The+Nature+of+Grades

**The Nature of Grades**
Place your comments in the space below in __**alphabetical order (last name first)**__ following the format used in the 'What is Pseudoscience?' post.. Feel free to comment on other people's comments but just be sure to use a different color font and sign your name after your comment(s).

**Billig, Marielle** a. I think the purpose of grades is to reflect how well the student has either learned the subject matter or performs in class. b. The grades we get for a semester roughly reflect how well we understand the subject but oftentimes other things such as study habits (affect positively), having enough time on tests (affected negatively) can affect our grades as well. c. If our GPAs were calculated using a +/- system they would be more 'accurate'. They would also motivate students to try to improve grades that they would have previously written off such as an 83%. However, since they aren't calculated this way, a possible explanation is that they realize that letter grades aren't perfect reflections of aptitude so to make them more 'exact' just doesn't make sense.

a. Grades should be a measure of student effort and performance. b. According to the discretion of teachers, grades' ability to communicate this purpose is generally good. However, sometimes with subjective assignments, grades are incredibly inaccurate or unfair. Grades also might not always reflect the student's understanding of certain material. c. A +/- system would not necessarily be a drastic change for my GPA. It would probably only matter for classes where the material and grading methods are mostly subjective, such as English, foreign language, et al.
 * Blank, Andrew**

A) I think that grades are meant to compare one student to another within a school. Let’s be honest—they often times have little bearing on the actual education experienced in a course; that can only be determined by the student.
 * Bondy, Matthew**

B) Grades do a decent job of fulfilling the purpose of comparing one student to another within a school, but as I’ve stated, aren’t indicative of what //really matters//. Grades may bear some semblance to the amount of knowledge gained or effort put into a course, but if that is their main purpose, then there are major problems with the system—far more complex ones than I’m going to address here.

C) Using a +/- system my GPA would certainly be lower! Then again, I feel like a lot of people’s would, and some people's would be highers. In a hypothetical world in which we switched systems to "+/-" I would have no clue how significantly less well I would do relative to the rest of the school since GBN has gotten rid of “class rank.” However, since GPA is only relative within a school, I don’t think this says much. If anything, it furthers my point that grades are somewhat of a contrived and unimportant institution… except for when applying to college which does have a real effect on education.


 * Center, Shoshi **

a. I believe that the meaning of grades is subject to each person. For me they show the ability to retain and memorize knowledge and apply it to certain taks (in case of tests- under pressure). On one hand they do measure how well you do in a subject, but a lot of times grades are unfair stamps placed on a person. A bad grade doesn't determine the smarts or abilities of a student. But the reason I pay attention to grades is because obviously like any other student I want to get into a good college, and grades are what they look at, regardless of how accurately they reflect my knowledge and how I apply it. Grades really are what get you into college, and in educational purposes they are the best known way to measure the strengths of and information retained by a child on a specific subject.

b. I'd say grades reflect 50% accurately of a student's strengths and knowledge. A student might be a genius who will know far beyond what an average student should know about a subject, but if they don't do their homework, his/her grade is bad. Although this student knows everything and more about the subject, the grade will make it seem otherwise, which isn't fair. Teachers might even assign projects that are sometimes pointless, or give quizzes on things irrelevant from the subject they are teaching (ex: school rules). These kinds of grades shouldn’t be used to define a person’s knowledge in a certain subject!

c. If the +/- system was used some students would benefit from it while others won’t. But this just goes to show that grading is not always the same wherever you go, and even though colleges do look at grades, they also analyze GPA’s differently. Students don’t need to stress out as much about grades as much as they think they should because grades can be be perceived slightly different depending on the way they are reviewed. Some might end up with a better GPA, some worse. But all in all the nature of grading is always subjective, so the only thing a student could do is try their best to understand the material, because in the end and after college knowledge and experience will be what matters most, not the grade.

