72 Grades vs Understanding

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72 Grades vs Understanding

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It is a big mistake to focus on grades over understanding. Doing so involves all sorts of errors and fallacies -- such as the idea that you cannot focus on both, or the idea that understanidng does not lead to high grades, or the idea that going after grades without developing the capacity to think critically will have no deleterious affects that outweigh the good grades got through impoverished thinking.Good grades are needed to achieve some goals, but should not be chased at the expense of harming and injuring one's ability to think and reason. In this context: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" (Mark 8:36)Notes.1. "Why Focusing on Grades Is a Barrier to Learning" (Harvard, 25 April 2022) by Gerald E. KnesekLink: https://hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/why-focusing-on-grades-is-a-barrier-to-learning"What’s apparent in all this focus on grades is that there’s no real emphasis on learning—the true purpose of education. It is a rare occurrence that students come to talk with me about concepts or new material presented, and even in learning-focused discussions, the topic of grades almost always arises."Yeah, that was a big disappointment to me, too: no discussion or interest in anything deep, in any understanding, in any "how" or "why," in any connection of a topic or concept to anything else. 2. "Nearly 60% of grades don’t match student test scores" (K-12Dive, 5 Aug 2024) by Kara ArundelLink: https://www.k12dive.com/news/equitable-grades-tests-teachers-students/723258/"The study of about 33,000 middle school and high school grades found that almost 60% of the students’ grades did not match the course knowledge they showed according to standardized test scores....″Each year, millions of high school students are receiving grades that don’t represent what they actually know and have learned. … Yet, they are presented as the truth and set expectations about what that student can accomplish,” said Guadalupe Guerrero, CEO of Partnership for Los Angeles Schools and former superintendent of Oregon’s Portland Public Schools, in a foreword to the study...."The study noted that teachers should not be blamed for grading variability and inaccuracy because they typically don’t receive training in grading practices. To improve this, the study recommends state and district education leaders support teacher professional development for equitable grading practices. The study also advocates for more research on the impact of accurate and fair grading practices."3. "Gen Z grads are right: Degrees don’t matter to top employers anymore, CEO who has studied thousands of companies confirms" (Fortune, 29 April 2025) by Orianna Rosa RoyleLink: https://fortune.com/article/great-place-to-work-ceo-warns-degrees-really-are-irrelevant-gen-z-millennials-college-waste-of-money/" 'The overwhelming focus of the last five years—and among companies on our list—is around skills and skills development,' he adds. 'They’re not even talking about degrees now. They’re talking about skills. What skills do you have and what skills are going to be needed in the future? Lot of activity there.'"The CEO adds that the shift to skill-based hiring has caught on globally because ultimately, degrees only highlight a person’s knowledge in a subject matter—not whether they have the skills to actually do the task at hand.“ 'When you want to start doing matching between complex problems and the people needed to solve them, a degree doesn’t help,' Bush explains. “ 'What helps is whether or not people have perseverance and passion and the actual skills required to bring innovative solutions to the work and AI is being used now to match people to challenges and complex problems and companies. They’re going to do that using the skills database, not degrees. Degrees are irrelevant in that analysis.' ”4. "Reason: Why Students - and Often Teachers - Don't Reason Well" (55 min 6 sec)Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3YvC7U1zfI5. "Write: How to Teach Students to Write Well" (58 min 19 sec)Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDlrN3DfZ_M6. The Foundation For Critical ThinkingLink: https://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/46th-critical-thinking-conference-main/17187. “But educators at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health assert that memorization alone does not a scientist make — above all, students must be critical, creative thinkers who are honest and responsible with data. In order to train scientists as critical thinkers, the R3 Graduate Science Initiative was recently created in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology (MMI), led by director Gundula Bosch, Ph.D.“More recently, Bosch’s training as an educator showed her the importance of critical thinking, a skill she realized is rarely formally taught." —Revolutionizing with R3: A New Ph.D. Program Seeks To Train Scientists As Critical ThinkersLink: https://...

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