I love the phrase "collaborative grading" for this approach. Communicating my trust in student's ability to do the work has been fundamental to my practice, but I always struggled with how to describe what this means when I am expected to assign a grade at the end of the term. Now that I have a term of art for this, it will be so much easier.
I really like this idea. What have you found are the "logistical limits" of this approach? For example, the workload for doing this with even a 50-person intro-level course would be daunting. (Yes, this is one more argument for smaller class sizes! I'm with you!) but we may not have that luxury.
Most people I've spoken with so far only attempt it in smaller classes because of the time required for one-on-one conferences. But I have spoken with at least one person who implemented collaborative grading in a large lecture by conferencing only with students whose self-assessments (and grade designations) were not well-aligned with the evidence of their work. I think it can be done! But it's tricky, and probably not for everyone.
My approach to managing this style of grading with "larger" classes (up to 35 students) is to make the self-assessment process largely asynchronous. Students have the option to request meetings, either in-person or electronic, but the norm is to submit self-assessments in a medium/format that works for the student (prose, audio, video, etc.) Providing written feedback is a lot of work, but, for me, more manageable than trying to schedule, coordinate and take notes on individual meetings with, potentially, upwards of 100 students across three courses.
In practice, the work of written feedback is also easier than you might expect. In my experience, most students are pretty clear-eyed about the work they're putting in (or not). If anything, students are more likely to down grade than up grade themselves. At the beginning of the term, I ask students to articulate their own goals and expectations for the class. That provides a useful point of reference and, again, students are very good at holding themselves accountable.
So, most terms, I end up with only a handful of students who need extensive feedback, whether because of a big gap between their self-assessment and my assessment of their work, or because a student is struggling and needs encouragement and guidance to stay engaged and chart a path to an acceptable grade.
The main downside to managing self-assessment this way is I have less control over whether and how my feedback is received. There is at least a record of it, but I'm sure there are students every term who don't read what I write. For most, this won't matter much because I fundamentally agree with their self-assessments. Fortunately, struggling students who remain engaged enough to submit their self-assessments, typically want feedback and are waiting to take it in. It's the students who have unrealistic self-assessments who seem most likely to ignore feedback, but since I began grading this way, I've never had anyone come back to complain about a grade.
I also have a (relatively) short comment in my syllabi and then spend some time in class discussing the rationale for my ungrading. [I do labor-based grading a la Asao Inoue.] I prime the in-class discussion on the second day by having students read either Alfie Kohn's essay "The case against grades" or a short article by Schniske & Tanner called "Teaching more by grading less (or differently)". Both are available online. My rationale for ungrading is that for most students grades calculated in traditional/typical ways tend of interfere with learning rather than supporting it. In my experience discussing grades with students, that's an idea that resonates with many of them and has been a productive beginning point for collectively re-thinking their student-ing behaviors in my classes.
Thanks! I do something similar, and I'm hoping my next post will share some ideas for actually talking about grading systems with students rather than just explaining on the syllabus.
Well over 90% of all high schools public or private require teachers to issue grades of some sort at intervals like semesters. Sometimes I think that ideas like “ungrading” make teachers feel better but have little longterm impact on students.
The social reality of grades as well as percentile ranks or rubric scores is pervasive. Students may experience attempts to de emphasize grades in random courses over time, but because they are fat and few between, and because at the end of every course they get a grade anyway, the message of grades is a steady drumbeat.
The fact that students get a syllabus with the ubiquitous grading policy printed on it, the fact that the syllabus is viewed as a contract and must be explicit about how grades will be determined speak volumes regardless of statements like “I trust my students.”
Grades end up on a transcript. Though the first audience for a course grade is the student, the larger audience wields far more power over the student than the teacher.
All of this is to say my concern with upgrading or even collaborative grading stems from the romanticism or idealism of the impulse to sugarcoat the reality.
Instead of keeping letter grades in the shadows, I would bring them out in to the light and assign students the task of assigning a grade to their major assignments with justification. I would give them specific criteria to look for in the artifact or product, as they do the work I would give them feedback grounded in the criteria, and I would then grade the work according to the criteria. I would record both grades.
As the course progresses, I would expect to see increasing positive correlations between self-grades and teacher-grades.
Students would learn to become academically task oriented. they would learn the importance of appraising the task and characteristics of different qualities of their work. they will understand that they are not helpless pawns in a grade game, but active agents who can do well in an ABCDF system once they understand the relationship between an assignment and an evaluation.
In the end, students will have either an experience with a compassionate teacher who wants to free them from a cruel and one-sided system of evaluation for a short
time in one course or an experience with
an empathetic teacher who finds difficult flaws in the system yet is aware that it is pervasive. this teacher is focused on giving them opportunities to learn how to learn in a system designed to rank
and sort them, not to help them grow to
their potential. given the reality of the mission to make students college and career ready, I'd say rather than spending time writing aspirational and emotive language on a syllabus, invest time in
designing long projects with thick description of different levels of performance and nail down the logistics of how to do it.
What you've described is not actually that different from what I'm doing. And I hope none of us are "sugarcoating" or "keeping letter grades in the shadows"! I think there are ways to both acknowledge the reality of grades and the weight they carry for students *and* to minimize their harms in our own classrooms. I engage students in conversation about all these things at the beginning of the semester. "Aspirational" syllabus language around grades is not the most important thing, but I don't think it's a waste of time.
Here's a bit of mine that goes into the why. It goes on way too long before and after this, because it's still modeled on Isao Inoue's Labor Based Grade Contract. I like the simplicity of your collaborative grading explanation. I have been thinking of mine as a combo of specs and collaborative grading, but maybe the tracker sheet is a better way of getting at that. This class has been made up exclusively of Dual Credit students.
