It’s the first day of break, and you wake up feeling relieved that there’s no school. Nevertheless, the first thing you do is open your phone and check Canvas. The screen blinks back at you without the grade you’re looking for. The grade on that test that you had right before break is still looming, casting a cloud of anxiety over your vacation. You try to forget about it, but it’s all you can think about. Finally, your phone buzzes, and the grades are in. You realize that no matter how well you did, you can’t do anything about it now. You keep asking yourself the same thing: “How could I have done better?” Seeing that number on your screen doesn’t give you sufficient feedback, because you don’t know what you need to improve on.
One solution to this is that assessment grades on Canvas shouldn’t be released until you get to have the test itself back in your hands.
Then, when students see their grade, they can have some understanding of why they got those results. When students only see a number and don’t have the test itself, they can’t see which questions they got wrong. It can foster an inaccurate perception about performance because without having all the context, students feel like they made more major mistakes than they actually did.
Some might think that getting access to grades as soon as they’re available would relieve stress, but for many, that’s not the case. Having to anticipate the grades coming out on phones just adds to the anxiety and makes things worse. Obviously, some people don’t get as anxious about tests as others; school affects everyone differently. I get especially uneasy over assessments and hate waiting for my grade after taking the test.
The whole process of waiting for grades to be released online can be particularly nerve-wracking because they can pop up on the screen at any moment. If students only got grades back during school, they would know when to expect them. For example, if you could only get your essay back during D-block English, you would know the grade could not surprise you before then. If I could only get my grades back in class, I wouldn’t have to spend the time until then on my phone, feeling a sense of dread. Of course, nerves can still arise about a grade on a test regardless of how the grades are returned, but having the concrete knowledge of when to expect them could help with the uncertainty that comes with not knowing when they will be given out.
An additional negative outcome of digital grade release is spending more time on devices. Having access to test grades on electronics before they come out on paper can lead students to use their phones a lot, just waiting for that grade to appear. I find myself doing this frequently, and I even get messages from kids in my classes minutes after the grades are released telling me to check Canvas! If grades came out on paper first, there would be no need to spend so much time online waiting for them to come.
School should be a place where students can learn and grow without having too much angst over assignments and tests. Academic stress is inevitable, but why not reduce it as much as you can? Sometimes people want to know the results right away, but often it’s better to wait until they can get more information and a clearer perspective. Without digital grades impending, especially during respites like weekends or breaks, the burden of anticipation could be lifted off our shoulders.