**Chin, Jeremy**

a. I could write multiple essays on this subject, but I'll keep it somewhat short. Grades are solely to see how hard a student works in a class. It represents the ability for a student to excel in the specific subject. I also think it has to do with both how hard you work and somewhat how well you know the material. Grades in high school are the biggest factor when colleges look to accept someone, so yes, they are very important to your future. The purpose of grades in the student's point of view is different, however. To students, grades are not about learning so much as moving on to bigger and better things, which I agree with to an extent.

b. Grades measure the level of effort the student puts into a class very well. If a student does whatever he/she can to get good grades, we can conclude that he/she is doing well. However, not all classes allow for this type of honest assessment. Some classes prevent students from testing their knowledge and/or their ability to work hard by having a system in which the grades are based on only what the teacher wants. In other words, the class and classwork are both extremely subjective, and the student must read the teacher's mind or conform to some odd system in a way to get those good grades. If every class had an objective way to test the students on the subject without being too unreasonable with the grading system or the level of challenge, that would be ideal.

c. Personally, I think if we used the +/- system, some students would do worse, and some would do better. The students that struggle to get good grades would have a higher GPA due to a more organized, definite point system. In contrast, the students who are good at knowing what the teacher wants and how he/she wants the work done would maybe have a slightly lower GPA because the work they have to get a feel for how the class is graded would not matter anymore. It would only be about the information that teachers give, and school (especially high school) is more about preparing for different scenarios or experiences you might face in the future and less about acquiring excessive amounts of knowledge that might help you in the future. So, there isn't much more we can do to change this, but I think the grade system is okay right now, other than the extremely subjective classes.


 * Coleman, Matt**

a. In educational settings, the purpose of grades is to demonstrate the comprehension of material and to show responsibility of the student (i.e. turning in homework on time, participating in discussion). An "A" signifies the highest level of success for the student, and it seems to be the ultimate goal for most students.

b. In my opinion, I believe that grades don't accurately measure a student's comprehension of a subject or the responsibility of a student. This is so because of a variety of reasons that include: Students not dedicating equal time to each subject, students comprehending many topics but not being graded on them (in better words, tests and quizzes don't cover all of the material learned by a student), teachers grading on personal opinion of what they feel a student deserves (i.e. on an essay or presentation), and plenty of other reasons.

c My GPA lowered from the +/- system, but for many others it wouldn't. Different students approach grades in different ways, some try to do the least amount of work to achieve a certain letter grade, and some focus on getting as high of a grade as possible. This shows that no matter how you make grades, there will always be issues with the system. Around the world, schools have implemented a variety of grading systems, but every single one has pros and cons. Some students will benefit from a certain system while others won't, but since you can't force a student to approach education a certain way, no system can please everybody. This shows that grades can never definitively give all students fair assessments on their work.


 * Crowe, Samantha**

a) Grades seem to me as a way of reflecting the accomplishments made by a student in the classroom. It’s the school system’s way of practically quantifying the learning and growth of a student.

b) Obviously grades don’t reflect on the big picture of someone’s education. It’s impossible to incorporate the entirety of someone’s education into a single number. Grades can sometimes show the hard work of a student but it also could be entirely misleading when a student didn’t try as hard. The system is a flaw, but perhaps the way the system is used is flawed too. In most math classes, tests are worth seventy percent of someone’s grade, but the bulk of someone’s work is only worth thirty percent, modeled after college courses. One bad day or a couple stupid mistakes and that person will barely be able to bounce back. So the certain aspects of our education that are graded are flawed too.

c) Like everyone else, my GPA went down based off the +/- system. While that involuntarily makes me cringe, it still doesn’t really seem to help me understand my education any better. The focus of one’s education shouldn’t be on grades but more about how hard they are trying to achieve their grades. I constantly push myself harder when I know that I can do better. It bugs me when I get something off on a grade because I made a stupid mistake and still got a grade that maintains my GPA because I should know that. Sure, I get mad if my GPA goes down, but that’s only because I know that I can do better. This of course doesn’t reflect the opinion or actions of most students who try to get the best grades, and can pass with the bare minimum of high grades. So much emphasis is put on grades that it seems to be all the students care about. So by the time they walk out the classroom, they don’t remember what they learned in the next months, but what grade they got.

