We should try to bring back the joy of learning because you want to learn, not because someone is going to give you a grade at the end of the semester. Simon Schocken[1]
We’re just three weeks away from the end of the semester and the emails have started to arrive from concerned students asking about how I weight various elements of the course, how they will be graded, etc. etc. I have been providing them ongoing feedback throughout the semester, but I have not assigned a letter grade to any of their work. I follow Alfie Kohn in this practice and share this quote with them on my assessment page:
When I was teaching high school, I did a lot of things I now regret. But one policy that still seems sensible to me was saying to students on the first day of class that, while I was compelled to give them a grade at the end of the term, I could not in good conscience ever put a letter or number on anything they did during the term – and I would not do so. I would, however, write a comment – or, better, sit down and talk with them – as often as possible to give them feedback.
I do use a rubric for self-assessment. It came via Dr. Jon Becker who borrowed it from Dr. Gary Stager.
- I did not participate
- I phoned-it in
- I impressed my colleagues
- I impressed my friends and neighbors
- I impressed my family
- I impressed Karen Richardson
- I impressed myself
I use it as part of a mid-term and end-of-semester self assessment. The students often find it difficult to reverse the way they think about courses in terms of who they should be impressing. For many, they have never taken the time to consider if they were impressed because they were so busy trying to impress their teacher. And, they are much harder on themselves than I would ever be. (As an aside, I am pretty easily impressed: most of my students are working professionals with families and other responsibilities. Many times, my course is the first fully online experience they’ve had, Plus, it immerses them in an ed tech experience as we use technology to learn and share, something that frightens many of them. Finally, because my course puts much of the burden on their shoulders, it can be more challenging than the more typical read the book, write a paper course with which they are familiar.)
As usual, they have done wonderful work despite the lack of rubrics and grades. They have felt the freedom to take risks with new technology tools and some have failed or experienced frustration. But, knowing that they aren’t going to get dinged by a bad grade, they have been able to see failure and frustration as part of the learning process.
Yet, with three weeks to go, some of them seem to have forgotten my pledge to them. They go to the syllabus looking for the weightings and the point scores and when they don’t find them, I get an email. I reply, reassuring them I have no intention of changing my approach. The final project is important but it carries no more or less weight than any of the other assignments. I’ll take a holistic view of their work, and if they haven’t had any negative feedback from me, they are doing just fine. I remind them that the goal of the course is not the grade they earn, but the learning they’ve experienced.
I get a lot of positive reviews for the course and the students seem to appreciate my approach to assessment. My simple hope is that they carry this positive experience back to their own classrooms and schools.
[1] http://designmind.frogdesign.com/articles/radical-openness/the-end-of-education-as-we-know-it.html