Term exams - 30%

Going into more details, the tests themselves are based on PLOs and the lesson plans are geared to cover those PLOs and in essence, prepare for the tests. There is usually a review package or some other sort of practice test as well.

Even so, there are multiple factors for why a grade isn't exactly objective. It can be as simple as when the test is scheduled. Shockingly, I gave one math quiz before lunch for one class, and the other one after lunch. The one before lunch netted an 82% average, while the one after lunch only fetched 70%. It was the exact same quiz.

Several students complained afterwards and said they were 'too sleepy' when the test was scheduled in the afternoon.

Another thing is how two tests can be designed on exactly the same PLOs yet one is much harder than the other. It may not even be that one test is harder, but the order of questions or the pscyhology of the test can influence the final mark. For example, a multiple choice test that has a string of B B B B B choices and no D or C can throw people off, even if it is a simple computer error where the choices are not randomized.

So while the grade may not be completely objective, it should try to be as much as possible. I think the key here is to say what the goals are ahead of time, let students achieve them, and don't switch the goalposts midway through the game.

History is Made

Today's weather: High = 15 Low = 7
Sunny and chilly

The Guiness Records Link says it all. Two years ago I had the honor of hosting this guy out in Zplashes, the remote hotel outpost just beyond the Shanghai province border.

http://www.14degrees.org/en/?p=860

Blog Reactivated

Today's weather: High = 14 Low = 8
Sunny and chilly

Hello world again!

After numerous email requests from readers, I've decided to get this blog back and running again. I've reached a bit of a compromise in that I'll keep the blog going, but stay off facebook for quite some time yet. Besides, facebook access from within mainland China is very difficult -- reinstating my account wouldn't be an option even if I wanted to.

Privacy concerns are what prompted me to disappear off facebook and pull this blog. But after some encouragement from some friends who are in favor of free speech .... well needless to say, I'm back.

Having thought about it some more, there isn't as much of a privacy concern with this blog as with facebook. As I see it, there are only two ways to come across a blog site like this. One, you do a search for a topic of interest, such as "life in Shanghai" or "blogs about Shanghai" or something like that. The other way is if you already have this blog address.

For the most part, I'm writing to a general audience here, which may or may not include specific friends and family members. In looking at the patterns of how I've written these blogs in the past, I habitually stick to general terms and avoid giving out specific names of people, addresses, personal details, and information that could affect others' privacy unless they've consented first.

When I do write in specific terms, it tends to be neutral information that others can use if they want, or just skip over if not interested. For example, the schedule of a train, how much an airplane ticket costs, how to cross a land border, the traffic patterns in a city, or some details about how to teach mathematics. In other words, it's the kind of information could already be found on the internet or from other sources.

However, and this becomes the whole point of why I write these blogs -- I try to bring out information that is both useful and extremely difficult to find from other sources. It's not that the information is confidential, but it's because few people have taken to posting it.

For example, the details of how the traffic patterns work in a city like Wuhan (where I used to live) are almost nonexistent online, yet that city suffers from chronic traffic congestion on par with Sao Paulo and other cities that make the top 10 list of the worst traffic in the world. If you do a search on the internet for "cities with the worst traffic" you will invariably find Sao Paulo and Los Angeles, but Wuhan won't even make the list.

But if you're stuck in horrible jams on the way back from the airport that last for more than 3 hours on a Sunday night like I was repeatedly last year, then you begin to wonder why the traffic is so bad and why this city isn't on any top 10 list. The next step is to start researching the details for Wuhan traffic and looking for creative ways to beat the jams.

Eventually you say screw it, the traffic is so bad, the city isn't worth living in, let's pack up and move to Shanghai.

With all that in mind, this blog is mainly designed to inform and to share stories.

Facebook, on the other hand -- I'm not such a big fan of it anymore. Even if there are so-called privacy filters and your account is really limited to friends and family members, you tend to forget who's reading. This is especially true if you have 500+ friends on your profile like I once had. So you might drop your guard, let a personal comment slip the net, and someone inadvertently gets offended.

The irony here is that you think you are secure or have privacy with your "personal" account and selected friends on facebook but you are really not. Meanwhile, a public blog like this has the ironic effect of being more private because of the very nature of your being selective of what you choose to post -- after all, anyone could be reading!