20 small starts for alternative grading
Meaningful reform of grading is within everyone's grasp.
Before the main post for today, here's an update on our call for guest authors from last week. Your responses have again been tremendous, even moreso than the first time we opened the floor for guest contributions. To date, we have received over 40 "pitches" for articles, and more are coming in daily. Thank you for your willingness to share your ideas here.
David and I will soon begin the process of reading through all the submissions and deciding what to do with them. This will involve reading through all the pitch ideas from the Google Form, discussing them, and then deciding whether or not to feature them on the blog, and if so, when. We don’t guarantee that every pitch will appear as a post here; but we’re also not trying to be exclusive and we want to run as many of these as we can.
If you submitted an idea, you should hear back from us probably by the end of March and certainly by the end of April. (Our current queue of guest posts runs out in June.) And please note, the call for guest posts remains open. Don't let that number of submissions inhibit you. We'd love to hear from you, any time.
A couple of weeks ago I posted about the "System Myth", that before any meaningful work can be done with alternative grading, we must have large-scale systemic changes to the system of education in which it takes place. One of the reasons this is a myth is that it is possible to take small steps, which involve little to no additional effort to implement, toward reforming and improving the way we grade in higher education. It's not only possible to do this, faculty are doing this on a daily basis in all kinds of professional situations where a full-scale system-changing approach might not be feasible or possible. Those small, incremental steps can lead to real improvements in students' learning experiences.
I asked about this on Twitter recently:
The same poll conducted on other platforms yielded similar results: About half of those who responded who have implemented alternative grading systems in any form, even the full-scale implementations, either started small or are currently doing it small. (Remember: Big is not "better than" small.)
In my post, I suggested a framework for starting small: Pick one of the Four Pillars, and do one thing related to it. In the spirit of this blog and our book, which is to give not only big ideas but concrete and sensible blueprints for action, I came up with 20 different ways you might use this framework to implement small changes. Not all of these will make sense for your situation. But maybe some will spark an idea.
Clearly defined standards
Of all the Four Pillars, the first -- having clearly defined standards -- provides the lowest-hanging fruit. Writing clear standards is the logical place to start, and even if you're already using them, giving them a tune-up is a good idea. And working with your standards doesn't typically create more downstream work for you, unlike building in reassessments (see below).
Write out the learning objectives for a single lesson. Probably the simplest possible action you can take is to simply list what you want students to be able to do, once a lesson is over, that will give evidence of learning. This article has a template for how to write these. Sit down with your next lesson and write all the learning objectives out this way. It will give you a sense of clarity and purpose you might not have realized you're missing.
Write out the learning objectives for a single assessment. Similarly, you can look ahead to an upcoming assessment and give a list of what students should be able to do, that gives evidence of learning, once the assessment is over.
Pick one item on an upcoming assessment and explicitly detail how it will be graded. This one pairs well with the previous idea. If you are clear on the standards for an assessment -- or even just one item/problem on one assessment -- you can list those right there on the assessment so students have a sense of what's expected. For example, on my in-class assessments where individual problems are graded "Success"/"Retry", I list "success criteria" that states exactly what a "successful" attempt looks like. For those who are concerned that this gives away how to solve a problem, please read David's post about that.
Make sure your lower-level learning objectives are in alignment with your high-level learning objectives. Learning objectives come on three different levels. One of those is the "course level" and consists of high-level aspirational objectives that aren't terribly actionable. But then there are "assessment level" and "lesson level" objectives that are specific, observable actions. Are you certain that the lower-level objectives faithfully instantiate the higher-level ones? Or are there places where you have high-level objectives that aren't represented in the day-to-day activities of the class? Or low-level objectives that don't seem to connect to any higher purpose?
Audit the language used for learning objectives. When you look at your lower-level (assessment- and lesson-level) objectives, do they all use concrete action verbs that faithfully describe what a student should do to provide evidence of learning? Or are there some fluffy verbs like "know", "understand", "appreciate", etc? Or are there concrete action verbs that aren't the ones you really intended (for example, "define" when you really mean "describe")?
Audit whether there is a direct link between learning objectives, activities, and assessments in that order. This assumes you've already written out your standards and audited the language you use. If we intend to assess a standard (and we do, if it's an assessment-level objective) then students should have the opportunity, ideally in class, to practice the tasks associated with that standard through active learning experiences; and then at some point that standard should show up on an assessment in an appropriate way. Is this the case for you? Or do you have some standards that never get practiced, or never get assessed, or get assessed more often than they need to be assessed?