a) Grades are one of the many tools used to assess how a student understands and comprehends the work needed.
 * Dylan Ekenberg**

b) I do not think grades actually measure your understanding and it makes students remember short term rather than long term. For example, in math, the teachers emphasize learning how to derive certain theories and it leads to kids just memorizing and not learning. Also, it doesn't properly measure your understanding because in certain situations you understand, but there are bad test takers including me. I understand it most time but when it come to test even though I know, I tend to not get a good grade.

c) My grade would sizable go down due to the plus-minus system and it makes me wonder why there are so many ways of doing it. For example New Trier has a class that a A is 5.33. In an honors class here an A is a 5.0. If colleges are looking at GPA it is making it unfair for us, because they have a higher base for an A and is unfair.
 * Gruemmer, Nolan**

A. I think grades are meant to measure your understanding of the topic, but also to act as motivation to try harder to learn the material.

B. I don't think grades measure your actual understanding of the topic except on a very shallow level, they mostly measure your memory of random facts and information without a requirement for any higher understanding of the material. However, I think it does act as motivation to at least learn the basics of the topic if you have no interest to pursue a deeper meaning.

C. My GPA would lower considerably, this tells you that people use the "loophole" that they only have to get into the next highest grade braket (low A) and not worry about grades beyond that, for instance, in GBN's system, an A- gives you the highest GPA you can get so to some people there is no motivation to go beyond it.


 * Hill, Kim**

//a)// I believe in a world in which grades are a completely accurate depiction of academic knowledge, they are used to determine what a student knows and how they can apply information. If grades were a precise representation of how hard a student works in school, they would be a helpful tool. Grades help a teacher know how difficult their tests are and/or how effective their teaching style is.

//b)// I think on some occasions, grades can accurately determine how a student is doing academically. However, I do believe if a certain test is too difficult or there is material on it that was not covered in class, grades can be slightly unfair. I also think that classes in which test grades are the only determining factor of the distinction between an A and a C in a course are incredibly ridiculous. Perhaps there is just too much information on a test or a student is having a bad day. There are too many outside factors that can play into a test grade or how much a student knows in the class. Grades of course are always subjective, even on tests that seem objective. For example on a math or science test when there is a free response section, teachers are the determining factor of how many points are subtracted. However, that is inevitable because the teacher is the one with the final say in our grading system.

//c)// In terms of second semester freshman year, a plus/minus system would probably lower my GPA because I was getting all low A’s. This tells us that a student who works their hardest and gets a hundred percent in the class is given the same reward as a student who just gets by with an 89.5 at the end of the semester.


 * Homedi, Nadia**

a) I think the purpose of grades are to help organize a schooling system and to measure how well a student knows the material taught in class. I also think it is used to determine the placement of students in colleges, other courses, and future occupations.

b) I strongly believe that grades make up a huge part of the structure of a schooling system. Without grades how could teachers know how to help their students and prepare them for future education/jobs? However, I don’t believe that grades always measure how well a student knows the material taught in class. If a student is lazy and doesn’t do his/her homework yet knows all the material, they might not do as well in that class. Grades definitely determine the placement of students in colleges because they make up a persons gpa. If you have a low gpa, chances are you will have a hard time getting into a “good” college. But colleges don’t only look at a students gpa, they look for involvement in extra curricular activities, sat scores, etc. I don't think that grades can measure how well you will like a job, but what kind of job your knowledge would be most effectively used. You might be really good at math and got and A, but that does not mean you want to become a math teacher.

