Shifting from Grading to Learning

 From a student perspective, I have rarely been motivated by grading. This is in part because I found my own public school generally unchallenging, which meant that I was rarely required to put in significant effort to receive a good grade. Thus, the only reason to put effort in was out of a sense of intrinsic motivation. I don't say this to boast, but rather offer it as an observation of how a variety in student ability might actually lead to further stratification, since skilled students have more freedom to develop intrinsic motivations. I definitely did resonate with the assertion made by Cameron and Pierce that expected task contingent rewards have a negative impact on motivation, at least for me personally. That system of marking, to me, says that there is no difference between excellent work and merely satisfactory performance. One might argue that giving no grades at all is the same, but I think there is an intentionality there to replace grades with a more internalized standard of assessment that would be lost in the contingent rewards model. 

As a teacher (and frequent test-marker in my undergrad) I generally find percentage grading frustrating. It's unreasonable to expect to wholly summarize a student's comprehension and performance in a single number or even a small set of numbers. This means that even their most often touted use - administration and acceptance to further education - is suspect. It is unimaginable that every student who applies to a program with a 92% score in Grade 12 Physics is an identically talented individual. There are variations in their class structure, the teacher marking, and all manner of other circumstantial factors.

 I think that it would extremely challenging to enter a school and suddenly teach without grades (even if an entirely grade of subject area did so together). As the article states, students are often extremely grade-motivated and have lost the sense of intrinsic motivation that we might expect from young children. I am optimistic, though, because I recall that my own elementary school education was moving away from formal grading when I was that age, so perhaps the movement for grade-free teaching can follow a cohort of students up through their education and thus avoid a culture-shock which might impede the smooth adoption of the policy.