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ROLE On Update: Real Results

Jan 17, 2011 » by Michael Barata

Mark Barnes, who is being featured in our “ROLE On” series, is back with another update about his Results-Only Learning Environment. Today, he explains the most important part of learning should be learning (results) – not just the grade.

Change is never easy. After a wonderful beginning to my new Results Only Learning Environment, I hit a wall recently that made me realize that a systemic change like this takes time.

As you know, if you’ve read prior posts, there are no grades in my classroom, until the end of a grading period when, based on district mandates, I have to put a grade on a report card for all students. My way around this is to have students reflect on all activities, projects and assessments, along with the feedback I’ve provided and then grade themselves.

In the first quarter, this worked beautifully. Every student assessed himself or herself as I would have, with some being harder on themselves than I would have been. This quarter, things were a bit different.

My regular (code for lower-level) language arts students were much more critical than the honors (code for more advanced) students were. For some reason, this time around, numerous honors students assigned higher grades than I would have. I was frustrated by this, to the point of calling them out on it. I told them they should take a second look at their production rather than their effort, as we live by the results only. (Many had said they deserved an A, based on hard work.)

“I’ll give you any grade you want,” I announced curtly, “if all you care about is that nice, shiny letter on a report card.”

Most were quick to re-evaluate and lower their original estimate. One student, however, wouldn’t budge. We spoke at length about her production or lack thereof. I translated activities to points, showing her how, if we used this more traditional method of grading, she’d receive a much lower grade than the A she coveted.

Then, in classic teacher mode, I figured I’d outsmart this adolescent. “It’s your grade,” I said. “If you care more about a letter than you do the learning, I’ll give you the A.”

After a long pause, I asked, “So, what do you think?” I was certain she’d see my point.

“I’ll take the A,” she said.

As she walked away, I realized that she and her peers have been conditioned to get the highest grade possible, at all costs. If a teacher is willing to give an A, even when one is not merited, why not take it? For a moment I felt defeated.

After I pondered the event, it struck me that a results-only system is sort of like the automobile was when it first rolled off the assembly line. It took a lot more than a few months for everyone to get off of their horses.

It’s going to take a lot more than half a school year to convince all of my students that those letters they are so used to receiving aren’t really so important.

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  • http://www.pivotcommunication.ca Melodie Barnett

    Mark, first congrats on having the guts to take this approach to learning. I wish I had a teacher like you when I was in school.

    Second, I put your A student in the same category as that small percentage of employees who need to be managed because they don’t act like adults. Not everyone will thrive in ROWE or ROLE for that matter. And that’s okay. The world needs a few cogs. I just don’t want to be one, and I’d rather surround myself with others who don’t want to be cogs either. But there will always be a few. Focus your efforts on and celebrate those who embrace the truth about results being the true measure of success… the rest will find their way to the assembly line or where ever they land, and that’s okay too…

  • Persephone K

    I think Mark is doing a great thing, though I wonder why giving students a great has to be against the ROLE philosophy. It seems to me that as long as the students know exactly what is expected of them and what success looks like, giving a grade seems very ROWE to me. Or is it simply a problem with having to give a gradient of passing instead of a pass/fail?

  • Chris

    This is both genius and idiotic. With the competition for admittance to colleges, masters programs/law school every student should take the A.

    Given the nature of this site, most may pity this girl. However, in some sense she is to be admired for not caring about what her “teacher” thought. She got what she wanted/needed and ran him over like so many other students haven’t had the guts to do.

  • http://learnitin5.com Mark Barnes

    Thanks for the thoughts about this latest ROLE on post. I love the feedback.

    Melodie, I appreciate your support, and I definitely won’t allow a few “cogs” to get in my way.

    Persephone, whether it’s a ROWE philosopy or not, I am against grades entirely, as they serve only to punish students or reward the wrong thing. They don’t foster real learning. Having said that, I must give a grade according to my district, and it can’t be pass/fail.

    Chris, I encourage my students to think for themselves. I tell them they don’t have to agree with me. The students who didn’t run me over, as you put it, chose an appropriate grade, not because they’re cowards, but because they’ve grown to understand that learning is far more powerful than a letter on a page.

    They respect the process of production-feedback-change, along with self-assessment.

    If you think the student who was intent upon getting an A is in some way courageous, I don’t think you understand ROWE or ROLE, which are both built on intrinsic motivation and valuing accomplishments. As of now, this student doesn’t understand either of these.

    Incidentally, no college looks at middle school grades, so there’s no reason for students to manipulate the system and ask for A’s even when they didn’t produce. I hope that learning this so young will make them value learning over grades, even when they get to high school.