c) If I calculated my gpa using a +/- system it would significantly lower/higher some of my grades. Most of my grades are either really low A’s and B’s or really high B’s. I don’t have any percent grades that are in the middle (like a 95%). This tells me that my gpa doesn’t really reflect my knowledge of a subject. If I got a 89.5% in a class, and someone got a 100%, colleges wouldn’t see the difference and we would both get a 4 added to our gpa. Students definitely focus more on getting high perecentage grades, rather than understanding material and taking something positive away from a course. a) I think that the purpose of grades is to measure how well students know the subject. b) To me, it seems like grades do a good job of measuring this. Tests, quizzes, homework, and projects all show what a student has learned. Usually if people do their work and study as directed by the teacher, they learn the subject material and then earn a good grade. If they know more than required, they get a higher grade; if they know less than required, they get a lower grade. Sometimes this system doesn’t seem fair, though, like when someone knows the material even though they don’t have to put in much effort or when they work very hard and still don’t fully understand. Some teachers understand this and award points accordingly. This challenge really depends on each student’s learning level and abilities. Our educational system usually recognizes hard work in some way or other, but knowledge is the priority and is expected from students. c) Calculating GPA on a +/- scale would probably lower GPAs somewhat. There would probably be more pressure to “bump up” your grade (e.g. from a “B-” to a “B”) than there is now. Currently, people try to get to the next letter grade if they are close, but in a +/- system people would probably have a higher value to work up to for any grade, not just ones that could go to the next letter. This shows the pressure that giving grades can put on students. Often grades become more important to students than actual learning, and then the grades are what colleges or maybe employers see as a GPA. The more detailed the grading system is, the more ways students will worry about how they can make their grade higher.
 * Jancaus, Kathryn**

a) I believe that grades can only be taken so serious in an educational setting. They simply serve as a way to be able to check if someone’s been keeping up with everything. The problem is when students don’t do particularly well in some class they begin to freak out. The purpose wasn’t for grades to take over our lives, it merely served as a way to measure effort in education. The role that we have as students is to get these good grades, but sometimes even if someone works incredible hard, they will normally be evaluated accordingly.
 * Kang, Edward **

b) I don’t think it does that good of a job, but I have good reasoning as to why. Grades are support to measure learning and effort, but some people have trouble getting good grades. People may put in effort and learn a lot of new things, but to our stressed education-based brains, if that doesn’t turn into an A we will get angry with ourselves. This is what frustrates me as well. For the most part it is a good system, but a lot could be change to take off some pressure.

c) If my grades were calculated like that, then I would have no problem in any classes. I don’t look down on any class, and I always give my best effort, even if that isn’t seen on tests. If it was just that, then I would feel better about myself. Grades became a statistic long ago, and the points and percentages began to matter so much that it took over the whole meaning of going to school. So you get all A’s and graduate in the future, so what? Grades are considered falsely to be the controller of everything. Grades have too much power over our lives and our self-esteem, and that sometimes defeats the purpose of learning for the sake of learning.

**Kaplan, Alex** a) The purpose of grades in an academic setting is to assess the knowledge that a student has gained from a class, as well as to measure the consistency of a person's effort in that class. I believe that colleges, high schools, and other academic centers often prioritize grades and see them as the sole measure of a person’s commitment to a class. I believe that grades are an arbitrary system that does not //always// properly assess learning.

b) As I stated before, I find grades to be an incredibly arbitrary measurement. In many cases, they poorly measure true learning. Instead, I find that grades instill the idea of straight memorization and short cramming sessions before a large grade. This is not true learning because when this happens, knowledge is not usually retained. Instead, after a graded assignment, students simply forget the information because we are (subtly) taught that after a grade, there is absolutely no need of that information. A better way to assess grades, in my opinion, is to provide incentives for retaining knowledge. I’m not sure if any systems like this exist, but I would be intrigued if one did.

c) This would change my GPA drastically, because I do not have an “A+” in any of my classes. This shows that grades are arbitrary measurements (which I mentioned in my response to question B) that do not mean much in the grand scheme of things. Having a bad day every once and a while and getting a bad grade on one test often has a much larger effect than is necessary. We should measure grades in terms of knowledge retention and general learning instead of stressful tests which often lead to cramming and short-term memorization.

