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A SOLUTION FOR TEST
New grading method could lessen pressure
A
lecture hall filled with students is silent except for the slow, precise ticking of the clock above the chalkboard. The professor calls out the time remaining as students scribble away at their Scantrons. One by one, students make their way to the front of the room to turn in their tests before filing out the door, except for one student, who sits with an incomplete Scantron before him. With sweaty palms, he shakes as he desperately tries to remember the material he spent days reviewing, but he can’t. Paralyzed by anxiety, his brain has shut down, and all the information he could recall just minutes before the test is gone. Bristol Souders, an architecture freshman, has struggled with test anxiety since he was in elementary school. He said it doesn’t matter how well he prepares for the test, he still freezes up and forgets the material. “I would feel completely fine up until the test, but when the test gets passed out and I have the Scantron in front of me … something happens, I just go blank and my palms get really sweaty … I would just forget everything,” Souders said. Souders said it is hard to explain what happens during a test because even though he will spend days studying and learning the material, his test grade will not reflect it. “I don’t know what happens, but it’s like (my brain) gets confused,” Souders said. “I get really sweaty and hot, and I’ll get really nervous and start shaking,” he said. Souders said anything from watching other students finish their tests before him to the professor announcing how much time is left can stress him out to the point of forgetting what he studied.
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LAUREN MASSING • @LAURENMASSING
Test anxiety and recent learning, however, goes findings of grade infla- much deeper and evaluates tion at elite universities not only critical thinking like Harvard and Yale have skills, but how far the stuprompted the idea of find- dent has come. ing alternative solutions to “You have to have two the traditional system of points to do a measuregrading. ment,” Reynolds said. “So A c c o r d i n g t o a U S A if you don’t know where Today article, more than 50 the student was when they percent of the grades given started, how are you supby some colleges are A’s. posed to know how far This, along with the steady they’ve come once they finincrease in the average ish a class?” GPA, has led to L a u r a the question of Gibbs, a lec“Everything what an A realturer who ly means. takes practice, t e a c h e s o n The answer line courses and practice f o r c o m b a tin the mo ding test anxi- takes feedback, ern languages ety and grade department, and grades inflation for uses evistudents and don’t really feel dence-based schools may like feedback.” l e a r n i n g t o be to change evaluate stuLAURA GIBBS, how graddents’ progLECTURER ing is done ress in her altogether. courses. Gibbs R o b R e y n o l d s , t h e does not give a final exam chief product officer for in any of her courses, but NextThought, a compa- instead focuses on a continny that partners with OU ual process of feedback and to provide technology and improvement throughout learning design for univer- the semester for her stusity courses and master’s dents’ writing assignments. programs, said some uni“Grades have a sense of versities are shifting their finality about them, and focuses to evidence-based a final exam is too highlearning. stakes,” Gibbs said. “ I R e y n o l d s s a i d e v i - like to create more of an dence-based learning is open-ended process. It’s learning by doing and mov- all about performance and ing away from traditional, feedback.” quantitative assessments Gibbs gives feedback toward measurement-type on students’ assignments activities that allow stu- rather than assigning a dents to demonstrate what grade because it is a more they have learned. beneficial way for the stu“ L e a r n i n g i s d e e p - dent to learn. Students still er than information-lev- receive a grade at the end of el processing,” Reynolds the semester, but the grade said. “Learning is about comes from points students ownership of information earn throughout the semesand knowledge and being ter for completing their asable to take information signments on time and with and turn it into actionable the desired criteria. thinking.” Gibbs likes to let students Reynolds said tradition- have the power to earn the al summative assessments grades they desire for the students are accustomed class, and that as long as to, like fill-in-the-blank, they put forth the effort, multiple choice and short their grades will reflect that. answer, imply that learn“Everything takes pracing is only information pro- tice, and practice takes cessing. Evidence-based feedback, and grades don’t
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really feel like feedback,” Gibbs said. “Grades really feel like you’re being judged or like you’re being rewarded or punished, so I think feedback is a lot better.” Instead of a final exam, Gibbs has students work on an assignment throughout the semester that builds on the concepts learned each week. Through feedback and revision, the students fine-tune their assignments and submit final projects at the end of the semester. Gibbs said she has never been a fan of final exams because they aren’t an accurate representation of what a student has learned. “It’s a high-stakes exam … you’re asking someone to perform at a certain place in a certain amount of time and you’re putting a lot of weight on that performance,” Gibbs said. “They might be sick or stressed because they have three other finals that day, and it’s just not accurate.” Reynolds said evidence-based learning will vary from class to class depending on what the learning outcomes need to look like, but that one thing for him is certain: Tests, exams and finals aren’t an accurate way to determine the knowledge a student has acquired from a class. “Being able to take information and turn it into actionable thinking and apply it to new situations to come up with solutions, that is the learning process,” Reynolds said. Lauren Massing lmassing@ou.edu
GRADE INFLATION Definition: The tendency to award progressively higher academic grades for work that would have received lower grades in the past.
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