Unpacking the Evolution of Schools and Grading - E134

This week, we are continuing our book study with chapter 2 of Grading for Equity: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How It Can Transform Schools and Classrooms by Joe Feldman. Specifically, we will dive into the history of schools and grading and examine what's changed and what's not changed (which is a lot!).

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**For detailed show notes, please visit our website at https://edugals.com/134**

• Chapter 1 - E130
• Changes in society that affected our model of school
  • Manufacturing - need for factory workers, prepare students to be good employees, critical thinking is highly valued now
  • Migration and Immigration - assimilation, movement from rural to urban, FNMI, history repeats itself
  • Intelligence Testing and Categorization - IQ tests used for streaming purposes, IQ tests not equitable, created barriers to pathways for students, de-streaming is beginning to address these inequities, college vs university pathway (college is much more career-focused which is great)
  • Progressive Educators - John Dewey was ahead of his time, he saw the inequities that existed and saw school as a way to improve position in society, other behaviourists (BF Skinner, Pavlov) - operant conditioning applied to our education system
• How did this impact schools?
  • Quiet vs noisy classrooms - humans are social, quiet is no longer as valued, mastery-based learning supports active and collaborative classrooms where all students are on task
  • Learning skills - not a lot of change, skills like following directions, punctuality are still highly valued
• History of Grading
  • Very descriptive and individualized and shifted to letter grades for efficiency reasons
  • Now we are returning to more descriptive and individualized feedback
  • Bell Curves - if grades fit within a bell curve, it means that the approach taken had no impact on student learning; instead, we want to see skews towards higher achievement to show a positive impact

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