My current annoyance with marks

In terms of, well, everything, marks are extremely frustrating to me. You hold an assessable task. Students crave the marks. Teachers obsess over the marks. Then...the marks disappear and the process starts again.

In an ideal world, the marks would disappear and the feedback would stick. In fact, in an ideal world, students would compare feedback with each other, rather than marks. They would take the time to carefully consider the feedback that teachers have carefully considered. 

I have lots of grudges against marks. But today’s issue is that marks are a snapshot of where students have been, rather than where they could be.

Students are fixated on a number that represents a point in time in the past. That’s the mark. Feedback, however, represents where students could be in the future. I think that’s more valuable. 

There’s this great documentary on Netflix called The Playbook that looks at different coaches and their approaches. The first ep is with NBA coach Doc Rivers. He makes this great point about how coaches aren’t focused on where a player is today but rather where they could be tomorrow. And this is the power of feedback. 

Good quality feedback is like the road map to future success. Marks are like looking in the rearview window. Students have the choice about where their focus lies. 

Also: I’d really love to see students compile a list of all teacher feedback they’ve received and look to apply it to all their future tasks. It’s something I’ve suggested, but no-one’s bit so far.