Is is time for a quantum revolution in student assessment?
Background: One of the most important differences between classical and quantum physics was the replacement of scalar quantities by vector quantities.
How does have this have any relation to education? I don't think that the scalar quantities that educators are so used to using (marks from 0-100, letter grades, individual marks on test questions) are the best way of assessing the information that we, as teachers, are receiving. Why aren't we using the insights of linear algebra that companies like Google use all of the time to help us provide incredibly relevant feedback and analysis of student strengths an weaknesses.
Perhaps the 0-4 rubric system is a step in the write direction, but it's only the first step of a journey of a thousand miles.
What do you think? Do I even make sense?
I think that student assessment has always incorporated some of the principles of quantum mechanics. For example: until an evaluation takes place, a particular student ("x" if you will) can be thought of as having a grade that is in a superposition state. That is, until she is evaluated, x can be thought of as doing both well and poorly in the course. It is only once the achievement of x has been measured (via an evaluation) that we can know the exact value of x's letter/number grade.
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