As I was searching for a topic for my first blog entry, I decided to scroll through my Facebook newsfeed as a bit of a distraction. I came across an article one of my friends posted about a teacher who was fired from the Edmonton public school district for giving his students zeros. My friend made a comment about teachers not being able to do their jobs. This person also made the claim that grading is necessary because it gives the kids incentive and by not being able to fail kids, we are setting them up to not fail.
The whole idea that this person brought forth seems very flawed in my eyes. It relates back to the education system as it is right now as we know it. As we have discussed in class, the external motivation of grades is not an effective way of getting kids to learn and understand the information they are taking in. If the students are only memorizing facts because of the illusory benefit of getting good grades or because of the fear of getting a zero, chances are the students will only do what they have too to get these grades and very little beyond that. The students will not learn critical thinking skills or how to come up with original thought in relation to their interests. Obviously there are scenarios where some students are very keen and will go above and beyond and take their learning by the reigns but I think it is safe to say that a good majority will only do the bare minimum they have to. Many studies that I have read from sport and educational psychology classes show that the way to actually learn something and have it mean something to you is to have it personalized to each individual learner and allow the self pursuance of knowledge. This creates an internal motivation which is way more effective than an external motivator.
My main point behind this is not just based around motivation but the idea that our general society believes this system that we have now of giving grades is an effective way. In reality, this will affect the learning of the children and will hurt their self esteem if they have put in all this time studying for a test and get a bad grade and when they are at the age where self esteem is already a big issue, more stress than necessary is laid on the shoulders of our future generations. I leave you with a question for thought and comment. How can we as psychologists help to curb this attitude of the false effectiveness of this system? As a second part to this, what other effective ways of learning have you come across that could replace our contemporary testing system?
Life Long Learning: Evidence Based Education 
Hi Koleton,
I find motivation to be a very interesting topic since it covers so many domains surrounding what every individual takes part in. Aside from learning within the confines of a school, there is so much more to the process and how learning is perceived in other life experiences as well. In the topic of failure, your blog reminded me of my Psychology of Exercise course. We were in the midst of talking about the Self-Dertmination Theory and how failure can essentially be a tool to motivate an individual, depending on their own Self determination (Vallerand, Pelletier, and Koestler, 2008). For example, at a young age we are exposed to forms of failure such as keeping scores in our little league soccer game. From this standpoint I think it is not detrimental to the children as they have coaches to guide them to change the outcome. They not only get feedback on what they did right, but also have the opportunity to improve on the areas of weakness (Lenz, 2015). This can further be projected in other experiences. So in fact, maybe it is not quite the failure itself, but how we choose to see that failure that truly has hold over our learning experiences. To further answer your question, I believe from a young age if children are exposed to forms of failure with essential tools to guide them, there won’t be as many negative results. Our perspectives have a lot of driving force in the way we see ourselves and the world around us, therefore, having a grasp on being able to learn from negative experience can benefit the individual even in unfavourable circumstances.
Lenz, B. (2015). Failure is essential to learning. Edutopia. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/failure-essential-learning-bob-lenz
Vallerand, R. J., Pelletier, L. G., & Koestner, R. (2008). Reflections on self-determination theory. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 49(3), 257-262. doi:10.1037/a0012804
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I love this blog entry! It’s so true that the vast majority of people falsely believe in the importance of marks without having any scientific basis behind it. They often base their view on personal opinions rather than on scientific fact, spreading a message that is completely false. I think one of the main ways to curb this is by spreading evidence based opinions on how to properly educate. A lot of the evidence against the traditional educational learning system has already been found and is available. It is our job to spread this. Personally I have decided to share my blog on my Facebook where I have a lot of friend connections from all different walks of life; friends of parents, uneducated individuals, Ed. students etc. On my first blog alone I have had many good reactions from people saying that they weren’t aware with a lot of the flaws that I had pointed out about our system. I think the best way to make change is to present facts in an easy to understand way and make sure it is backed up with evidence rather than throwing out personal opinions based on feelings.
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That is awesome that you have decided to share your blog on your Facebook! That is a great step towards change but that is just a drop in the water as many people will still hold these preconceived notions to heart. It is the perfect example of confirmation bias. People ignore the facts that do not go along with their schemas which is why change has not happened sooner. This research is not new by any means. I think the reform should start with the education system and the people who will be the educators of our children in the future. Do not get me wrong and think that I am naive enough to believe that this change can happen over night. It is not practical. But steps should be taken now so we can solve this problem for the future.
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Reblogged this on psychinedindex.
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