Evaluation and Feedback by Sara

We send youth to school in order to gain knowledge and move onto successful careers, however this is something often hindered by ineffective evaluation. No matter how hard a student tries in school, without adequate evaluation and feedback, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to succeed. Despite our requirement as educators to introduce a certain amount of material to our students, it is all for not if they are not given ample opportunity to realize where they stand within the curriculum.

As a result of my group project being on evaluation, and in particular feedback, my thoughts immediately go towards this subject matter. Feedback, myself and my group mates introduced to the class last week, as many facets and different ways of working in the classroom—both positively and negatively. In class we have thoroughly discussed all the ways in which we can manage our classrooms, and feedback is most definitely one of them. Nevertheless, making use of feedback, especially in excess amounts or not the right type, can actually hinder a student’s progress. When feedback turns to praise of the student, rather than the work they are doing, issues arise.

So, what do we do instead, revert to feedback that focuses singularly on students progress: grades. But herein lays another problem. When students receive letter grades, or percentage grades, are they really understanding exactly what this means about the status of their progress? Is a letter grade even signifying a student’s progress at all? When given a letter grade, students get immediate feedback on their status within a class, but what they aren’t getting is an understanding of what factors contributed to that grade.

How then are we meant to evaluate our students efficiently and still allow them to understand and grow from it? This is no easy task. I feel however that we must find a happy medium between letter grades and oral feedback. While some of my classmates have been writing in their blogs that grading is a negative evaluation tactic, I feel that my personality type would not function well in a classroom without it. Without a concrete representation of how well I’m doing in a class, I find it really hard to get motivated and interested in the work I’m expected to complete. Even with oral and written feedback that explains the pros and cons of my work and allows me a groundwork to move forward, I really am attached to that grade—as bad as that may seem. This is why I believe that a combination of grade and feedback is a step in the right direction towards effective and profitable evaluation.