Do an inventory of learning objectives to see where they fit in Bloom's Taxonomy. There's no rule that says your assessment-level standards must be evenly distributed across the six layers of Bloom's Taxonomy or even that each layer must have at least one standard in it. However, it's still useful to map your standards onto Bloom's Taxonomy to see if, maybe, you are overemphasizing one level while underemphasizing others. If 90% of your assessment level standards are in the lower third of Bloom, then it's worth considering whether you're emphasizing low level tasks at the expense of more advanced ones.
Helpful feedback
Feedback is also an easy part of course design to work on, because we're already giving feedback in some form and it can always use improvement no matter how helpful it is.
Audit the language that you are currently using for feedback. Let's be honest, we're not always our best selves when we grade, and it shows in what we put on students' work. Sometimes it's snarky verbal feedback; sometimes it's downright mean; sometimes it's not verbal at all but something like a giant "X" or a partial sentence ("Logic? WTF?!"). One of the simplest and most fruitful steps a person can take is just to look at the feedback they're already giving and ask, honestly, is it clear? Does it focus on learning outcomes and growth? Is it given with the best interest of students in mind? This is also one of the hardest steps because... see the first sentence.
Make templates for commonly-used feedback. Open a new text file or Google Doc, or get yourself an app like TextExpander1, and any time you find yourself giving the same feedback more than once, write up a clear, helpful, kind version of that feedback that you can simply copy/paste later. This allows you to compose your feedback on your terms -- for example, on days when you are not tired, cranky, and wanting to dunk on students -- and then use later without re-composing it. For example, I give the feedback Not sure what you mean here. Can you clarify? quite often when grading math proofs. I have that phrase saved in TextExpander and can insert it just by typing ;;nswym2. This saves about 20 seconds of typing, which compounded over 100 students with multiple proofs submitted each week saves hours of time – and when I’m cranky, it keeps me from sounding like a jerk.
Phrase feedback in the form of questions. Since helpful feedback encourages collaboration and growth, phrasing it as a question often makes it more helpful. For example instead of Your induction proof is using the wrong base case, try What is the correct base case for this induction proof?
Consider giving feedback via audio or video. Sometimes non-printed media works really well for giving feedback. Some LMS's now have this capability built in. Or you can use a simple tool like Loom to record video on the fly and then share a link. Audio/video feedback is particularly helpful in online courses where the lack of physical presence can be an issue.
Give helpful, structured feedback on one upcoming assessment. This is really just an instantiation of the previous points, but pick one assessment upcoming and give your absolute best effort to put the above ideas into practice.
Give feedback outside of formal assessments. Don't wait for quizzes, papers, and projects to give students feedback! A quick word before or after class, or even during class, can often go farther than 1000 words of feedback on an assessment. Just remember the old parenting rule: Praise in public, criticize in private. That is, save constructive criticism for one-on-one moments if at all possible.
Marks that indicate progress
Changing from points to more descriptive "marks" takes a little more effort, and because of the strong gravitational pull of points, small changes in your marking systems might not have a huge impact. But you can still make small steps:
Pick a small assessment and replace points with a 2-4 level rubric that maps to points. This plays on an idea that I floated in this article about hacking your final exam: Take a lower-stakes assessment you have coming up, that is already graded with points. Let's say it's a 20-point homework assignment. Announce to students that instead of grading using potentially all of the integer values from 1 to 20, only four grades will be given: 20, 16, 12, and 0. And, those four point values will be assigned using this flowchart -- this is the EMRN rubric for the regulars around here -- with E,M,R, and N corresponding to 20, 16, 12, and 0 respectively. Change the point values to what suits you; for example, David suggests making the “E” level a bonus point (21, 22, etc.) while “M” gets full credit (20). What this does, is implement the EMRN rubric without actually saying you are implementing the EMRN rubric.
Make your final exam pass/no-pass. If you are giving a final exam and have some control over how it works, rather than grading it on points, make it pass/no pass: A "Pass" mark is given for work that would normally receive, say, a 70% or higher and equates to full credit. A "No Pass" mark receives 60% credit3. (Or something; make these up yourself, and did I mention this might not make sense for everyone?) See the article linked above for further thoughts on hacking the final exam.
Ungrade something. Pick an assessment and instead of grading it with points yourself, “ungrade”4 it as follows: First, mark it up with helpful feedback. Then, decide on a point value based on the totality of the work -- maybe using a variation of point 14 above where you sort the work into one of 3-4 bins each of which has a point value. Then, meet with the student to decide on a final grade collaboratively. This takes a lot of work, and it’s not really “ungrading” because there’s a grade on it, but it will give you the gist of how ungrading might unfold on a larger scale, and students will appreciate having the input.