**Kerstein, Arin** a. Grades are used in educational settings to measure how well a student has succeeded in mastering the given material.

b. Although I believe that the goal of grades is to givestudents, teachers, and colleges an idea of how well a student knows the material, I do not think that grade systems succeed in doing so. A student can spend all night memorizing a chapter of a textbook and ace a test, while a student who worked hard to truly understand the concepts might not have done as well. In such a driven community as Glenbrook North, most kids do not study to learn, but in order to memorize and regurgitate information. Although they should act as a motivator, grades add extra unnecessary stress to our days and do not help us learn and grow as human beings.

c. Truthfully, calculating my GPA using a +/- system would lower my GPA. Although I wish I could learn to the best of my abilities, with so much work to do in so many difficult classes, I tend to study the amount that I need to in order to maintain a 90 percent or higher. Making our GPA scale more exact would motivate kids to study more, but it would also take away more from the actual learning done in school. Grades tend to put pressure on students to beat each other to the top. But competition in school just causes more people to stay up late to memorize information and empty out their brains as soon as their tests are over. Grades cannot actually measure a person's knowledge or how much they have gained from a course.


 * Knez, Natalie **

a. I think there is a distinction between how grades are used and how they should be used. The way we see them going to Glenbrook North is often as a measure of intelligence and diligence. However, I believe that in an ideal educational system grades are simply a gauge of how well a teacher is teaching and how well as student is observing any given material. Like many have said, it would be easy to rant about this. But I think that what most of us would agree upon is that often times grades get in the way of learning and make us all crazy about each point on every quiz, test, project and homework assignment.

b. In general, grades do a poor job of representing knowledge gained. Though students who work hard will reap the benefits 75% of the time, the frequent exceptions to this rule make grades arbitrary. Again most of us would agree on this question. We all have the classes where we pour in hours on end, but cannot get to that 89.5%. Yet the same semester we may be taking another class, also honors level, where we literally do no homework or studying and have a 99.5%.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">c. Because there are no +/- systems at GBN our grades can often become inflated. But I think the point of this question is not for us to calculate what our grades would be if we went to every possible high school in the state, it's simply to point out that grades are arbitrary. Though we can spend an infinite amount of time refreshing homelogic, and punching the finals formula into our calculator, at the end of the day what's really going to benefit us it realizing that grades are not the tell-all of our intelligence.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Kriska, Jeremy **

A) I believe the purpose of grades in educational settings is to classify students on how well they know the material. I believe that they also act as a motivator for many students to learn and understand things from their classes. This purpose isn’t necessarily just for students who are “bad” and don’t try. For example, without grades, I might try hard in classes that I appreciate/where I want to learn yet I would not try as hard in classes that I don’t care as much about. This being said, without grades, I would try hard in classes like chemistry because science is a field I want to go into in my future and I would not try as hard I English because it is something that will not be too big in my future. I like English, so I would still do the work, but I wouldn’t ALWAYS do the work if I felt my time was better spent somewhere else. But, because of grades, I always do my work because I “need” good grades and not doing the work is simply not an option. So therefore, the purpose of grades is 1: To classify how well a student knows the material they are being presented with, and 2: To motivate students to do their work in all of their classes.

