Busting the System Myth

We don't have to overhaul a broken system to do something good within it

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

The more David and I interact with other people about alternative grading, the more myths about it we encounter. David busted a few of these myths a while back, and I did something similar with a target audience of journalists as well. Today, I wanted to take a swing at another myth which, as alternative grading approaches have taken hold, has become one of the biggest blockers to further progress.

This myth has to do with the system of higher education¹ in which alternative grading takes place. It's really two conjoined myths:

• Alternative grading practices can only be done by those in privileged or protected positions; and

• Before any changes can be made in how we grade, large-scale systemic changes in higher education have to happen first, particularly in the labor structure of universities.²

I'm going to refer to both of these together as the System Myth: The idea that before any work on reforming grading practices can take place, large-scale systemic changes need to happen first — because the level of career risk and heightened workloads, which are brought on by that system, make any such work infeasible, inadvisable, or downright impossible.

This is a myth.

To clarify, the part about the system creating risk and overwork for faculty is not a myth. It’s very real, and therefore this is a difficult article for me to write, because as a tenured full professor³ I am in one of those privileged and protected positions, where the only real limitation on what I can do in the classroom is my own imagination. I am not in the same boat as so many of my friends and colleagues, as well as people I meet online and in workshops that I facilitate, who really do feel as though⁴ their very livelihoods are on the line if they were to try alternative grading, whether because of potential blowback at their jobs or because they are already stretched to the limit with other labor. What’s mythical is the belief that nothing can be done until that system changes.

So I hope that you take this article in the spirit in which it's intended, which is that of good news: You don't have to change the entire system of higher ed to do good work in reforming grading practice.

A privileged few?

The first aspect of the system myth is that alternative grading practices can only be done by those in privileged or protected positions, like tenured professors. Another way to put this is that alternative grading is something that you should wait until you receive tenure, or get hired into a tenure-track position, to try -- and if you are not in a position to ever get tenure (e.g. adjuncts) then you shouldn’t plan on trying at all. 

Two things about this.

First, this is the same argument that has been used for decades against trying any teaching and learning innovations whatsoever in the classroom. I first encountered this line of reasoning in graduate school in the 1990s, when active learning as a pedagogical principle was starting to take off. Many people in my discipline of mathematics, where the Math Wars were raging at the time over the role of innovations like active learning and conceptual understanding in subjects like Calculus, said the same thing to me as I was prepping for the job market: Active learning is all well and good, but you should wait until you get tenure to try it.

One of the main problems with the "wait until it's safe" argument is that it's way too optimistic. It believes that once 7+ years pass, and tenure is conferred, a switch will magically flip inside your brain and active learning, alternative grading, or whatever it is you've deferred all those years will commence the following Monday. And maybe it will. But probably, what will happen is that you will continue teaching the same way you've done for 7+ years, because you have just spent 7+ years optimizing your entire professional and personal life around a workflow that specifically excluded the thing you deferred. You may have good intentions, but you’re only human.

Second, the idea that people who are not currently in protected positions cannot implement alternative grading, at any scale and in any form, is a myth simply on account of the many, many counterexamples out there: Ordinary faculty, not all tenured or even on a tenure track, who are doing extraordinary things with their students by reforming their grading practices, often under the radar and off the lecture/podcast circuit. We featured 18 of these faculty in our book as case studies. Some are tenure-track while some are contingent faculty; many are in classroom situations that you might think would preclude alternative grading, but it hasn’t stopped them. You can find more examples in the guest posts on this blog. There are many more of whom I know personally. And to the best of my knowledge, not a single one of these faculty members is now, or has ever been, in jeopardy of being fired for what they are doing, or suffering because of it⁵.

Please note am not attempting to shame anybody⁶, especially those who are in “high risk” situations like contingent faculty. I am again trying to convey good news: No matter where you are or what your situations is, there are things you can do that help make grading better. Keep reading for specifics.

Don't let the system get in the way

The second part of the system myth plays off of the first. It says that in order to be able to implement innovations like alternative grading, we have to change the system first, so that people who want to do the work can do so without the fear or risk of negative consequences.

Let me be clear: The system of higher education in the US, and everywhere else I've seen it, is a hot mess. We managed to get by with our system for a really long time, almost 1000 years, somehow. But in the last 20-25 years⁷ a line seems to have been crossed, and higher education is no longer simply laughably dysfunctional: it's unsustainably broken, with toxicity levels for all involved that could prove fatal if something is not done. The more I work in this business, and especially the more time I spend behind the scenes in faculty senates and leadership posts and the like, the clearer this becomes, and there is no doubt in my mind that profound and widespread systemic change — think "wipe the hard drive and reinstall a different operating system" — is necessary.

