I have complained about the U.S. grading system before. I am going to do it again. This time I want to discuss the practice of tying grades to work ethic. Many college professors justify excessive homework loads by saying that they have a responsibility to either teach students a good work ethic, or that the students' grades should reflect their work ethic. I believe that this is a lie.
First, I do not think that grading systems that imply a reflection of proficiency in a subject have any business reflecting anything but proficiency. Grades have nothing to do with work ethic, and those who review grades either for employment decisions or Masters or PhD. programs naturally assume that grades reflect proficiency, not work ethic.
Second, it is impossible to entirely alienate work ethic from grades. The average 12-14 credit semester load has around 20 hours of in-class time per week. Most colleges recommend either 3 hours a week outside of class per credit, or 2 hours a week outside of class per hour in class. My current load is 14 credits with 21 hours of class time. My college recommends 2 hours per hour of class. So, my weekly recommended workload is 63 hours. Given the 40 hour work week, this is full-time work plus 23 hours of overtime. If I can keep up with this and get good grades, without any extra busy work, then I have 1.5 times the work ethic required of the average 40 hour a week worker. Adding additional work to this is not only unnecessary if work ethic is the justification, but it is practically criminal. If I am working a traditional job, as an hourly worker, I cannot be required to work more than 40 hours a week, and if I refuse when asked, I am legally protected from any sort of retribution (they cannot fire me, cut my hours, or even treat me differently from someone who does agree to work overtime). Now, I am not saying that education should be the same. If we cut the "education work week" to 40 hours a week, we would be looking at 6 year degrees instead of 4 year degrees. What I am saying is that getting decent grades already implies a superior work ethic to that required in the work place. As such, work ethic is not a valid justification for excessive busy work in education. I would submit that giving excessive workloads to students is entirely unethical.
I can also imagine some professors would say that their work is not excessive because it is needed for the students to learn the subject well. If this is true, and if the workload required for effective learning is more than the recommended study time, then the class credits should be adjusted to more accurately reflect the workload.
As far as the theory that colleges have a responsibility to teach a good work ethic, I disagree. A college has a responsibility to teach knowledge. The student is paying for the education. The student has the responsibility to have a good work ethic. Students who do not have a good work ethic have no business going to college until they get their acts together. College is not high school. The professors are responsible for providing the means to learn. The students are responsible for actually learning. If the students do not take on this responsibility, it is the fault of the students, not the college or the professors.
I would like to suggest a solution to this. Only assign graded homework that is intended to measure proficiency. Other, non-graded homework may be assigned to improve proficiency, but this homework should not affect the class grade at all. This ungraded homework should either be corrected by the professor or a grader (with feedback), or a solutions guide should be made available, so the students can correct their own work. As it is ungraded, this homework should be entirely optional.
This system has several benefits. The first is that it actually does accurately reflect work ethic in the grade. If a student does not put in the work required to gain the required proficiency, that student will get a poor grade. This is far more effective than excessive busy work, because it also measures initiative and judgment skills. The second is that students who are already proficient do not have to struggle to keep up with a class designed to make them proficient in a subject that they are already proficient in. Wise students could use this system to reduce their overall workload, by interspersing classes they are proficient in with those they are not, to give them more time to become proficient in subjects that they are not already proficient in. Third, the grades will effectively represent proficiency, not work ethic. The only time that work ethic would play a role is if a poor work ethic prevented a student from becoming proficient in the subject, in which case the grade still accurately represents proficiency and only indirectly represents work ethic.
College professors that are required to follow a specific curriculum can improve this situation by adjusting course grades based on the proficiency that students show at the end of the course. I think I have mentioned this before, but my first physics professor had a grading policy where the course grade was either the composite grade of all of the assignments and tests, or just the grade of the final exam, whichever was higher. This system really only works if the final exam is comprehensive, but in those cases, it is one of the most fair grading systems, as it does effectively reflect proficiency. A student who struggles though the first half of a class with only Cs, but then manages to overcome the difficulties, catches up, and gains a very high level of proficiency by the end should not receive a B grade. If we give this student a B grade, then we are basing the grade on the rate at which the student learns, not on whether the student is proficient in the subject when the class ends. This student may have a much better understanding of the subject than a student who got an A, but the grades imply the opposite. Not only is this entirely unfair to the B student, it is also misleading to potential employers and reviewers for post-graduate programs. This problem can be reduced by professors who keep track of proficiency of students, instead of basing everything on letter grades of homework and tests. When the course grade needs to be decided, the professor can then look over the proficiency levels of student and adjust grades to more accurately reflect proficiency.
