For years, I have had this nagging feeling that my gradebook, filled with hundreds of scores at the end of the semester, is serving neither me nor my students. What's the difference between a 92% and an 88%? Does that parade of assignments support student learning? Would they learn less if I asked them to click fewer buttons? Am I offering the best feedback when I am always underwater with my grading?
*dramatic sigh*
I long to step away from… whatever this is… and shift to something that feels simpler and more honoring of how humans learn. But the questions felt too big to sit with alone — so I didn't.
In response to this feeling of dis-ease with my current grading practices, I invited a few colleagues to join me in exploring the pros and cons of the most common approaches to alternative grading. In our first few meetings, it became clear that we are all a little frustrated with our current grading practices, which can feel, at times, like they are sucking the life out of us (and the joy out of teaching). As we talked about what brought us together, even more questions arose about how alternative grading could work in our classes (in addition to a healthy dose of skepticism).
Here are some of the questions that arose in our discussions:
Would alt grading impact how we meet the requirement of a three-hour course having six hours of work outside of class?
Would something like portfolio grading just push the work of grading to the end of the semester?
How might alternative grading impact grade inflation?
Can alternative grading increase transparency? Or would it make grades more foggy?
We need to be certain that our students meet our course competencies and are prepared for the next course in the sequence (for example, ENG 101 moving to ENG 102). Which alternative grading practices best address this?
As I write this, I do not have the answers to these questions. We've each chosen one or two strategies to dig into, and in future meetings, we will share what we learn in service of addressing these questions.
I am going to dig into portfolio-based grading (paired with minimum standards for accepted work). To me, this feels like the most natural fit for a writing class. Instead of assigning a grade to each piece of work as it comes in, students collect their work over the course of the semester and are assessed on the whole body of it at the end, often alongside a reflection on their growth.
What draws me to this is that it mirrors how writers actually work. Mature writers don't finish a first draft and call it done. Writing is recursive — you circle back, you revise, you see things differently after some distance. A portfolio supports this cycle of writing.
I am also drawn to the reflection component of this approach. Students have to look back at what they produced and articulate what changed and why--they have to articulate how they’ve grown as writers.
Our PLC's other participants are exploring standards-based and mastery-based grading, specs and labor-based grading, contract-based grading, and equitable grading. I am eager to learn from their discoveries! If you want to know how this all unfolds, you are a) welcome to join our group! We meet every other Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM (reach out to me for more info), or b) watch for my follow-up posts on the CTLE blog!
No comments:
Post a Comment