5) Devise New Evaluation Methods
• The "standard formula" works for some people but leaves most of us feeling disengaged and frustrated. Even geniuses such as E. Galois and Albert Einstein failed at school because they did not meet the standard formula.
• Many large corporations such as Google, Microsoft, and IGN are finding that GPA or school prestige or even ranking employees against each other is not useful, so they are instead creating performance-based assessments for doing tasks in context (Rose, 2016).
- An assessment should reflect real-world ways that knowledge is used.
• Students are given options to choose their own assignments which will be graded.
• For English major, a student can submit his or her own novel for evaluation instead of submitting traditional forms of assignments that have no real implications in one's life.
• Rather than relying on GPA/class ranking, letters of recommendations and capstone projects might provide qualitative evidence that students possess those abilities most valued by employers—analytical ability, independence, creativity, communication, and leadership skills.
- Your grade starts with 0 instead of 100
In the traditional education system, you start at an “A,” and every time you get something wrong, your score gets lower and lower. At best it’s demotivating, and at worst it has nothing to do with the world you occupy as an adult. In the gaming world (e.g. Angry Birds), it’s just the opposite. You start with zero and every time you come up with something right, your score gets higher and higher.
- We need to make an environment that encourages failures.
Astro Teller, who runs Google’s innovation branch “X,” talks a lot about encouraging failure. At X, they regularly try to “kill” their ideas. If they are successful in killing an idea, and thus “failing,” they save lots of time, money and resources. The ideas they can’t kill survive and develop into billion-dollar businesses. The key is that each time an idea is killed, Astro rewards the team -- literally, with cash bonuses. Their failure is celebrated and they become a hero.
- We need to allow flexible curriculum as much as possible for high school/college students.
Ex 1. Brisbane Free University:
• has no fixed address
• values free access to knowledge
• sees the human aspect of educational processes as paramount and therefore situates discussions in a physical space, as opposed to online
• changes learning structures by giving equal time to speakers as to open discussion
• involves no exchange of money
• offers no accreditation
• operates independently of any political organisation, NGO, formal university or funding body.
Ex 2. The curriculum at Brown University allows maximum flexibility in each student’s course of study ("Brown's Grading System").
• The Brown transcript records only full-letter grades of A, B or C (without plusses and minuses) or S (for Satisfactory).
• There is no grade of D, and failing grades are not recorded.
• You can take as many classes as you want S/NC (Pass/Fail), though it may not be wise to do so if you’re considering grad school.
• There are no general education requirements (the philosophy being that you should only be in a class if you want to be in that class)
• As a result of having no core requirements, many students elect to double concentrate (oftentimes combining STEM + humanities) and/or step outside of their comfort zone, academically
• During the first two weeks of every semester, Brown has a Shopping Period, where everyone can drop in and “shop” any courses before choosing which to take; once Shopping Period ends, you select four classes that you plan on taking
• Brown does not calculate your GPA or class ranking
• You have access to graduate-level courses, even as a freshman (a friend of mine is taking a graduate-level deep learning seminar)
• You can drop your class up until the last day of classes (though it’ll remain on your internal record)
• All undergrads come in undeclared and do not declare their concentration until sophomore spring (as a corollary, changing concentrations is quite easy)
All of the freedom can be crippling. But it’s also liberating. You, and you alone, are in the driver’s seat of your education.
________
References
Diamandis, Peter. "Reinventing Our Kids Education." Tech Blog. Sep, 2018.
https://www.diamandis.com/blog/reinventing-our-kids-education
--. "Schooling For Tomorrow: Top Five Technologies That Will Reshape The Future Of Education." Entrepreneur. Dec 4, 2018.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/324205
Rose, Todd. The End of Average. HarperOne, 2016.
"Brown's Grading System."
https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/careerlab/employers/employer-resources/browns-grading-system
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