B) The question for part “B” is how well I think grades measure my answer from part one, but personally, I don’t think measure is the correct word for my second purpose of grades that I explained in part “A”. My first purpose for grades is to classify how well a student knows the material they are being presented. I think grades measure to a good enough extent. I believe there could be other, better methods, but they all have their problems as well and that would be going a bit away from this question. If a student has a 95 or 85 or 75 percent (or anything a couple percent away from those), then their “grade” is being measured accurately. It comes to when maybe a single 10 point question on a test is missed and their grade is right on the edge that I think grades being misrepresentations. Lets say a student has an 89% and if they had gotten that 10 point question correct they would have had an 89.6%, in GBN, that would be the difference from a B and A (or 3.00 and 4.00). This is a big difference and I think that when it comes down to it, a student is misrepresented because the difference between a B and an A is quite large. Even if it wasn’t because of one question on a test specifically, there is such a close margin between an 89 percent and an 89.5 that it is a bit ridiculous. I looked ahead and saw the third question and would like to say ahead of time, that even if you had +/- on the grades, it would still not work. The problem is when the GPA is changed at a cutoff for the percent you have. If grades were JUST percents, (no letters) then they would be the most accurate. Even with that, I still feel there are some inaccuracies, but it would be more accurate. **Right now, someone who has a 79.5% is classified in the same group as someone with 89.4% (if the teacher is strict). This is one of the main reasons it is inaccurate at measuring their purpose.** As for the second purpose I mentioned in part “A”, I think grades work effectively. They do in fact motivate students to do their work. The only problem is that they also produce cheating, academic dishonesty in general, stress, and possibly a bit too much motivation.

C) I used the scale where an A+=4, A=3.66, A-=3.33, B+=3, B=2.66 etc. Obviously, my GPA went down. If anyone uses the current GBN grading scale and compares it to the one I just used it would go down or stay the same (stay the same only if they have a “+” grade for every grade. This is not an opinion; it is a fact. So, by seeing this, I realize a student may be classified differently just by the way the grade is considered. This is yet another problem with the grading system. Two students may do exactly the same yet they are classified differently. So the nature of grades depends on the percent a student received and the way that percentage is interpreted. In fact, someone with a better percent can actually have a lower GPA than someone with a lower percent. If someone gets a 95 on the grading scale I used for this question, their GPA for that class would be a 3.66. Another person, who uses the GBN grading system, may get a 90 percent yet have a 4.0 GPA from that class.


 * Matlin, Ethan**

<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia,serif;">//a) Grades have two purposes. First, they// incentivize students to learn. We all want to get good grades for various reasons including personal pride, college admissions, or parents. No matter what the reason grades give us an incentive to learn. Second, they indicate how well students have learned.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">// b) // It depends on the class and the teacher. For example, in a class in which grading is more subjective, like an English class, how well the grades indicate learning can vary greatly. If a teacher strictly follows rubrics, then it probably will measure objectives better, but grading without rubrics can also be valuable so that students and teachers are able to look more at the bigger picture. Additionally, there are some classes in which one can get a very good grade, but learn nothing. There are a variety of reasons for this: the class could be easy, the teacher might not teach well, you might be learning something you already knew, etc. Other classes measure knowledge very well. Also, grades are not able to incentivize everyone to learn. Some do not care about learning or grades, so perform poorly in school due to a lack of effort.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">// c) // Using the +/- system, my grade would be lower. It would also incentivize students to work harder, though. Last year, I was talking to someone who was bragging about his final grade, a 89.46, two hundredths of a percent from a B. It shows how our GPA systems incentivizes students to do the bare minimum and constantly cut it close. But this system would also increase the stress of students. Already, students stress about their grades. Many attempt to get perfect 5.0/4.0s. But when they have to get high As in order to do so, it is much more difficult, and exponentially increases stress level. The +/- system shows how grades can change so easily. A student could be doing very well in our system, even a perfect 5.0, but then switch to the +/- system and do far worse.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: verdana,sans-serif; font-size: small;"> //a)// What do you believe to be the purpose of grades in educational settings? A. I think in a perfect world, grades are used to determine your understanding of a subject in a educational setting. However, I think that students and parents place too high an importance on grades, causes them to go beyond the overall understanding of the subject, and into the intelligence of the person. I do not think grades reflect the intelligence of a person //b)// In your opinion, how well do grades measure what you stated in your answer above. B. I think grades do a very poor job of measuring understanding. Grades create a drive not to learn, but to memorize, then quickly forget. I think ideally, the classroom should be focused on actually learning the information, and not just processing it like a computer. I know many of us have fallen prey to this. I have been classes where i have learned nothing, but have done what is necessary to get an A. Additionally, I've had classes where i get a low B maybe even a C, but have learned a ton. I think society (students, parents, colleges, etc.) focus too much on the letter itself, and not on the knowledge retained by the student, which is a huge problem with our educational system. //c)// Suppose you calculated your GPA using a +/- system. How would it affect your GPA? What does this tell you about the nature of grades. C. Considering I am getting mostly low As or high Bs, my GPA would plummet. This just shows how subjective our grading system is. With this being the case, I think it's awful that so much value is placed on the letter itself.
 * Newman, Daniel**