And yet... the notion of waiting for the system to change first before individual faculty change the way they grade (or do other innovative things) is both a factual mistake and a losing proposition.

It's a factual mistake because, again, of the many counterexamples that exist. The same people I mentioned above are living proof that systems do not have to fundamentally change in order for creative, determined instructors to do something good with their grading. This is not to say it's the same level of difficulty for all people. For example I work in a department that not only welcomes teaching innovation but expects it. Others are not so fortunate, and that's neither fair nor easy for them. But they are getting things done anyway.

And it's a losing proposition because let's face it: How likely is it that the massive systemic change that we think we need to have, will actually happen? The very depth of the problems with our system of higher education serve as evidence for the unlikeliness of those problems going away any time soon. In other words, nobody is coming to rescue us. It is like pointing out that our health care system is a mess (and it is, in the US) but then saying that before doctors can provide good care, the entire health care system must be overhauled. Yes, that overhaul is needed; and yes, providing care within that system is hard. But both are the overhaul and the care are needed, and one cannot wait for the other.

As far as I know (in an admittedly limited knowledge bank), there have been no positive changes in higher education systemically, which did not originate with the work of individuals, working against the system they were in because they were creative, determined, and believed in what they were doing. In both higher education and (especially) in K12 education, “bottom up” innovations tend to be the ones that “stick” while “top down” innovations often fail. 

So what do we do?

If you are in a position to realize all of your ideas about reforming grading in the classroom (see footnote about tenured full professors for example) then go for it. But if you're in a situation where the best you can do is one small thing, then there is good news! Doing one small thing is real progress, and it is both a win for you and your students and a step in a good direction. David wrote a really great post about this, titled "Finding Middle Ground", here. The central idea is that you do not have to choose between "all" and "nothing". You can take partial steps, small steps, that cost nothing, take almost no time to draw up and implement, and incur little to no professional or personal risk and which move the needle toward more sane and equitable forms of grading, even if you have only limited control over your course design. 

A message I give to faculty who are wary of alternative grading, often because they have bought into the system myth, is this: Pick one of the Four Pillars, and do one thing related to it. This could look like:

• (Clearly Defined Standards) Writing down clear, explicit content standards for the next instructional unit or class you're about to do and giving those out to the students in advance.

• (Helpful Feedback) On your next assessment, make a point to write two sentences of feedback for each student -- one briefly stating the things that went well overall on the assessment, and one briefly listing the things to continue to work on.

• (Marks that Indicate Progress) Pick an upcoming assessment and instead of marking it with points or letters, decide on a 2-to-4 level system like Success/Retry or the EMRN method, and use that instead. (And maybe couple the use of those marks with "helpful feedback" that goes into depth.) If you must enter points into your LMS, decide on a mapping from marks to points, for example "Success" = 100 points and "Retry" = 70⁸.

• (Reattempts without Penalty) Pick an upcoming minor assessment and allow students to retake it, no questions asked and no penalties levied, once or twice and keep the highest score. Make up a different version of the assessment, targeting the same content standards, as needed.

One pillar, one thing. In other words: Do what you can, with what you have. If you are not in a position to implement major changes, implement minor ones that you can scale up later as you gain confidence. Do something. Then track the results: Talk to your students about the experience, make changes based on their feedback, and try again.

But don't let the system get in the way of innovation for the sake of student growth.

1. I'm not sure of the degree to which this also applies to the K12 world, because I don't work in that world. Maybe it's the same situation and the same myth, but I don't know. Educate me in the comments if you are a K12 instructor.

2. The wording of these two points is taken almost verbatim from an alternative grading skeptic with whom I had a Twitter exchange recently, and which got me thinking about this article. These aren't my own words, and you might disagree with these. Variations will be taken up below.

3. In addition to benefiting from a whole laundry list of other privileges.

4. Sometimes this feeling is warranted. Sometimes it isn’t but it’s still hard to escape.

5. I could be wrong, and you should educate me in the comments if I am.

6. Actually there is one group I don’t mind shaming, a little: tenured full professors. If you are tenured and have full professor rank, i.e. like me, then you are in the most protected and privileged position possible in higher education, even moreso than the president of your college or university. Nothing short of detonating a nuclear weapon in the student center is going to get you fired. So if you’re in that position, and if you really want to do alternative grading, I would strongly recommend two courses of action: (1) Do something in your own classes, and (2) use your position to advocate on behalf of your colleagues who want to do something in their classes but feel inhibited by the system.

7. I started my first job in 1997 so I've witnessed this progression.

8. Or something. Figure out what works for you and ask a colleague if you have struggles figuring this out.