Reattempts without penalty
Reattempts without penalty are the heart of alternative approaches to grading and to all significant learning. Any small steps you can make to install this idea will create a lot of value for you and your students:
Institute a one-retake policy on a small assignment. This is the smallest possible incremental step along this pillar. Pick one thing, something small that doesn't require a lot of work to (re-)grade, and allow students to reattempt it once with no penalty. That is, give two attempts and take the better of the two results.
Allow two submissions per week on one assignment for a limited time. If you have an assessment that benefits from revision over a longer time scale -- think essays or research projects rather than quizzes or tests -- then you can announce that, on a trial basis, you are allowing revisions on that item until a deadline that's a few days or weeks into the future, and up to two submissions a week are allowed until that time. The deadline and the two-per-week limit places hard boundaries around the reattempt process without "penalizing" students.
Allow three submissions per week on one thing, for each week over the course of a semester. A variation on the previous point, but with somewhat more relaxed boundaries, and you limit it to just a single assignment rather than an entire category of assignments (for example, just the first essay rather than all six of them). If three submissions per student per week is too much grading, you can dial it back to two submissions per week, or place other reasonable boundaries around submissions5.
Allow live oral reassessments in office hours. Rather than doing written reattempts, students come in to office hours and do a reattempt right there in front of you at a whiteboard. This doesn't work for a lot of people; it takes time, although if you keep it restricted to office hours, you already had that time set aside. In my experience with this, the oral reattempt option is rarely used, but it could pose a problem if it became popular because there would need to be a lot of alternative time slots. But students often say the oral reattempt was really instructive.
What else?
So that's my 20 ideas on how to implement alternative grading on a small scale. I think it works better if you try some of these together rather than in isolation -- for example, implementing helpful feedback probably works better if you are also implementing some form of reattempts without penalty. And again, not all of these make sense for all people. But they all represent useful steps, at a low cost of time and money and with minimal professional risk, that anybody can do.
I'm really curious to hear your own ideas in the comments, so have at it.
I particularly like TextExpander because it’s cross-platform. But if you’re a Mac user, text expansion is built into macOS. Here’s a guide on how to use it.
This looks weird but it’s a suggested formula from TextExpander: Start the snippet with a double semicolon so that the app won’t confuse the trigger with an actual word, then use some memorable code word for the snippet (nswym = “Not sure what you mean”).
It seems a little off to say that “No Pass” gets 60% credit which is typically passing. This is mostly because the word “No Pass” is not the best term for what we are trying to describe here, namely work that doesn’t mean the minimum standard. I wouldn’t want to use “Fail”, and on a final exam there is no “Retry”. Probably the most accurate pair of terms would be “Good enough” and “Not good enough” but that seems harsh.
In quotes here because this isn’t really “canonical” ungrading where the work gets no mark at all.
A bit of the details about workload here: In my discrete math classes, students do “Challenge Problems” that are submitted using this three-things-per-week rule: Students can turn in three new problem submissions, three revisions, or some combination of those. In my experience students very rarely actually submit three things in a given week. The mode is usually zero submissions. So spending three hours a week grading these is my usual process and it works fine… until the last month of the semester. Then, students who have procrastinated start submitting three items a week on the regular, and this is the majority of students. It’s an ongoing struggle to motivate students to not procrastinate but maintain a regular, consistent pace of problem submissions through the semester. I haven’t cracked the code on that issue yet. What’s helped, has been (1) to use the 12-week plan to build classes so that the last two weeks have no new content coming in, so I can devote the time solely to grading; and (2) to make the Sunday before the last week of classes the final deadline for any submissions at all, so that anything that has to be graded in this category is in the queue by the last week and there’s nothing new coming in. It’s still an avalanche of problem submissions, but at least I know this coming into the last two weeks of class and have set aside time to deal with it.
This is a very helpful guide! Thank you. I'm trying to start small, so this is exactly what I needed.
These are all very thoughtful. Thank you!
However, I'm not so sure that some of these suggestions are really all that "alternative:, and many are just common-sense best practices. For instance, For instance, when you say, "Write out the learning objectives for a single lesson", I think that's a great idea, but it's a great idea even if you don't engage in "alternative" grading (whatever that is). In fact, I'm a little puzzled -- shouldn't this be the standard procedure? Why are people designing lesson plans without learning objectives?
One thing that you didn't mention is: TELL YOUR STUDENTS WHAT THE LEARNING OBJECTIVES ARE!! I've seen a number of people go into considerable detail about how to write learning objectives but who then are dismissive of actually communicating these to students. Of course developing explicit learning objectives is helpful for instructors who are designing a course, but they are even more helpful for students who are trying to navigate the material. I ALWAYS announce the learning objectives right at the beginning of the lesson, and also review them at the end of the lesson.