Grading Students

When discussing grading, the authors in our readings were actually discussing testing. I believe that there is a substantial difference between a test grade and a grade that reflects the student's mastery of the material. Paul Goodman advocates the abolition of high pressure tests, Howard Gardner wants to reduce the pressures of the SAT exam and Diane Ravitch defends testing in general, but wants to change the formats. I see a connecting theme, all the authors believe that our current system is flawed, they only differ on how to fix it. My solution to the test based grading system is to maintain the traditional grading scale, but change how the students earn those grades.
I agree with Howard Garndner that we must not measure a particular student's speed or test taking skill. We must have alternative means of assessing the student's knowledge. I believe that the student is best measured when the course culminates with an application of the skills or knowledge learned, not in a high pressure test. Testing encourages a blind regurgitation of facts and discourages independent curiosity. Who would spend extra time studying an interesting aspect of a course when they knew it would not be on the test?
Traditionally, the maths and sciences have used high pressure tests to assess their students understanding while the literature and history classes have used culminating papers and projects in which the students apply the core concepts learned in that class. I believe that all courses would be better able to assess true mastery of the material through in depth projects. Science classes would be centered around Labs and science projects investigating the specific topics. Ravtich advocates math exams on which students’ show how they arrived at their answer and not blind guessing. Math classes would have tests that focused on the process leading to the correct answer and not how fast one could work through multiple choice problems.
Tests are a valuable tool for assessment, however there is too much reliance on speed based multiple choice exams. These exams do not demonstrate the student's ability beyond their test taking skills. I think we should restructure the tests to place emphasis on how the student arrives at the correct answer, and restructure the courses to place far less importance on tests and much more on the application of the core concepts learned in the class.