Entrance slip : A shift from grading to learning

 Before coming to this program and reading this article I never thought about alternatives of gradings and percentages, and I always thought it to be a norm that every child has to go through. I remember how happily I used to do the subjects that were not graded. For instance,  physical education, dance was not graded in my school in India. This article really resonates with me and to every student in the educational system. I remember my learning was steered by what is going to be on the test. Learning was mere instrumental than relational. Therefore, the student who was able to memorize lots of facts and then jot it down on the exam was considered to be more intellectual. This does not depict their creativity and deep understanding of the subject. Another thing that I think is important to mention and relates to me is peer pressure. I remember how the parents, teachers and peer pressure stresses the student to study day and night to attain high grades. This adds to anxiety and other mental and behavioral issues in the children.

On the contrary, there are some positive effects of grading as well. This acts as self-motivator and the child at least urges to study something. While studying students might find what interests them the most and then pursue their careers in that field. I believe that if we entirely remove the grading culture then the students would be too relaxed and they might take advantage of this culture and chose not to study. Hence, they might follow such paths which are detrimental to them.

 I believe that there should some kind of assessment that the students are accountable to. Some of those can be based on the number of times the child shows up to ask a problem, formative assessments during the class, assessing their engagement in the activities, assigning them group projects and then assessing how well they coordinated and performed as a group, this helps them to build relationships, providing  them feedback by comments rather than percentages. I think such practices if followed would not only make them accountable for themselves but also gives them the freedom to have a deep understanding of the subjects they like.