Ideally, courses would be changed so that the course grades would naturally reflect proficiency accurately. When this cannot be done, I think that college professors have a moral responsibility to adjust course grades to reflect proficiency more accurately. The hoop jumping system that is the U.S. grading system is one of the biggest problems with U.S. education. Colleges and professors need to step up and do everything they can to make sure that grades reflect proficiency, not work ethic, or rate of learning. Trying to alter the workload to reflect work ethic in grades, or to "instill" a better work ethic in students is overkill and is ultimately harmful to students. College is already hard enough that students with a poor work ethic will not make it through, even without extra busy work. Adding extra busy work is only really harmful to the students that already have a good work ethic. Colleges can fix this by implementing policies that discourage unnecessary busy work, encouraging ungraded optional work intended to improve learning, and requiring that only proficiency measuring work be required and graded. Professors can fix this by using good judgment when assigning course grades, instead of just assigning composite grades from coursework without any concern for accurate representation of proficiency. These problems can be fixed, but it is going to require an improved work ethic in our educators and educational institutions more than anyone.
Lord Rybec
Friday, November 30, 2012
Monday, July 23, 2012
Poor Public Education
Ok, so I have mentioned these ideas before, but I think they bear repeating.
Our public education system sucks. I am not just talking about the US education system, which is one of the worst in the world. All of our educations systems suck. Japan has one of the best education systems in the world, and it sucks.
Long ago, we had universities that actually cared about learning. They did not have classes, grades, or degrees. People came to these universities because they wanted to learn. They were not looking for diplomas certifying that they knew things. They wanted knowledge. Instead of classes, these universities had lectures and forums. The lectures were open to all students who wanted to attend. A professor (literally, one who professes) would give a lecture on accepted theories, which were attended by fairly new students, or on new theories he or others had concocted. The forums were open discussions that any student could attend (there were also sometimes closed forums limited to specific disciplines or specific people). A forum would have a topic which would be discussed in depth. Students who had difficulties understanding a topic would attend these forums and ask questions to improve their understanding. The goal of these institutions was to spread knowledge and gain new knowledge. Many of the students conducted research in new fields to improve their knowledge of that field and to contribute to others studying the same things.
Now, we have very formalized educational systems. We have each subject divided up into a number of classes. Each class runs for a limited duration. We assign grades based on students' ability to learn the required material within the allotted time. Classes are sometimes all lecture and other times part lecture part forum. The time given for a single class period is usually fairly short. Students are required to learn 4 to 8 subjects at the same time, attending several very short classes each day. Each class hands out homework or other assignments, often with little regard for the limited time each student has to do all of the assigned work. If a student fails to grasp a concept, they are left behind. Sometimes tutors are available, or professors are willing to work with the student, but if the student needs even a week to grasp a new concept, the class leaves him behind. Students that already have proficiency in a subject must still slog through all of the work at the slow relative pace of the class. The result is that there is no class that even satisfies the needs of the majority of students, let alone all of them.
This highly formalized education is failing. It has been failing for several decades, and still we cling to it. Our government had introduced legislation with the hope of improving the situation, but instead they have further alienated the students who are struggling. New educational requirements force teachers to try to teach subjects that some students find very difficult in even less time than before. Many students in public school hate learning because our educational system makes effective learning impossible for them. Most students in college care more about getting passing grades than actually learning the materials. Some even feel compelled to cheat to relieve some of the absurdly difficult tasks set before them. Was this our goal? Do we really want surgeons, politicians, and mechanics that got through school only learning 75% (a grade of C) of the material, or who felt forced to cheat to get through? An education system that rewards cheating is a very poor system indeed. (Right, there is no reward when they get caught, but do you seriously believe that most cheaters get caught?)