Niemann, Josef A) Grades are used to learn how well a student comprehends the subject, but doesn't show how much you have learned in class.B) Grades do show how much you understand the subject to a degree, but there are other variables that must be taken into account when looking back on how well you have done in the class. First of all grades can't judge how much work that you did during the class. They also encourage going the easiest path to success. Because of this I believe that they are a bad test of comprehension of the subject. C) A grade in a +/- system will be just as bad, the only difference it is harder to tell what the grades are in a +/- system.

a. I think grades are used to see how well the students can take in topics, remember them and then apply them.
 * Muldoon, Tommy**

b. I think grades are a useful way to see how these students can remember and use their knowledge. However, the way those percentages and performances are displayed can be misleading. At GBN, the range of a grade (like an A) is normally around 10% (89.5-100). The way grades are reported as letters doesn't show how the student did specifically; it's to general. I also think it's an unfair system to weigh grades. While it is important to place focus on tests to see the "long" term retention of knowledge, other systems of grading can hurt students. A student may not participate a lot in class, but then that same student scores extremely well on his writing or quizzes. Many teachers place 5%-10% of the grade on participation. Though participation is necessary at points, it damages the quiet students. And finally, information on tests is quickly forgotten. Finals sort of help solve this problem but still don't encourage students to study constantly.

c.When I used a different GPA scale than GBN's, my GPA only dropped by 0.1. I don't know if this is a special case, but I think it will show either way that grades do have an impact. If GBN graded on a different scale, it would be clear there'd be a difference between myself and the person who got several percent higher in every class.

a) The purpose of grades is to evaluate how much of a class's material a student has learned. In classes like physical education, where the class is not focused as much on learning, a grade will serve as a measure of how much effort was put into the class. b) I think that how well grades measure learning is highly dependent on the class and teacher. Some teachers hold true to the "C means average" mantra, to the despair of many students. Other teachers will make is fairly easy to get an A. Both of these methods can be detrimental to the effective measurement of learning. If the class is sufficiently difficult so that the class average is a C, that means that half of the class must be failing. From my experiences, most people (at least in honors classes) study a lot for quizzes and tests. Almost everyone is working hard to learn the material of the class. Only the people who don't study or do homework should be failing. And if the teacher makes it really easy to get an A, then nobody in class has to do any work, and less learning will occur. I think that if a student does his or her homework and studies a moderate amount for quizzes and tests, he or she should get an A. If this doesn't happen, then the student should get a C or a D. Although some people say that students focus too much on the letter itself, it has to be taken into account that while you know if you learned a lot in a class, a college that you applied to only sees letters. A is good, B is meh, C is bad, D is terrible, and F is a death sentence. So perhaps the grade scale should be inflated on both ends: an A could be slightly easier to get, because I know people who put in a ton of work and still get a B. And it should be easier to get a C, D, or F, because most of the time a person can put minimal effort into a class and still get a low B- the same grade as the person who put in a ton of work. If you don't try, your grades should be bad, and if you do, you should get an A. c) If I calculated my GPA using a +/- scale, it would drop by almost a full point. There's no point in trying to get A+'s in classes because it's the same grade point value as as an A-, and since my teachers take into account that even an 85.5% is an A, they make their classes harder so that A's are only received by the "star students" of the class. I think that this tells us that grades are subjective. This is bad, because people who look at your grades should see your work ethic more than your raw intelligence. IQ tests and the classes a person takes should measure their intelligence, not grades.
 * Ray, Kevin**


