Thoughts on KPUP Grading System

 As we all know, the new KPUP grading system is composed of four different parts: Knowledge, Process, Understanding, and Performance. Knowledge covers the facts and information taught. Process tests how students assess or process the knowledge taught to them. Understanding is how the students understand and explain the lesson after processing it. Performance is the product or outputs of the students. As changes are added, we should expect some effects as well. Being a second year high school student myself, I have experienced the good and bad sides of this grading system.

  First of all, it had a good effect on the students in terms of giving effort in academics. Why? The answer is simple. All the graded seat works, quizzes, and long tests are now called assessments, and therefore they carry the same weight in terms of grading. This will enable students to study more and be  more conscious about their grades.

  On the other hand, it may also affect many people like me. Since seat works are given to students very often and they weigh a big part of our grades, it tends to stress the students out because it is just like having a quiz every other day. Another thing is that the process and understanding parts of the assessments can be subjective to some people. It did not affect me directly, but it did to some of my classmates. It is hard to get a concrete answer to those questions because not everyone has the same opinion and way of processing knowledge on a certain topic. Therefore it can give some students a hard time to adjust.

  In addition, school work just doubled this school year. A lot of students are already stressed out due to the amount of projects they have. I personally think that KPUP is affecting this indirectly. As the number of projects increase, the risks of not submitting them on time will also increase. What happens if no output is submitted? Students will have to say good bye to the 30% of their grades. Therefore, I think there should be a balance between the KPUP grading system and the amount of work given to the students, especially because this is just the first year of implementing KPUP.

written by JP Lee