We need a system where the natural consequences of cheating are bad, not good. We need a less formal system that is flexible enough for both fast learners and slow learners. We need a system that is flexible enough for students that learn some things quickly and other things slowly. Most students have difficulties with some parts of a subject but not others. This means that most students during the course of a typical class will have some parts where the pace of the class is too fast and others where the pace is too slow. The problem with the class model is that few students find the same parts easy and the same parts hard. A class design that gives more time for a topic that some students have difficulty with and less time for topics that those same students find easy will be much more difficult or even impossible for the majority of the students.
Grades are a major problem. Grades are one of the things that encourage cheating. Students on financial aid, or scholarships may even be more inclined to cheat in difficult classes, because their financial stability depends on their grades. Grades encourage students without these problems to be lazy. Why work hard to learn something you don't care much about when you can get by only learning 75% to 80% (C to B- in most schools) of the material? Even if you do care about it, if you are taking another class that is especially difficult, why not slack on the easier class so you have more time to get that minimum passing grade in the hard one? In addition, while grades are intended to be a measure of proficiency, they are often misused as a measure of how compliant a student is with the professor's policies. Some professors give tons of meaningless homework intended to improve proficiency, but then they grade based on how well the student did on that homework. If the homework is intended to improve proficiency, then shouldn't the measure be taken after the homework, not during or before? Further, if a student is already proficient, should that student really be penalized because they did not need to do the homework? How is how much time you have for pointless busy work a valid measure of proficiency in a subject? I recognize that there must be some measure, but professors should not force students to waste their lives doing absurd amounts of unnecessary homework to get that measure.
We need mechanics that will allow students who can demonstrate proficiency in a subject to skip the work that is intended to give them that proficiency. You might say that most colleges already have test out mechanics in place that do this, and you would be right. There are a few problems that this does not not cover though. Students in the public school system do not have this option. No matter how good I was at algebra, I did not have to option to test out of high school algebra. Worse though, while most colleges have a test out option for many classes, they still charge full price for taking the class. This is extremely dishonest. If I test out, I am not using the full services of the professor. I am not using the facilities of the college for an entire semester. Really, the most I could be using is an hour or two of the professor's time to make and grade the test, if that, and for a subject that requires a computer, I might use the computer lab for a couple hours. If the lab fee is $50 a semester (I have not seen more than $20), a couple hours should not cost more than 6 cents ($50/4 months/30 days/4 hours * 2 hours; assuming the average student uses the lab 4 hours a day). A class that costs $500 a semester should come out to $20, presuming that the class meets for an hour, 3 days a week, and that the professor does not spend any out of class time for grading or preparing (if he does, the time is less valuable, and thus the cost should be decreased). So, an average 3 credit class that meets 3 times a week for an hour, over the entire semester, that normally costs $500 (colleges that I have seen that charge on a per credit basis do not usually charge more than this) should cost no more than $20.06 to test out. More prestigious colleges may have higher per credit charges, but even at $2,000 for a 3 credit class, this should not be more than $80.24. Instead, US colleges penalize students who have the sense to study what they are interested in before they go to college.
This is as much an ethical issue as anything else. Many schools (public schools and colleges) don't actually care about education. A friend in Washington State recently discovered that a local school was intentionally doing a poor job, because it would get them more funding. Now, I recognize that this is a flaw in the funding system, but dishonesty is wrong regardless of the money involved. Do you want your children taught by educators who care more about money than how well they educate your children?
With modern technology, we can go back to the old ways, but still have means of measuring proficiency. Instead of classes, we could have lectures and forums. Neither the lectures nor the forums would have any assignments or requirements associated with them. Any student could attend either (if seats are limited, students might be required to sign up for specific times; some forums might be limited in size as well, to facilitate good discussion). Instead of typical class assignments and home work, the school would have study exercises on the internet. Anyone wanting (or needing) credit for a specific topic of a subject (see my Milestones article) would work on these exercises, attend lectures and forums as needed, and when they felt comfortable with the material, the would take some kind of test. This might be a written essay, a multiple choice test, or an oral examination (or a combination), that would be intended to determine the proficiency of the student. This would not be graded; it would be pass/fail. If the student fails, there is no penalty, besides maybe an amount of time that must pass before trying again. Once the student passes a specific proficiency, they can move on to more difficult material in that field (proficiency tests might require that proficiency in a previous subject already be established). When a student established proficiency in certain collections of subjects, they can receive a degree in that subject. There would be no limits on what a student could get a degree in. For instance, where I currently go to college, I cannot use the same classes for a Computer Science and Electrical Engineering degree, even though there is a huge overlap. In the system I am suggesting, this would not be the case. If I could demonstrate proficiency in all of the subjects required for an Electrical Engineering degree, it would make no difference that I had already used some of those same proficiencies for my Computer Science degree. The idea here is that my degrees indicate what I am proficient in. There would be no rules restricting what degrees I can obtain based on what other degrees I already have.
