Colegio Bolivar English teacher, Kathy Maryska, finds herself getting bombarded with questions that have to do with numbers as students attempt their writing tasks.  She commonly hears, How long does it have to be? How many sentences should I write?  If I write 7 sentences rather than 5 sentences will I get extra credit? and the like.  Maryska recognizes that her students are mistakenly equating quantity with quality.  She focuses her teaching efforts on dispelling this myth by defining quality and expecting quality from her students in a way that has nothing to do with numbers.  “The truth is, in a reading and writing classroom, it is always about quality.  The quantity, the numbers, they don’t exist,” Maryska states in her workshop for Primary teachers on reading and writing for 21st century learners (2015).  Teachers of course know this, but it could use redefinition and reflection so that every lesson, every assessment busts this myth that quantity equals quality.

Authors of the ASCD Publication Five Levers to Improve Learning (Frontier and Rickabaugh, 2014) attribute quantity-quality confusion to two common errors:  1) substituting what is easy to measure for what is important to measure and 2) measuring compliance of a task rather than quality of performance related to learning goals.

Substituting what is easy to measure for what is important to measure.

It is easy to measure student success with numbers.  Ideas can be quantified relatively easily:  3 examples, 5 paragraphs, a 7-up sentence (more than seven words).  Numbers are usually more objective than other types of descriptors which tends to make the whole assessment process easier.  But this numerical criteria – though easy to define and measure – is not related to quality.

Rubrics that are not carefully designed can reinforce students’ misconception that quantity equals quality.  Consider the following rubric:

According to this rubric, any student who includes four details in a certain project would get a level four.  But are those details relevant?  Are they communicated clearly?  Are they presented in an organized manner?  Are they supported by evidence?  Did the student elaborate adequately?  Did they incorporate academic vocabulary?  These are the questions that address quality.  These are the questions that matter.  Also with this rubric, a student who attempts to use new, higher level vocabulary or more complex sentence structures would likely be penalized for their errors although their work might be of higher quality than another student who took the safe route with the same number of errors.  The rubric does not make it clear whether spelling and grammar errors obscure meaning or whether the errors represent one misconception or many.  For example, a student might attempt to use dialogue to convey their ideas and have 6 errors due to incorrect comma use in their quotations.  Or a student might struggle with b/d reversals which results in 10 spelling errors.  Both of these examples constitute several mistakes, but just one misconception.

Describing quality – what is important to measure – is usually done by setting learning goals and expectations for success using the language of the standards.  Frontier and Rickabaugh (2014) say this language helps clarify and guide where teachers and students should put their effort to produce high-quality work.  Using the language of the standards to set learning goals and exepectations sounds like this:  Write relevant and descriptive details that show your understanding of ________. instead of Include four details about _______.  This changes the focus of teaching and learning.  Questions students ask shift from How many sentences does it have to be? to What is a relevant detail?  The latter question is harder to answer and a more rigorous task to accomplish, but worth the struggle.

Measuring compliance of a task rather than quality of performance related to learning goals.

Students often understand the directions of an assigned task, but don’t connect to the specific learning goal or understand where they should focus their effort to improve their learning.  As a result, students misplace importance on what they are doing (the task) rather than why they are doing it (the learning goal).  This is especially prevalent when a task is described in terms of quantitative expectations rather than qualitative expectations.

Effective instruction requires establishing and communicating learning goals to students as well as clarifying the distinction between the task and the learning goal.  In classrooms where the focus is on the task or quantities, students view learning as an endless cycle of assignments, projects, quizzes, and tests with little to no meaning.  When a teacher helps students focus on the standards and learning goals (quality) rather than solely the components of a task, students understand where to invest their effort and why it is important in terms of developing their skills.  Projects begin to have meaning beyond compliance, earning points, or preparing for a test.  Questions begin to shift from Am I done? to Is this done well and how can I make this even better?  

Frontier and Rickabaugh (2014) recommend breaking standards down into manageable learning goals and communicating the learning goals to students in student-friendly language to set the bar for quality.  Giving students an opportunity to write down the goal in the following way helps to distinguish between the task and the learning goal:  “Do [task] to develop your ability to [learning goal]” (2014).  Finally, using the language of standards in activities, rubrics, and in giving feedback to students, keeps the focus on quality and achieving learning goals rather than simply completing tasks.

When English teacher Kathy Maryska gets a new group of students, she invites them to the board to write what they know about paragraphs.  Inevitably, students offer different ranges of numbers for how many sentences a paragraph should have.  She responds by telling students, “It’s quality over quantity.  In this class, we don’t ever have to talk about numbers again” (Maryska, 2015).  Teachers know it’s about quality over quantity.  Numbers can be so tempting though because they are easy to define, explain, and assess.  This post has offered an opportunity to redifine and reflect upon what is easy to measure versus what is important to measure and task compliance versus quality of performance.

Are there any other myth busters out there?  I’m calling all myth busters at Colegio Bolivar and across the globe to get on board to be part of this paradigm shift where the focus of writing and learning is quality, not quantity.  Leave your comments, questions, or resolve to be part of this movement below!

Works Cited:

Frontier, T., & Rickabaugh, J. (2014). Lever 3: Standards. In Five levers to improve learning: How to prioritize for powerful results in your school [Kindle Version].

Maryska, K. (2015, May). Reading and writing for 21st century learners [Workshop].