Jump to content

Survey - Grades and Motivation


Tyro

Recommended Posts

The only thing about grades is that they measure only your "academic" intelligence, while ignoring the other types. People who are say, kinesthetically-gifted may not do well on a math test and think they are "dumb", then proceed to give up while they are in fact, very intelligent.

Edited by moneyfaery
Link to post
Share on other sites

Grades is EVERYTHING.

I dunno, but for me, I just think when I'm in class, "How is this possibly going to help me in the future?" One good example would be science class. I have no intention on becoming a scientist, but I am still required to study cells. If it were not for the grade, I would not try at all. But because of the grades, I have to. I am literally being forced to learn.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Personally i use grades as a way to motivate myself and judge my study skills. For example if i facebook all night long instead of studying for a test, i'll most likely get a low 80 on the test. and through this i learn a lesson on not to facebook too much.

What happens if instead of an 80 you got 40. What would your parents do?? :P Sure you may have learned to not use facebook as much, but this is only one incident.

What I'm trying to say is, if you mess up once on a big project, like say get a 40 on a big test, your screwed for the whole subject. Shouldn't we get more than one chance? I dunno :P

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I don't know if this thread is dead by now...but anyway

I think grades are great, but only to a certain limit. Focusing the entire energy of school on the focus of grades is not my idea of learning. Grades should be the mark telling you whether you're doing well or not. [As corny as that sounds]. Schools makes students so competitive about grades that we lose the entire point of getting an education, although the IB, as much as its stressful, has made me like school again. We can only be motivated by the actual want to learn, and for me, grades can never be a motivation. Yeah, of course I want my essays back with a grade, but it's for me to compare my own essays and to see whether there has been improvement. Within a year, there should be improvement. It's annoying when people go to school just for the grades, without having the curiosity to learn. Yeah, I know I sound like the biggest nerd here, but really. I like to talk about the things learned, to discuss them..it helps me learn and understand the concepts better. But you can't do that with someone who doesn't give **** about what was learned in class, and their only focus being how much Lab #5 will effect the overall grade.

Luckily, my parents have been the type to never really bug me about work. They know I work, so they quit nagging me a long time ago. They do care about my grades, but they know I don't slack off and that I'm responsible for studying, etc..

Just my two cents..

Link to post
Share on other sites

What I'm trying to say is, if you mess up once on a big project, like say get a 40 on a big test, your screwed for the whole subject. Shouldn't we get more than one chance? I dunno :D

Some teachers use the 'most consistent mark', thereby eliminating this possibility. Although, personally, I don't really care. School should reflect life to some extent, and you won't be given many chances to 'make up for screw ups'.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...
It's good to have a balance of life and school or you'll burn out really quickly (trust me, I've seen it happen).

I agree, especially since personally I'm not willing to waste away my whole life on studying. It's important, but it shouldn't dominate your whole life. After all, we're supposed to enjoy living, right? Just get everything done while you're at it.

Though there was a girl in my school who studied day and night; she didn't even give herself a break long enough to shave her legs (no kidding). And in the end she graduated as the top student in her class...she got a 42 in her IB diploma. But did she enjoy high school at all?

Anyway, whether or not grades motivate a student can depend on the teacher as well. If you study really hard, but your teacher gives you a bad grade just because you forgot a few lines (or you didn't write a few words or something), then you're really not going to be motivated anymore. You'll basically think you'll get a bad grade no matter how much you study, so there's no point in studying that hard.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Grades are important period. If you want to go to a good uni and get a good job, those grades are going to get you there. I stress about my grades because i know my goals and my dreams and i can not allow for one b to ruin my life. In my school, there is a small I.B population and sorry to say the population is not very diverse, i feel like i have to work extra hard to get to where i want to go. In I.B we joke about our grades and stuff. The regular kids that are not in I.B are only worried about passing the class so if they were to get all c's and 1 d they would be very happy but for the kids in I.B, a B is very bad and it forces us to do more studying and work harder to get a better grade. because we are in I.B we know the consequances of not getting good grades. It is not the idea of being grounded or any severe punishment handed down by the parents, it is your not being accepted into the college you want to go to. Just the taught of that causes many people in IB to sit up and work hard

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

My algebra II/Precal teacher made this AHmazing quote.