This system would encourage students to learn what they want to learn. There would need to be no declared majors. Really, employers might even look at specific proficiencies not related to a specific degree in hiring, when trying to hire people with very specific skill sets. A person might not even need to officially graduate, or have a degree to get a good job, if they have the specific proficiencies that an employer needs. This means that school could be much more streamlined for people that need it and more complete for others who need or prefer that. Instead of being job training centers that require a bunch of extra unrelated things (generals), they would be true centers of learning. Those who want and can afford well rounded scholarly educations would be able to obtain them, while those who only want (or only can afford) marketable job skills can obtain them there as well. It would be easy for those who want continued education, but who work full time jobs, to continue learning. For those on any kind of financial aid, there might be requirements of progression, for instance, they might be required to maintain a specific average number of proficiencies gained per semester to continue to receive aid. For those paying their own way, there might be no restrictions at all. For instance, I might have a well paying job and have no reason to get credit for additional proficiencies, but I could still benefit personally from attending lectures and forums in my free time, without ever needing to do skill building exercises (the equivalent of home work) or take proficiency tests. This system is very conducive to continued education. For people who want higher degrees, this would also give them a means of doing it as they have time and resources. It might take them 10 or 20 years of spare time to develop the levels of proficiency required for a Masters degree in a subject, but it would be possible, even with a large family or a demanding job.
I don't know if this system is perfect. In my mind, it works very well, and it would be hard for any system of education to be worse than what we are doing right now. I think this system would be more likely to train people in what they enjoy and what they are good at. For many people, it would result in more rounded educations, even if they did not ever pass the proficiency tests for some of the subjects that they attended lectures and forums for. This open, casual system would result in many, of not most, students progressing through college in much shorter time than our current system. We would not have so many students who graduate with only 75% of the needed knowledge learned. Without graded homework, or even traditional grades, we would not have so many people cheating (if the proficiency tests were well proctored, cheating would be reduced to almost nothing, since no other school work is graded). We would not have surgeons who cheated their way through school, or who passed with only a C. Those who could not demonstrate true proficiency in a subject would not get a degree in it. This is dramatically better than what we currently have, and I urge those with the power to affect change to push government and institutions of education to at least try this system.
Lord Rybec
Our public education system sucks. I am not just talking about the US education system, which is one of the worst in the world. All of our educations systems suck. Japan has one of the best education systems in the world, and it sucks.
Long ago, we had universities that actually cared about learning. They did not have classes, grades, or degrees. People came to these universities because they wanted to learn. They were not looking for diplomas certifying that they knew things. They wanted knowledge. Instead of classes, these universities had lectures and forums. The lectures were open to all students who wanted to attend. A professor (literally, one who professes) would give a lecture on accepted theories, which were attended by fairly new students, or on new theories he or others had concocted. The forums were open discussions that any student could attend (there were also sometimes closed forums limited to specific disciplines or specific people). A forum would have a topic which would be discussed in depth. Students who had difficulties understanding a topic would attend these forums and ask questions to improve their understanding. The goal of these institutions was to spread knowledge and gain new knowledge. Many of the students conducted research in new fields to improve their knowledge of that field and to contribute to others studying the same things.
