On Aug 12, 2016, at 4:51 PM, Michael Ofsowitz <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 8/12/16 1:00 AM, Chris Green wrote: >> Students can get obsessed about grades, and their emotional reactions to >> them can interfere with their motivation. But the solution to that problem >> is not to change the grades, but to undercut the widespread misapprehensions >> about grades. >> >> I sometimes wonder if we have completely forgotten why we give grades at >> all. Grades are not “rewards” or “punishments.” > Except when they are... we don't control this; if grades motivate or > demotivate (i.e., strengthen or weaken responses), they are rewarding or > punishing. Unfortunately. Student obsessions and misinterpretations overpower > my interpretations of grades. I don’t really see why they really need to. You seem to be denying the possibility that some “experiences” are just misapprehensions, and that they can be corrected with information. (Surely all of us got bad grades at one point or another in our academic careers, but we learned to overcome them and improve. Why should we presume in advance that our students are any less able?) We can help our students to interpret events such as poor grades not just more “positively” but also more correctly. We help them to understand grades as signals, help them to put their initial disappointment behind them, and to use the signal generate better performance in the future. Chris ….. Christopher D Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 43.773895°, -79.503670° [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo ………………………………... --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=49194 or send a blank email to leave-49194-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
