Grades are everything in school. They outline achievement and motivate students to study hard and perform well. Or at least, that’s a theory. The debate over whether numerical grades help or hinder student learning is as old as the grading system itself. Surprising as it may seem, some teachers don’t think grades are a useful tool. Many educators complain about the scale because they feel it inhibits learning. Critics argue that this system encourages students to seek good grades at the expense of learning.
The Government has taken note. And in his new royal decree he has decided to eliminate the numerical notes and evaluate the results in other terms. What does a 7 in Language mean? And a 6 in English? That is the debate.
The new measure. The Council of Ministers approved a few days ago the royal decree that regulates minimum education, as dictated by the educational reform embodied in the LOMLOE. Based more on learning than on memorizing content, the curriculum establishes the key skills that students must have developed by the end of ESO. It grants teachers the power to decide whether or not a student passes the course, a measure that, in addition, will be “exceptional”.
Therefore, the numerical grade (from 1 to 10) is eliminated, and the results will be evaluated in the terms Insufficient (IN) for negative grades, Sufficient (SU), Good (BI), Notable (NT), or Outstanding ( SB) for positive ratings.
A debate. These questions were already asked in France a few years ago, where a whole debate has been promoted around the advisability of redesigning the qualification system. “The traditional numerical grade is not as objective as it seems. It does not indicate whether the student has progressed and it does not indicate what the student must do to advance”, reflected the Ministry of Education when he raised the issue.
This opinion is shared by more and more experts in the sector. While the educational system progresses, methods, approaches and ways of working in the classroom (the famous skills) change, the same system is still used to assess students as it was decades ago. A method that pigeonholes, selects and marginalizes the student, they say; the same one that was used when only 10% of the students aspired to reach the baccalaureate and the differences between them were not taken into account.
At the discretion of the teacher. Specifically, the decision of whether a student passes the course or not will fall to a teaching team, which will allow a student to promote when it considers that the failed subjects do not prevent them from successfully following the next course and it is estimated that they have “favorable recovery expectations “. In any case, repeating will be considered an “exceptional” measure and will be taken “after exhausting the ordinary reinforcement and support measures to solve the student’s learning difficulties”.
In addition, a student may only repeat once per course and, at most, two throughout the entire ESO. The objective of this change is to reduce school dropout and grade repetition, since Spain is the OECD country with the most repeaters in Secondary: almost 9% compared to 1.9% on average; and triples the European rate.
Profits? It might seem that it only means a new way of expressing the grade, but the change is a declaration of intent and implies going further and understanding evaluation as part of the learning process. For a few years now, the Spanish educational system has been looking towards the success of the Finnish system. There they practically do not put quantitative notes but they prepare some reports in which the evolution of the student is looked at. It is with this same will that this change in evaluation is introduced. That is to say, a system that allows evaluating not only the knowledge that the student has but also his global and holistic form of competence development.
“One of the main benefits of this system is that we are talking about an assessment focused on improvement and promoting self-regulation of learning,” explained Anna Espasa, director of the Evaluate for Learn postgraduate course at the UOC.
Exams in question And in this context, what about exams? Are they still useful? In Finland, for example, they are practically not made; On the other hand, in Spain the exam has been and surely still is the star evaluation system, the most widely used. The exams are used to assess specific knowledge at a given time but they do not include everything that a child learns and develops at school, therefore the exams are seen as one more evaluation activity, but not the only one, not even the main one.
If they are presented as a sanctioning tool or simply accrediting knowledge, they are not useful at all and can have a negative impact on student learning. On the other hand, they are if the purpose is for the student himself to become aware of what he has learned and what he can improve, especially if these tests are accompanied by a good pedagogical feedback that helps the student.
More stress and less self-esteem. Students often see grades as the number one barrier to getting into college, earning their degree, or landing their dream job. For many students, this pressure creates anxiety and stress. In a 2018 survey by the Pew Research Center, academic pressure topped the list of stressors for teens. Even the fear of a bad grade, let alone a bad grade itself, can be a source of anxiety and stress, and that fear can inhibit learning and harm academic performance.
In a 1996 article titled Give up the pursuit of qualifications for a competency-based educationDonald Mowrer wrote: “Requiring students to focus on their performance can interfere with their ability to apply scientific principles to new situations, often reduces their creativity, and suppresses self-esteem.”
Parents, oblivious to their children’s progress. Families are affected too. “The marks do not reflect the knowledge of the student,” said Jesús Salido, president of Ceapa, the confederation of associations of fathers and mothers. “And the information that parents get about the performance of the students, beyond the number, is very brief,” he added. Only when there are behavioral problems do they call the parents. “Sometimes, even if you want to go and take an interest, they tell you that if the student is doing well, you don’t need to go”, he concluded. A good summary of everything that is happening to us now.
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