Have you ever thought
this… said this… heard somebody else say this?
"If his grades
start to slip then we take away that Xbox."
"She's a good
student, she keeps her grades up, I trust her."
"He got straight
A's. I never would have guessed he was struggling so."
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| Ken O'Connor |
Do you want to be
graded on your performance in the beginning when all the information is new, or
do you want to be graded in the end after practice?
Consider this story:
"I was meeting with our
high school Advanced Placement teachers, who were expressing concerns about our
open enrollment process and the high failure rate. One math teacher said that
while a particular student was now getting 80's, she had made a 12 on the
initial test, so there is no way she is going to make a passing grade for the
first nine weeks."
Grades tend to reduce
students’ interest in the learning itself. One of the most
well-researched findings in the field of motivational psychology is that the
more people are rewarded for doing something, the more they tend to lose
interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward.
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| http://goo.gl/kZBN3z |
Grades tend to reduce
students’ preference for challenging tasks. Students of all ages who have
been led to concentrate on getting a good grade are likely to pick the easiest
possible assignment if given a choice.