Removing the Training Wheels

How I shifted toward student self-assessment and collaborative grading in a pre-professional program

Image by Donald Trung Quoc Don, CC BY-SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Ainsley Vergara is a clinical assistant professor in the Communication Sciences and Special Education department at the University of Georgia. She teaches didactic courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels and supervises graduate clinical instruction in UGA’s on-site clinic and in the community. Her background as a speech-language pathologist inspired her to rethink traditional grading and redesign her courses to center student learning, reflection, and application. These days, she spends much of her time thinking and talking about alternative grading with anyone who will listen. Ainsley lives in Athens, Georgia with her husband (Ryan), fur child (Gio), and two human children (Nora & Alden). You can connect with her via email at avergara@uga.edu

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Becoming an A+ Speech-Language Pathologist

As an instructor in a high-demand, limited-enrollment pre-professional program, I teach driven students who have competed for years to gain admission to the University of Georgia, then the undergraduate cohort, and ultimately graduate school. Grades become markers of excellence and measures of success, often at the expense of creativity, risk-taking, and mental health. I once wrestled with that same anxiety in the very seats where my students now sit.

From high school through college, I protected my 4.0 GPA at all costs. As an undergraduate in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CMSD), I often memorized information for the sake of a grade—after all, graduate school admissions were even more competitive. This fixation on earning a 93 in every course gradually pulled my attention away from genuine learning.

When I began treating clients as a graduate clinician, my definition of “accomplishment” shifted. I learned that speech therapy is dynamic, shaped by patient factors, evidence, and weekly progress. While some interventions follow clear procedures, others depend entirely on the individual, requiring flexibility over perfection. Within those unpredictable, real situations, I fell in love with the process.

The only “grade” I received that semester reflected my independence in professional and clinical competencies. Motivated by client outcomes and my own growth, independence became my passion, not an obligation. Although I was pleased to earn an “A,” I was far prouder of the skills I developed as a speech-language pathologist.

Transitioning into Academia

After several years of clinical work, I returned to UGA as clinical faculty. Within my first semester, I lost count of how often students searched for the “right” answer—the project they thought I wanted. Recognizing that familiar anxiety to get everything “just right,” I sought an approach that prioritized skill development and professional competence over validation through an A. Knowing that clinical practice relies on feedback, mistakes, and teamwork, I questioned why I expected pre-professional undergraduates to execute assignments perfectly on the first try. I realized I needed a pedagogical shift toward learning and competence over numerical grades.

Enter alternative grading. Surrounded by a small group of faculty in a UGA Faculty Learning Community (FLC) focused on alternative grading, I decided to take the leap.

First Attempt: Specifications Grading

For my initial experiment, I chose an undergraduate course, Professional and Clinical Principles in CMSD (CMSD 5000). The course enrolls approximately 75 students and focuses on the legal, professional, and foundational principles of clinical practice in audiology and speech-language pathology. My classroom and clinical work reveals common gaps in students’ professional and clinical skills entering graduate training, and I hoped earlier support would build more confident, competent clinicians.

I was more inclined to take this risk because this course is typically one of students’ final undergraduate courses; by then, graduate applications are submitted, the pressure eases, and students arrive more open to collaboration.

When I first began teaching CMSD 5000, I maintained the previous instructor’s traditional, points-based grading system. As an academia newcomer, I was unaware of alternative options. While I felt relatively confident in my lecturing, I was surprised by limited student participation and minimal creativity in written work. I also recognized that artificial intelligence would permanently shape student engagement, and several of my assignments could easily be completed by AI. It was clear my assessments needed an overhaul to better engage students and more authentically represent their learning.

I attended Center for Teaching and Learning events whenever possible, but my “aha moment” occurred during my commute while listening to the “Teaching in Higher Ed” podcast. In the episode “A Pedagogy of Kindness,” Cate Denial described kindness as a “revolutionary and evidence-based teaching practice in higher education, challenging academia’s traditional focus on rigor over compassion.” She also introduced the concept of “ungrading.” Intrigued, I spent hours researching alternative assessment but quickly realized I needed guidance. I joined our university’s Ungrading Faculty Learning Community, a small group of faculty who had already embraced alternative assessment.

After a semester with the Ungrading FLC, I felt brave enough to begin exploring alternative assessment in CMSD 5000. As one of the newer faculty members in my college, though, I was nervous to fully embrace alternative assessment as described by Dr. Denial. Instead, I began with specifications grading, which offered clear structure and expectations. Many posts here do a great job of explaining specs grading, so I won’t repeat them here; if you’re unfamiliar, check out Linda Nilson’s book, “Specifications Grading 2.0: Restoring Rigor, Motivating Students, Saving Faculty Time, and Developing Career Competencies.” It felt the easiest to explain to students and seemed like a stepping stone to Dr. Denial’s style of alternative assessment.