"Concern for grades doesn't increase learning, but concern for learning increases grades." And I agree.

For me personally, making good grades isn't enough. (Except maybe in Chemistry, I hate that stuff.) If I miss something, I want to know why. If I get something right, it sticks with me and I make sure to repeat the past. And honestly, learning the material and knowing it well ultimately leads to good grades anyway, and if you do your best and work your hardest and still make B's and C's, it's not the end of the world. Keep working and getting help and you're grades will improve. Grades are just numbers and letter's, not the determinant of your intelligence.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Grades can be very halpful for motivation but they can also be very helpful for the opposite. If people get bad grades all the time they might in the end think that there is no point in continuing to put any effort in the school, but if people recceive good grades it might motivate them even more. However, in the end we go to school to test our abilities and the only way to do that is by giving grades. If students get to know the reasons for being graded, and if teachers and parents tell them a lot about it, then it should be fine to give grades because this is the way we will be judged later in our lives so why not learn it from an early stage?

There is a difference between competition and grading, I think it is good if students don't have to compete with each other but rather get graded.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I don't mind that much. Last year i got bad grades because i didn't do my homework and just did a last minute cram. However this year i just did a math test and got a bad mark. However i wasn't sad or depressed because i studied and i knew my stuff. It's just that i didn't practice the questions enough and got stressed out before the test. So yea. As long as i've studied I don't often get depressed about bad grades. They do however makes me less motivated for a day or two.

Link to post
Share on other sites

sorry i'm an aussie kid but i still wanted to have my say,

grades for me reflect my progress. but they don't mean anything to me, i find getting distressed over a crappy grade stupid as so many things could have affected it and it does not necessarily indicate your commitment throughout the entire semester. eg. i did really bad on my yr10 exam because the lunch break before we had a b'day party thing so i was still hyper.

once you get over the fact that yes you did crap then they begin to motivate you to do better next time round :unsure:

Link to post
Share on other sites

Do grades promote or undermine learning? If we're talking about strictly learning, and I am forced to choose one or the other, I would say it undermines it. For a lot of my peers it's all just about beating the 'system' and using certain strategies to raise their grades [eg, sucking up to the teacher]. It all depends on the individual but in most cases the focus lies in working towards a number, not in understanding the coursework.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Hmm...well, it really all depends, with me. Sometimes a bad grade will motivate me to do better, but sometimes I feel so discouraged I just give up and suffer *coughMathcough*. Same with good grades -- I have a 3.5 in History right now, for example, so I kinda slack off and don't do the reading I know I'm supposed to do. =/

Augh...I'm not helping, am I? :)

Link to post
Share on other sites

Personally, I think that grades truly do promote learning. However, at the same time, with the existence of grades, a very important skill is often ignored in favour of grades - teamwork. Grades are a great deterrence to cooperation with your classmates. Of course, there are MANY people out there who will go out of their way to help you but I'm pretty convinced that's the minority. And why is this? Because people don't want you to perform better. Because people do want you to fail.

Unfortunately though, as students, I believe that grades are the biggest factor propelling us to learn and actually absorb information. We all know that the most direct way to success is to get good grades. Of course, that's not to say that you can't succeed without good grades - but this is the conventional route to success. Without grades, there are no factors measuring our performance. By nature, we are lazy creatures. I can say safely that for me, at least, I'd succumb to that tendency to just completely slack and learn nothing.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

You're only ever judged on your grades [:

If I didn't need to get grades to get to where I want to go and do what I want to do, I'd never do it. Simple as that. I'd be living on a tropical island. I don't think they promote learning as such-- I mean, to get top grades you don't actually have to be the smartest (except for in the IB, come to think of it...) but actual experiences of learning for pleasure, learning for the sake of learning.. the sort of stuff which gives real dedication and love of learning doesn't ever come from grades.

They do undermine learning to an extent in that we have to learn to a specific syllabus etc etc and it's quite closed, not encouraging further thought.. but then without them, not many people would ever do anything. Love/hate x]

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...