About Me

Hey my name is Derek Schetselaar. I'm a full time student at Utah Valley University going into my sophomore year. I am passionate about teaching, and I teach tennis on the side. I love learning the best and most productive ways to learn. The purpose of this blog is to analyze whether grades work or if we should try another method.

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Article Response to-"Too smart to fail" by Joseph Holtgreive

Article Response             In an article by Joesph Holtgreive titled Too Smart to Fail, Holtgreive talks about students focusing too much on grades. Holtgreive starts off the essay by sharing an experience he had as a professor at Northwestern University. He had a student come in asking if she could drop the class after the drop date. After some discussion, he found out that she wanted to drop the class, because she had done poorly on the midterm exam. She was expecting that the class would be easy enough, where she could get an A without effort. Holtgreive points out that although she really liked the material discussed in class, she was not willing to learn it for a bad grade. He discusses that this is becoming widespread problem, and names two potential causes. Firstly, he talks about how students who breezed their way through high school creates a “inverse relationship between grades and effort.” He states that this means...
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History of Letter Grades

School seems like it has been around for forever. At least that's what millennials think, ever since they were turned Preschool age they have been going to school. Day in and Day out students go through the same routine. They wake up and go to school, come home and repeat the process the next day. Additionally, the letter grading system has become ingrained into our very culture. Its common knowledge to know that an "A" is good and and "F" is bad. How did letter grades start? Why don't we have an E? Some things become such common knowledge that they are never given a second thought to why they work the way that they do. Well here's to changing that---What is the history of letter grades. In the beginning of the 1800's education was starting in the newly formed United States of America. The education at this time period was very limited, most classes had one teacher and a mix of all ages and backgrounds for the students. The education was focused o...
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Are Grades Effective? (Original Research)

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Introduction Education is critical to the development of a society. It could be seen as the building blocks of a great society. Look at the Ancient Greeks with Aristotle or Plato, or the early revolutionaries of the early American empire. The importance of education seems to be recognized by most individuals. We put our kids in schools starting at a very young age, we encourage further education in our high schools, and we emphasis the importance of education is getting future employment. Although generally as a culture we emphasis the importance of education, we rarely evaluate the way we educate and how it accomplishes the objectives it strives to accomplish. Setting the Stage There are various opinions on how the education system should run. The most common methods include the pass/fail method, the traditional style, mastery-based learning, and grading on a curve. There are various pros and cons to the many different styles, and there are passionate and effective educators ...
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