To establish a clear course structure, I pre-determined “grade bundles” outlining the work required to earn each grade, which were explicitly defined in the syllabus. For example, earning an A required completing all assignments to a satisfactory level and meeting specific attendance standards, while B and C grades required fewer assignments and lower attendance expectations.

As I prepared for my first semester using specifications grading, generating “specs questions” for my assignments was more difficult than I anticipated. I initially viewed specs questions as a means for structure and quality control. Explicitly integrating the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework helped me revise assignments for clarity, as TILT guides instructors to clearly convey the purpose, task(s), and criteria for a given assignment. That emphasis on clearly articulated criteria aligned naturally with the creation of specs questions which students completed prior to submission as a structured self-check.

CMSD 5000 is divided into three themes/units, and following each theme, students worked in groups to “show what they know” in an assignment called the “Thematic Integration Product (TIP).” The TILT framework clarified TIP expectations, and students knew revision was built into the summative assessment process. The TIP allowed students to use any format to integrate each unit topic while applying course content to hypothetical clients. Beyond the TILT instructions, students were free to choose how they showcased their knowledge.

The specifications questions included in the assignment prompted students to reflect on assignment quality, content, and accuracy prior to submission; however, the final determination of whether the work met specifications, or were “Satisfactory,” remained my responsibility as the instructor. Compared with previous semesters, when students typically chose the safe route (hello, PowerPoints!), the first semester of specifications grading saw students truly showing up and showing out. Groups wrote scripts, filmed instructional videos, created comics, crafted infographics, and more to integrate and share course content. Students shared that they enjoyed the process, even citing new friendships with group members, and I genuinely loved reviewing their products and reflections.

As mentioned above, feedback and revision were central to the course. Following all assignment submissions, I provided detailed feedback, and students were given opportunities to revise their work until they reached a “yes” for each of those questions (found within the assignment instructions), translating to a “Satisfactory” for the overall assignment. The focus remained on the process of learning rather than perfection. This feedback-and-revision cycle led to rich discourse and noticeable growth over the semester, with several students sharing that this was their first experience being allowed to revise large projects.

By removing the fear of failure associated with traditional grading, I hoped to encourage deeper engagement. What I observed was increased participation in class discussions, greater willingness to take academic risks, and more thoughtful reflections on learning. After two semesters using this model, though, I realized that specifications grading still seemed to feed into students’ grade-centered thinking. Because I teach students who have typically excelled throughout their academic careers, nearly all students chose the A bundle by default, and they still frequently asked questions about whether individual assignments “counted” toward the A bundle or met specifications. These questions often reflected a desire for grade validation rather than engagement with feedback for learning.

Removing the Training Wheels: Self-Assessment

The following year, while maintaining specifications grading in CMSD 5000, I continued working with my FLC colleagues to explore ways to move even further towards a student-driven assessment model. After many hours of conversation and reviews of alternative assessment literature, we determined a self-assessment model may be a better fit for the course. Within our FLC, we defined self-assessment as an assessment practice that decenters traditional grading mechanisms and asks students to assess their own grades through structured reflections.

Thinking back to my first exposure to alternative assessment through the “Teaching in Higher Ed” podcast, I realized self-assessment was always my ultimate goal. My semesters using specifications grading provided me the confidence and scaffolding to continue moving in that direction. In my mind, specifications grading acted as my “training wheels,” with structures including instructor-determined grading bundles and questions about “satisfactory” work. Though students no longer received numerical scores for individual assignments, I still maintained a high level of control within specifications grading.

Before implementing self-assessment in CMSD 5000, I piloted this framework in classes with fewer than 30 students: my graduate-level course and a one-hour freshman seminar. I noticed increased self-examination, creativity, and deeper application of course content across assignments and reflection. Students also initiated more frequent conversations about course material and related clinical questions. After successful runs in both smaller classes, I decided to remove the training wheels for this larger group of students.

