Grading Doesn't Teach Students How to Improve

This episode kicks off with the amusing revelation that Pablo Picasso, in his later years, sometimes required supervision in galleries because he had been caught trying to "touch up his own paintings"—a perfect, if eccentric, example of the "constant human drive we have to make things better". This impulse to refine, even our best work, serves as the springboard for a deep dive into the crucial distinction between evaluation and assessment. We explore why relying solely on evaluation, which delivers a judgment or grade right at the end and often lacks the necessary roadmap, risks getting students stuck in a cycle of repeated attempts hoping for a different outcome. Crucially aimed at educators trained primarily as evaluators, the episode details the shift required to adopt the assessment mindset, which involves f ...