Now, we have very formalized educational systems. We have each subject divided up into a number of classes. Each class runs for a limited duration. We assign grades based on students' ability to learn the required material within the allotted time. Classes are sometimes all lecture and other times part lecture part forum. The time given for a single class period is usually fairly short. Students are required to learn 4 to 8 subjects at the same time, attending several very short classes each day. Each class hands out homework or other assignments, often with little regard for the limited time each student has to do all of the assigned work. If a student fails to grasp a concept, they are left behind. Sometimes tutors are available, or professors are willing to work with the student, but if the student needs even a week to grasp a new concept, the class leaves him behind. Students that already have proficiency in a subject must still slog through all of the work at the slow relative pace of the class. The result is that there is no class that even satisfies the needs of the majority of students, let alone all of them.
This highly formalized education is failing. It has been failing for several decades, and still we cling to it. Our government had introduced legislation with the hope of improving the situation, but instead they have further alienated the students who are struggling. New educational requirements force teachers to try to teach subjects that some students find very difficult in even less time than before. Many students in public school hate learning because our educational system makes effective learning impossible for them. Most students in college care more about getting passing grades than actually learning the materials. Some even feel compelled to cheat to relieve some of the absurdly difficult tasks set before them. Was this our goal? Do we really want surgeons, politicians, and mechanics that got through school only learning 75% (a grade of C) of the material, or who felt forced to cheat to get through? An education system that rewards cheating is a very poor system indeed. (Right, there is no reward when they get caught, but do you seriously believe that most cheaters get caught?)
We need a system where the natural consequences of cheating are bad, not good. We need a less formal system that is flexible enough for both fast learners and slow learners. We need a system that is flexible enough for students that learn some things quickly and other things slowly. Most students have difficulties with some parts of a subject but not others. This means that most students during the course of a typical class will have some parts where the pace of the class is too fast and others where the pace is too slow. The problem with the class model is that few students find the same parts easy and the same parts hard. A class design that gives more time for a topic that some students have difficulty with and less time for topics that those same students find easy will be much more difficult or even impossible for the majority of the students.
Grades are a major problem. Grades are one of the things that encourage cheating. Students on financial aid, or scholarships may even be more inclined to cheat in difficult classes, because their financial stability depends on their grades. Grades encourage students without these problems to be lazy. Why work hard to learn something you don't care much about when you can get by only learning 75% to 80% (C to B- in most schools) of the material? Even if you do care about it, if you are taking another class that is especially difficult, why not slack on the easier class so you have more time to get that minimum passing grade in the hard one? In addition, while grades are intended to be a measure of proficiency, they are often misused as a measure of how compliant a student is with the professor's policies. Some professors give tons of meaningless homework intended to improve proficiency, but then they grade based on how well the student did on that homework. If the homework is intended to improve proficiency, then shouldn't the measure be taken after the homework, not during or before? Further, if a student is already proficient, should that student really be penalized because they did not need to do the homework? How is how much time you have for pointless busy work a valid measure of proficiency in a subject? I recognize that there must be some measure, but professors should not force students to waste their lives doing absurd amounts of unnecessary homework to get that measure.
We need mechanics that will allow students who can demonstrate proficiency in a subject to skip the work that is intended to give them that proficiency. You might say that most colleges already have test out mechanics in place that do this, and you would be right. There are a few problems that this does not not cover though. Students in the public school system do not have this option. No matter how good I was at algebra, I did not have to option to test out of high school algebra. Worse though, while most colleges have a test out option for many classes, they still charge full price for taking the class. This is extremely dishonest. If I test out, I am not using the full services of the professor. I am not using the facilities of the college for an entire semester. Really, the most I could be using is an hour or two of the professor's time to make and grade the test, if that, and for a subject that requires a computer, I might use the computer lab for a couple hours. If the lab fee is $50 a semester (I have not seen more than $20), a couple hours should not cost more than 6 cents ($50/4 months/30 days/4 hours * 2 hours; assuming the average student uses the lab 4 hours a day). A class that costs $500 a semester should come out to $20, presuming that the class meets for an hour, 3 days a week, and that the professor does not spend any out of class time for grading or preparing (if he does, the time is less valuable, and thus the cost should be decreased). So, an average 3 credit class that meets 3 times a week for an hour, over the entire semester, that normally costs $500 (colleges that I have seen that charge on a per credit basis do not usually charge more than this) should cost no more than $20.06 to test out. More prestigious colleges may have higher per credit charges, but even at $2,000 for a 3 credit class, this should not be more than $80.24. Instead, US colleges penalize students who have the sense to study what they are interested in before they go to college.
