Alternatives to grades: Skills trees

Last week, I went over a few reasons why traditional grading is a terrible system. It fails on its most crucial aims: Indication of level, progress and skill, and motivation for progress. There are better systems already out there, and beginning this week I will cover some of the alternatives.

Skills trees

Breaking down each subject into distinct parts - for example, maths into Basic Division, Basic Addition, Division 1-3, Addition 1-3, Advanced Division etc - is not a particularly new idea. In fact, it is commonly done already in most schools around the world. It's just that this isn't really given much weight outside of the curriculum itself, and the way it's done leaves a lot of students lagging. Currently, subjects are taught by time periods. If you haven't mastered basic division in the time the whole class is given - say, a week - then tough luck, next week the subject will be different.

This is a shame, because it loses track of what the point of this breaking down of subjects is all about: Actually teaching the students those skills. Instead, the focus falls on lecturing the students on those skills, and then testing them for what they've learned. Rarely does the teacher get an opportunity to revisit what they know the students haven't learned.

There are schools out there who are using a different approach, however. It's called the mastery based approach to learning, and it tends to necessitate this sort of breaking down subjects into skills and levels. Khan Academy's knowledge map is an excellent illustration of how this could work.

Khan Academy's Knowledge Map

The map is a skills tree, a simple tree structure consisting of nodes and edges. Completing a node indicates mastery of the skill taught in that node, and edges open to other nodes the student now qualifies for. Completion is unlocked through successfully solving a set number of problems within each node in a row without asking for hints or help. In other words, once a student has mastered a skill, they can move on to work on the next one.

It is a way of thinking that is very familiar to many students, who see this way of structuring progress in the video games that they play. It also lends itself very easily to certain ways of rewarding and motivating progress, particularly those that belong to the category of "gamification" techniques. This is a topic I will return to frequently in this series of blogs, as it is highly relevant and more than worth mentioning.

Another advantage of using skills trees to "grade" progress is that they give a far more complete picture of the students' skill levels. Just by looking at the map, you know what the student knows. An advantage not at all shared with traditional grading.

This type of progress indicator is not without its problems, however. More abstract and less discrete subjects, where the students' skills and knowledge are not as easy to delineate, can be problematic to map on a skills tree.

Problematic, but not impossible.

Most subjects have parts of it that can be delineated pretty clearly. In English, for example, grammar is such a part. It is clearly structured, and can be broken down into sub-parts just like maths. Writing, on the other hand, is different, and it can be argued that it would be difficult to break it down in the same way as maths or grammar. But with a little thought you can get close. All teachers know this, because they have to do it when grading: Break a text down into structure, arguments, creativity and so on. Though you can do this, it is important to keep in mind that you should not think of mastery or skills trees as any sort of silver bullet for assessment. Differing situations may call for differing methods. But it is certainly one more bullet for your chamber.