Mark Barnes > Quotes

“like so many other things in teaching—if you don’t plan it, it doesn’t happen.”
― Mark Barnes, Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes for Every School

“After studying the extensive research of experts like Dylan Wiliam (2011), Thomas Guskey (2011), Alfie Kohn (2011), and John Hattie (2007), I knew that replacing grades with narrative feedback would be a central piece of transitioning from a traditional to a student-centered classroom,”
― Mark Barnes, Assessment 3.0: Throw Out Your Grade Book and Inspire Learning

“Independent learners are successful students. They take lessons and models from class and turn them into skills. Independent learners read on their own time, use the Internet for research, and manage content efficiently on social media.”
― Mark Barnes, Assessment 3.0: Throw Out Your Grade Book and Inspire Learning

“As long as you give them time to use technology for fun, students rarely abuse it.”
― Mark Barnes, Teaching the iStudent: A Quick Guide to Using Mobile Devices and Social Media in the K-12 Classroom

“Feedback places students in a category all their own. This girl’s accomplishments were truly huge accomplishments if you only compare her performance to her ability. If you were to compare her performance with another student’s, she may look, once again, as just a mediocre, slow-processing reader. It isn’t fair, though, to compare her or belittle her progress, success, or accomplishments with another learner’s. She deserves the right to grow, process, and succeed at a rate that works for her and then celebrate when she meets her goals! That’s what feedback has the power to produce in a classroom. (2014)”
― Mark Barnes, Assessment 3.0: Throw Out Your Grade Book and Inspire Learning

“If Facebook, Twitter and the like are blocked from student access, the foray into this astonishing universe of digital collaboration cannot begin.”
― Mark Barnes, Teaching the iStudent: A Quick Guide to Using Mobile Devices and Social Media in the K-12 Classroom

“Are we permanently changing behavior, or are students simply responding to punishments and rewards?”
― Mark Barnes, Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes for Every School

“letter grades are not only wholly subjective, they are immaterial when it comes to understanding what students have and have not accomplished in an academic setting.”
― Mark Barnes, Assessment 3.0: Throw Out Your Grade Book and Inspire Learning

“Furthermore, if there’s any validity to the community college effect, grades, GPAs, and class rank are completely irrelevant factors when evaluating students for admission to college. Thus, they are also irrelevant factors for assessing learning in the K–12 world.”
― Mark Barnes, Assessment 3.0: Throw Out Your Grade Book and Inspire Learning

“If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. — Michael Jordan, Basketball Player and Entrepreneur”
― Mark Barnes, Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes for Every School

“Measuring learning is education’s principal problem—one that stunts the growth of our students even more than a lack of technology, oversized classrooms, and standardized testing.”
― Mark Barnes, Assessment 3.0: Throw Out Your Grade Book and Inspire Learning

“One key ingredient to successful technology integration is not forgetting the autonomy and the fun.”
― Mark Barnes, Teaching the iStudent: A Quick Guide to Using Mobile Devices and Social Media in the K-12 Classroom

“Time is what we need most but what we use worst. —William Penn, English Entrepreneur”
― Mark Barnes, Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes for Every School

“If you want to lift yourself up, lift someone else. — Booker T. Washington”
― Mark Barnes, Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes for Every School

“When students are conditioned to fail, they see no value in learning; thus, even when faced with engaging assignments that will enhance skills that are necessary in school and in life, they believe they can’t succeed.”
― Mark Barnes, Assessment 3.0: Throw Out Your Grade Book and Inspire Learning

“The Hack: Create Teacher Quiet Zones”
― Mark Barnes, Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes for Every School

“Students and parents and teachers were always interested in having conversations about learning, but it was the notion of grades, the rigidity of 100-point scales or 5-point rubrics that always got in the way.”
― Mark Barnes, Assessment 3.0: Throw Out Your Grade Book and Inspire Learning

“grades distract students from exploring what is valuable.”
― Mark Barnes, Assessment 3.0: Throw Out Your Grade Book and Inspire Learning

“They wanted to master skills and they wanted to show off their new skills! It was remarkable to see the significant change in their reading and, especially, their writing, while taking away traditional grades.”
― Mark Barnes, Assessment 3.0: Throw Out Your Grade Book and Inspire Learning

“Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time. —Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali Writer, Philosopher, Artist, and Composer”
― Mark Barnes, Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes for Every School

“A Pineapple Chart is a systematic way to put a “welcome mat” out for all classrooms, a central message board that lets other teachers know that you’re doing something worth watching today, and if they’d like to come by, your door is open.”
― Mark Barnes, Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes for Every School

“Feedback places students in a category all their own. This girl’s accomplishments were truly huge accomplishments if you only compare her performance to her ability. If you were to compare her performance with another student’s, she may look, once again, as just a mediocre, slow-processing reader. It isn’t fair, though, to compare her or belittle her progress, success, or accomplishments with another learner’s. She deserves the right to grow, process, and succeed at a rate that works for her and then celebrate when she meets her goals! That’s what feedback has the power to produce in a classroom.”
― Mark Barnes, Assessment 3.0: Throw Out Your Grade Book and Inspire Learning

“Educators often ask me, which one of these platforms is better? The answer is invariably: The one that you and your students are most comfortable using, as long as it completes the desired task.”
― Mark Barnes, Teaching the iStudent: A Quick Guide to Using Mobile Devices and Social Media in the K-12 Classroom

“Searching for content requires wise information literacy strategies and tools (embedded in the curriculum learning processes) to avoid being lost in the information labyrinth. Content curation is also about organizing, filtering and ‘making sense of’ information on the web and sharing the very best pieces of content that has been selected for a specific purpose or need. (p. 1) As suggested in”
― Mark Barnes, Teaching the iStudent: A Quick Guide to Using Mobile Devices and Social Media in the K-12 Classroom

“If a mark is required for a report card, let’s ask our students what they believe that grade should be, based on a detailed assessment by both student and teacher of all that was or was not accomplished during a grading period.”
― Mark Barnes, Assessment 3.0: Throw Out Your Grade Book and Inspire Learning

“The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is who you become. —Heraclitus, Greek Philosopher”
― Mark Barnes, Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes for Every School