When I shifted to self-assessment in CMSD 5000, I felt strongly that I needed to explain the rationale behind this assessment practice. I personally chose this alternative assessment journey to improve student learning and better mirror the clinical world, so I provide students with a related analogy. I explain to students that my course more closely resembles a workplace than a traditional undergraduate class. I share that my own annual evaluations require me to demonstrate to my department head whether I am meeting expectations or exceeding them—and that “exceeding” expectations is analogous to earning an A. Within the first week of class, students respond to structured prompts in a Microsoft Form that guide them to define what each grade (A, B, and C) “looks like” in practice, with the shared understanding that an F reflects not meeting course objectives or expectations at all. I then use AI to synthesize the 70+ responses into an “average” definition for each grade, which I compile into a shared set of grade definitions that are added to the syllabus. Although students’ descriptions of A-level work are often quite lofty, I intentionally do not revise their definitions. Once the grade definitions are shared, I work with students during the same week to establish deadlines for major assignments. I find that having them assess their responsibilities across various courses, and considering their group members’ schedules and needs, helps them take ownership and establishes a collaborative environment.

Throughout the semester, students complete “weekly learning logs” that prompt reflection on their course contributions, topics covered, evidence of learning, challenges, and potential solutions. They are invited to upload files that represent their learning process, and these logs help them detail their progress in the course. We frequently discuss how these logs, which I invite them to think of as journals, support ongoing reflection and accountability. At midterm, students write a narrative assessing their coursework and the letter grade they have earned to date, using the co-created grade definitions and evidence from their learning logs. This reflection builds confidence in both the self-assessment process and their own growth. The course concludes with a final reflection synthesizing the learning logs and midterm narrative, in which students assert their final transcript grade in relation to the shared grade definitions..

The revision process remains similar: I ask students to submit their “best draft” by the assignment deadlines, and we engage in written feedback cycles until students have confidently and competently exhibited mastery of course content. I will not pretend that my students’ desire for perfection has magically melted away as the result of self-assessment. This model of assessment comes with its own trials. For example, especially before the first TIP, students line up after class to ask what I’m looking for, or whether a particular idea “works” for the TIP. Even after receiving feedback on the first TIP, students often continue asking similar questions.

I personally view these questions as an opportunity to help reinforce their metacognitive growth; I share with them, both in class and in LMS announcements, that I love questions because it means they are open to learning! In addition to office hours and in-class discussions about self-assessment, I hold weekly “Coffee Chats” before our 8:00 am class. I invite students to attend and ask questions about the grading structure or anything related to our class and field. During that Coffee Chat time, I consistently reiterate that the goal of the assignments and the course is to build their understanding of foundational principles of clinical practice in speech-language pathology and audiology. I consistently acknowledge the stretching they may feel as they learn how to navigate the class. A recent student shared in her weekly learning log, “If you haven’t been made aware, the format of your class is very different than what we are used to, so it has been a little bit of an adjustment. But thank you for your kindness and patience!” The first few weeks of class require significant dedication on my end to help students feel comfortable with this new experience.

Practical Advice

The biggest challenge I have encountered is students’ initial discomfort. Their weekly learning logs reveal that I am asking them to do something extraordinarily different from their previous 16 years of schooling, so I address this uneasiness through consistent check-ins.

• Each of my slideshows for class include a slide that reminds me to check in with the students as a group.

• I send an announcement on our LMS after each class recapping the most important points and addressing any themes I see in the weekly learning logs, including those related to alternative assessment.

• Within the weekly learning logs, students answer the question, “Do you need Professor Vergara to check in regarding self-assessment?” They select “Not at this time,” “Yes, immediately,” or “Yes, no rush.”

• Also on the learning logs, students have an optional field in which to ask any question or comment on anything related to the class and/or major.

• I offer “Coffee Chats”: a consistent 20-minute casual open time before class one day each week per week. Students can come chat about the therapy profession, self-assessment, or life.

Besides addressing student questions that come with this shift, I’ve found that it is my job to build confidence in this new way of doing things. In each class, and often in my LMS announcements, I provide parallels between self-assessment and professional practice to build student buy-in. I also assure them, from past experience, that they will increase in confidence after experiencing the feedback loop on their first assignment.

I have moved forward with self-assessment across all of my courses in the name of building competent, critical thinkers who will become thoughtful clinicians. Although I initially explored alternative grading because I recognized my past self in my stressed-out students, my eyes were opened to how misaligned traditional grading can be for students preparing for allied healthcare careers. The real goals for these future clinicians include clinical judgment, reflection, and the ability to work with imperfect information. While students initially express some discomfort with alternative grading, with one student saying she felt like she had to unlearn everything she knew about being a student, the shift has been tremendously positive overall. I have seen students grow into more confident learners who are willing to make mistakes in a safe environment, all in the name of learning. This approach has opened new possibilities for both my students and my teaching, and I am excited to continue shaping my courses with these principles.