This is as much an ethical issue as anything else. Many schools (public schools and colleges) don't actually care about education. A friend in Washington State recently discovered that a local school was intentionally doing a poor job, because it would get them more funding. Now, I recognize that this is a flaw in the funding system, but dishonesty is wrong regardless of the money involved. Do you want your children taught by educators who care more about money than how well they educate your children?
With modern technology, we can go back to the old ways, but still have means of measuring proficiency. Instead of classes, we could have lectures and forums. Neither the lectures nor the forums would have any assignments or requirements associated with them. Any student could attend either (if seats are limited, students might be required to sign up for specific times; some forums might be limited in size as well, to facilitate good discussion). Instead of typical class assignments and home work, the school would have study exercises on the internet. Anyone wanting (or needing) credit for a specific topic of a subject (see my Milestones article) would work on these exercises, attend lectures and forums as needed, and when they felt comfortable with the material, the would take some kind of test. This might be a written essay, a multiple choice test, or an oral examination (or a combination), that would be intended to determine the proficiency of the student. This would not be graded; it would be pass/fail. If the student fails, there is no penalty, besides maybe an amount of time that must pass before trying again. Once the student passes a specific proficiency, they can move on to more difficult material in that field (proficiency tests might require that proficiency in a previous subject already be established). When a student established proficiency in certain collections of subjects, they can receive a degree in that subject. There would be no limits on what a student could get a degree in. For instance, where I currently go to college, I cannot use the same classes for a Computer Science and Electrical Engineering degree, even though there is a huge overlap. In the system I am suggesting, this would not be the case. If I could demonstrate proficiency in all of the subjects required for an Electrical Engineering degree, it would make no difference that I had already used some of those same proficiencies for my Computer Science degree. The idea here is that my degrees indicate what I am proficient in. There would be no rules restricting what degrees I can obtain based on what other degrees I already have.
This system would encourage students to learn what they want to learn. There would need to be no declared majors. Really, employers might even look at specific proficiencies not related to a specific degree in hiring, when trying to hire people with very specific skill sets. A person might not even need to officially graduate, or have a degree to get a good job, if they have the specific proficiencies that an employer needs. This means that school could be much more streamlined for people that need it and more complete for others who need or prefer that. Instead of being job training centers that require a bunch of extra unrelated things (generals), they would be true centers of learning. Those who want and can afford well rounded scholarly educations would be able to obtain them, while those who only want (or only can afford) marketable job skills can obtain them there as well. It would be easy for those who want continued education, but who work full time jobs, to continue learning. For those on any kind of financial aid, there might be requirements of progression, for instance, they might be required to maintain a specific average number of proficiencies gained per semester to continue to receive aid. For those paying their own way, there might be no restrictions at all. For instance, I might have a well paying job and have no reason to get credit for additional proficiencies, but I could still benefit personally from attending lectures and forums in my free time, without ever needing to do skill building exercises (the equivalent of home work) or take proficiency tests. This system is very conducive to continued education. For people who want higher degrees, this would also give them a means of doing it as they have time and resources. It might take them 10 or 20 years of spare time to develop the levels of proficiency required for a Masters degree in a subject, but it would be possible, even with a large family or a demanding job.
I don't know if this system is perfect. In my mind, it works very well, and it would be hard for any system of education to be worse than what we are doing right now. I think this system would be more likely to train people in what they enjoy and what they are good at. For many people, it would result in more rounded educations, even if they did not ever pass the proficiency tests for some of the subjects that they attended lectures and forums for. This open, casual system would result in many, of not most, students progressing through college in much shorter time than our current system. We would not have so many students who graduate with only 75% of the needed knowledge learned. Without graded homework, or even traditional grades, we would not have so many people cheating (if the proficiency tests were well proctored, cheating would be reduced to almost nothing, since no other school work is graded). We would not have surgeons who cheated their way through school, or who passed with only a C. Those who could not demonstrate true proficiency in a subject would not get a degree in it. This is dramatically better than what we currently have, and I urge those with the power to affect change to push government and institutions of education to at least try this system.
Lord Rybec
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