    • PersephoneK

      Hi Mark,

      Thanks for the follow up, though I still don’t think grades, if given appropriately, have to be antithetical to learning. A ROWE/ROLE is about results only right? If you as the instructor can determine an appropriate result – whatever that may be – then it should be measurable and thus gradeable. I can understand wanting to shift the focus from the grade itself aka the carrot and back to actual learning but I think there’s room for both. After all if they’re achieving the result you hope for them to achieve, which I’m assuming would be the course objective, then a grade is really just semantic anyway. It’s just an extrinsic translation into district speak of what you and the students have already measured intrinsically. What am I missing?

      • http://learnitin5.com Mark Barnes

        Persephone, your insight into grades is thoughtful. Here’s what I believe you’re missing, if I may be so bold. My problem with grades is that typically we get to them via points and percentages. For example, an activity is assigned, let’s say an essay. The essay is worth 100 points. Sally writes a solid essay that completes most of the requirements.

        Inevitably, subjectivity becomes part of all grading. So, I score Sally’s essay a 78. Now, Sally, who may believe she’s met the requirements and gave her best effort, gets a C+.

        In most classes, this is final, and Sally is out of luck with the grade.

        Later, there may be a test, on which Sally scores 80. Again, she’s stuck with this C+/B- grade, and she is heading toward a similar grade for the marking period. There’s no chance to improve — to demonstrate real learning.

        In my class, there are no points. If I think Sally missed something on her essay, I give her specific feedback about it and ask her to change it. If it’s something technical, I can sit down and show her how to do it one-on-one. Otherwise, she can make the changes on her own, based on written feedback, and re-submit the work. Now, she’s not punished by that C+.

        Any test I give is for diagnostic purposes only. It never hurts a student. If there is a low score, I use the data to see what the student missed in the unit, and I reteach it. The student retakes the diagnostic but, again, it has no effect on any grade.

        Hope this helps.

  • JACH

    The main idea ’bout ROWE is that we have to change our focus from time to results, right?

    Well, you might be trying to change the focus to the results also, but the main target of the game is still an A (as Chris pointed out, to get to college),not to learn.

    So I think that ROLE is a remarkable thing to try, but as long as you need to get an A to get to the next level, you should expect this kind of behavior often.

    We can’t label the girl as dishonest or smart… she just know the rules of the game she’s playing in.

    • http://learnitin5.com Mark Barnes

      Hey Jach, you make a good point about not labeling. I certainly hope I didn’t imply that I was labeling my student. She certainly is not dishonest.

      I think she doesn’t understand our goal.

      You are, however, wrong about the “target.” It is definitely not to get an A. An A is not needed to get to “the next level.” Unlike the workplace, the main goal of education is learning, and I want to teach my students to be life-long learners and to always strive to complete projects, based on outcomes.

      If they complete the project and it equates to an A, so be it. I ask students to take feedback on their initial work and to make changes, based on that feedback. If they fail to do this, they have not met the goal of the activities. Since I’m required to assign a grade, I ask them to evaluate the production and the feedback. If they have not done all that I’ve asked, their evaluation should be less than an A.

      Again, to be clear, I don’t care about the grade. I want them to learn and to seek further learning, based on our activities.

      Sadly, school is too much of a game, to use your words. I try to teach my kids to stop playing, though.

      Thanks for your insights. It’s a dialogue that I value.

      • JACH

        Well, I hope that I didn’t imply that you shouldn’t try. What I meant is that it is going to be difficult, since the whole school system works that way. It’s like “selling” ROWE in my workplace (which is really nice… but not close to ROWE), because what we “sell” is work hours (disguised as engineering work). To ask to change to a ROWE would be to ask to drop the whole business and start a new one.
        So… I do agree that the purpose of school is to learn, but the whole system is set up so the “invisible goal” for every child is to get an A.
        Still, I read that you had great results even with these obstacles. Congrats!

  • M. Scott Tatum

    Part of the issue of the “grade-grabber” as I like to call them is the lack of autonomy and control they have over the objectives in the first place.

    At the end of the day, unless they’re making their own goals and objectives of their learning you are still insisting on a process for them..whether implied or directly noted. This is a byproduct of our infantilizing students as a system and creating a series of “skills” we believe they must know in order to be “successful.” But even the very nature of what we consider to be successful in our society puts into place an almost insurmountable barrier for young people to create their own identity for themselves as they develop. (i.e., do they need to re-edit an essay 20 times to the mandated standard if they plan to run their parents’ restaurant or become a sanitation engineer)

    Instead, we ask for them to deprogram once they get into the workplace..especially at a ROWE inspired institution.

    Much of this has to do with the efficiency of scale, the model of school as the “place where you learn things” and a general lack of understanding of how things are created in our world.

    As a teacher in a blessedly less regulated content area, I’m happy to report that we begin with one big idea and create our objectives as a class and as individuals around that idea, find projects that fit their interests and skill levels, remove the burden of the grade altogether by putting in simple concepts such as “did you do it?” and spend much time on developing one’s own sense of artistry, learning, and process.

    The result is the process. The process is the result.