 * Simone, Josh**

a) I believe grades are used to motivate students to perform because knowing that all their work throughout an entire semester is reflected by a number definitely makes a student work hard to make sure that number is high.

b) I believe grades poorly measure how a student did in a class. A student could get an 89% in a class and receive a 3.0, but that doesn't mean the student isn't doing very well in the class, it just means they were not completely rewarded for their hard work which happens to a lot of students. Grades, however, are extremely important and there is no easy way around them and while they do not reflect how a student did in a class, it is the only thing that student has to show for.

c) By using the GPA scale, my grade dropped more than I would have liked it to. I think it shows that your grades can look good or bad depending on the scale used. Grades are really just a number though and you should never let them hold you back in whatever you want to do in life. I also think that in modern society, teenagers obsess over grades so much that I think it really takes the purpose out of education and has become more of how well did you on something rather than what did you actually learn.


 * Steinberg, Ross**

a) The purpose of grades is two-fold. Primarily, it is used as a way to determine how well students are comprehending material. Secondly, by quantifying success, competition is created between students regarding grades improving overall grades and therefore level of learning.

b) I feel grades are very good at creating competition over who can get the best grades, but are themselves poor indicators of student comprehension. This is because a students grades can get overly poor grades due to poor test taking skills, or a boredom in class which leads to homework incompletion. A student can get good grades simply through rote memorization and grade inflation, not true understanding. Grades are arbitrary; there is really no difference between an 89.4 and 89.51. It should also be notice that competition can get too intense and indeed end up hurting students by creating ire btetween them and their classmates and friends. So, considering all of this, it is my opinion that grades are detrimental to the learning process.

c) The new calculation system would change my GPA (I don't know if you want us to write if our GPA's will go up or down, and by how much they will go up or down, but I would prefer it if my grades were not a matter of public record). This tells me that grades are arbitrary, as they can go up or down depending on the grading scale used.

A) I think that grades are used at an educational level to display how well a person understands the topic or material that is being discussed. In addition, grades can also be used to show how hard a person works and how one acts in class.
 * Wagner, Jonny**

B) In my opinion, grades do a pretty good job at measuring how well a person understands the topic. Although some people are able to easilly go through a class without studying or trying and still get a very good grade, grades usually are able to show how hard a person has worked, trying to do almost anything to improve his or her grade. In some cases, grades do not reflect how a person acts in class. There are some kids who participate actively and still end up with unwanted grades, and at the same time there are kids who don't participate and still are able to get a good grade. Grades can reflect how a person works hard,understands, and participates in class, but do not always reflect what has occurred.

C) After using the adjusted gpa, I noticed the negative effects towards my gpa. Due to the fact that most of my A's were actually A minuses, my grades dropped, however it did feel nice to be rewarded for having a B+, because it was worth more than a very low scoring B. At the same time, I still feel that our gpa system may be better because I feel that it is hard to receive an A or A- in almost any class so people should still benefit from their hard work regardless of getting a 90 or 100 because both in my mind are impressive. I think if a new gpa were implemented, it should be a combination of the two scales talked about. I think that past an A range, our school should be a +/- range to value grades such as a B+. This system would show the importance of an A, but would still benefit kids who receive higher grades in a certain letter who still receive the same grade as someone who barely gets into that certain range.