This is indeed the conundrum: "The feeling that we need to assess students in ways that seem intelligible to people “outside” – outside of our classrooms, our colleges, our pedagogical desires – seems omnipresent and vexing."
I appreciate your discussion of how grades can become an end in themselves, where even honors like "with distinction," become the focus rather than the learning process that yields a distinctive result.
I'm now curious about your take on "labor-based grading," which bases its external assessment purely on participation, while offering almost purely formative feedback on the academic work itself. I've always been of multiple minds about these things. On the one hand, I think some measure of mastery is meaningful. On the other, I know all too well how grubbing for particular grades can stifle meaningful learning. I tried to encourage students to embrace ownership and trust that grades would follow naturally. But it was an imperfect system. My concern about labor-based grading is that it offers no baseline assurance of competence to anyone outside the institution; someone could earn an A in a writing course while making little progress toward actual competence in writing.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Josh. I have struggled so so much with 'alt-grading' in my very traditional environments. It feels like a similar conundrum. I wanted students to develop intrinsic desires and interests around our topics and approaches. I wanted to interact with them about ideas, not on the basis of grades.
But when I was at Hampshire, for instance, I took a handful of classes at UMASS, which of course had grades. In one philosophy class I was engaged, responsible, very intrigued, and always prepared. I tanked the first exam though and had a "C" at midterm. Then I went to tutoring sessions, paired up with a study partner, and really wanted to understand the original texts more fully. So when I asked the professor to write a narrative evaluation for my Hampshire file (plus she had to provide a letter grade - A-), she was able to characterize my work, engagement, etc. I had earned some mastery, demonstrated competencies in reading and structuring philosophical argument, etc.
A long-winded way to say: I remember that I loved that I had really really worked for that A-, and for the professor's evaluation. But/and, I loved learning about philosophy with original texts. And I was motivated to write better and read better.
There are so many layers - like a spanikopita - between "intrinsic motivation" or "desire to learn and fail and succeed" and our classrooms and our students. I want my pre-med students to have mastery; I want my aviation students to have mastery. I want them all to have desires and joys and failures. (And I want them to do the reading!)
When I chose to go to Hampshire it was because I needed the pedagogical contrasts of the other four Consortium campuses to achieve my fixed academic end goal: going to Yale or Brown for Graduate School.
I'd been wait-listed at both Universities as an undergraduate applicant, so I knew that attending Hampshire and using the Consortium -- ESPECIALLY Amherst, Smith & Mount Holyoke (and to a lesser extent UMass Amherst) would allow me to maintain a "Little Ivies GPA" that Ivy League Graduate School Programs would DEFINITELY look at.
I ❤️'d Hampshire BECAUSE of it's academic freedom and flexibility and that was also EXTREMELY important to me, I needed to be able to create and navigate my own path + having the right array of academic resources. I also needed the emphasis on building a portfolio of my work and being able to integrate all of these things into a dynamic educational plan.
SO, it was like the perfect fit for me -- Hampshire met my individual academic needs, as the Consortium met my broader academic goals. I know that's rare, but for me it was LITERALLY kismet.
This is indeed the conundrum: "The feeling that we need to assess students in ways that seem intelligible to people “outside” – outside of our classrooms, our colleges, our pedagogical desires – seems omnipresent and vexing."
I appreciate your discussion of how grades can become an end in themselves, where even honors like "with distinction," become the focus rather than the learning process that yields a distinctive result.
I'm now curious about your take on "labor-based grading," which bases its external assessment purely on participation, while offering almost purely formative feedback on the academic work itself. I've always been of multiple minds about these things. On the one hand, I think some measure of mastery is meaningful. On the other, I know all too well how grubbing for particular grades can stifle meaningful learning. I tried to encourage students to embrace ownership and trust that grades would follow naturally. But it was an imperfect system. My concern about labor-based grading is that it offers no baseline assurance of competence to anyone outside the institution; someone could earn an A in a writing course while making little progress toward actual competence in writing.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Josh. I have struggled so so much with 'alt-grading' in my very traditional environments. It feels like a similar conundrum. I wanted students to develop intrinsic desires and interests around our topics and approaches. I wanted to interact with them about ideas, not on the basis of grades.
But when I was at Hampshire, for instance, I took a handful of classes at UMASS, which of course had grades. In one philosophy class I was engaged, responsible, very intrigued, and always prepared. I tanked the first exam though and had a "C" at midterm. Then I went to tutoring sessions, paired up with a study partner, and really wanted to understand the original texts more fully. So when I asked the professor to write a narrative evaluation for my Hampshire file (plus she had to provide a letter grade - A-), she was able to characterize my work, engagement, etc. I had earned some mastery, demonstrated competencies in reading and structuring philosophical argument, etc.
A long-winded way to say: I remember that I loved that I had really really worked for that A-, and for the professor's evaluation. But/and, I loved learning about philosophy with original texts. And I was motivated to write better and read better.
There are so many layers - like a spanikopita - between "intrinsic motivation" or "desire to learn and fail and succeed" and our classrooms and our students. I want my pre-med students to have mastery; I want my aviation students to have mastery. I want them all to have desires and joys and failures. (And I want them to do the reading!)
When I chose to go to Hampshire it was because I needed the pedagogical contrasts of the other four Consortium campuses to achieve my fixed academic end goal: going to Yale or Brown for Graduate School.
I'd been wait-listed at both Universities as an undergraduate applicant, so I knew that attending Hampshire and using the Consortium -- ESPECIALLY Amherst, Smith & Mount Holyoke (and to a lesser extent UMass Amherst) would allow me to maintain a "Little Ivies GPA" that Ivy League Graduate School Programs would DEFINITELY look at.
I ❤️'d Hampshire BECAUSE of it's academic freedom and flexibility and that was also EXTREMELY important to me, I needed to be able to create and navigate my own path + having the right array of academic resources. I also needed the emphasis on building a portfolio of my work and being able to integrate all of these things into a dynamic educational plan.
SO, it was like the perfect fit for me -- Hampshire met my individual academic needs, as the Consortium met my broader academic goals. I know that's rare, but for me it was LITERALLY kismet.