"Grades focus students on the wrong things.
Like other labels, they affect how we view ourselves and how we act based on that view. Negative labels tend to shut down the learning process, creating a fixed mindset. Positive labels are no less damaging. Why put out more effort if you’re already a “good” student? And what if you try something new and it’s a huge failure? That’s terrifying, to risk losing your “good student” identity. These attitudes aren’t healthy, and the labels themselves are not actionable – how does having a C help you do better?
These labels and attitudes can also inhibit growth. You’ve heard that writing is a “process”, but when the product is what’s being judged (with the stakes discussed above), it’s hard to engage in the trial and error required for authentic, meaningful learning. "
Very good food for thought! Thank you for specific examples too re: syllabus language and/or first day of class. I struggle with how to present this, with clarity, so that students could drop the class if they want something else. Can I explain, without great context, a system that needs context, time, and examples to be more clear? I also struggle with using statements like “I trust you.” I wonder if my saying it creates less-than-productive space for my students to wonder if either I ‘doth protest too much’ or whether other professors do not trust students.
I understand this. I do think students are starting from an (implicit or explicit) assumption that professors don't trust them--but maybe I'm too pessimistic!
I love the phrase "collaborative grading" for this approach. Communicating my trust in student's ability to do the work has been fundamental to my practice, but I always struggled with how to describe what this means when I am expected to assign a grade at the end of the term. Now that I have a term of art for this, it will be so much easier.
Glad to hear this!
I should note that I got this term from Lindsay Masland and Jayme Dyer!
This is really helpful. Thank you! I may be experimenting with this in the fall!
I really like this idea. What have you found are the "logistical limits" of this approach? For example, the workload for doing this with even a 50-person intro-level course would be daunting. (Yes, this is one more argument for smaller class sizes! I'm with you!) but we may not have that luxury.
Most people I've spoken with so far only attempt it in smaller classes because of the time required for one-on-one conferences. But I have spoken with at least one person who implemented collaborative grading in a large lecture by conferencing only with students whose self-assessments (and grade designations) were not well-aligned with the evidence of their work. I think it can be done! But it's tricky, and probably not for everyone.
My approach to managing this style of grading with "larger" classes (up to 35 students) is to make the self-assessment process largely asynchronous. Students have the option to request meetings, either in-person or electronic, but the norm is to submit self-assessments in a medium/format that works for the student (prose, audio, video, etc.) Providing written feedback is a lot of work, but, for me, more manageable than trying to schedule, coordinate and take notes on individual meetings with, potentially, upwards of 100 students across three courses.
In practice, the work of written feedback is also easier than you might expect. In my experience, most students are pretty clear-eyed about the work they're putting in (or not). If anything, students are more likely to down grade than up grade themselves. At the beginning of the term, I ask students to articulate their own goals and expectations for the class. That provides a useful point of reference and, again, students are very good at holding themselves accountable.
So, most terms, I end up with only a handful of students who need extensive feedback, whether because of a big gap between their self-assessment and my assessment of their work, or because a student is struggling and needs encouragement and guidance to stay engaged and chart a path to an acceptable grade.
The main downside to managing self-assessment this way is I have less control over whether and how my feedback is received. There is at least a record of it, but I'm sure there are students every term who don't read what I write. For most, this won't matter much because I fundamentally agree with their self-assessments. Fortunately, struggling students who remain engaged enough to submit their self-assessments, typically want feedback and are waiting to take it in. It's the students who have unrealistic self-assessments who seem most likely to ignore feedback, but since I began grading this way, I've never had anyone come back to complain about a grade.
I also have a (relatively) short comment in my syllabi and then spend some time in class discussing the rationale for my ungrading. [I do labor-based grading a la Asao Inoue.] I prime the in-class discussion on the second day by having students read either Alfie Kohn's essay "The case against grades" or a short article by Schniske & Tanner called "Teaching more by grading less (or differently)". Both are available online. My rationale for ungrading is that for most students grades calculated in traditional/typical ways tend of interfere with learning rather than supporting it. In my experience discussing grades with students, that's an idea that resonates with many of them and has been a productive beginning point for collectively re-thinking their student-ing behaviors in my classes.
Thanks! I do something similar, and I'm hoping my next post will share some ideas for actually talking about grading systems with students rather than just explaining on the syllabus.
Well over 90% of all high schools public or private require teachers to issue grades of some sort at intervals like semesters. Sometimes I think that ideas like “ungrading” make teachers feel better but have little longterm impact on students.
The social reality of grades as well as percentile ranks or rubric scores is pervasive. Students may experience attempts to de emphasize grades in random courses over time, but because they are fat and few between, and because at the end of every course they get a grade anyway, the message of grades is a steady drumbeat.
The fact that students get a syllabus with the ubiquitous grading policy printed on it, the fact that the syllabus is viewed as a contract and must be explicit about how grades will be determined speak volumes regardless of statements like “I trust my students.”
Grades end up on a transcript. Though the first audience for a course grade is the student, the larger audience wields far more power over the student than the teacher.
All of this is to say my concern with upgrading or even collaborative grading stems from the romanticism or idealism of the impulse to sugarcoat the reality.
Instead of keeping letter grades in the shadows, I would bring them out in to the light and assign students the task of assigning a grade to their major assignments with justification. I would give them specific criteria to look for in the artifact or product, as they do the work I would give them feedback grounded in the criteria, and I would then grade the work according to the criteria. I would record both grades.
As the course progresses, I would expect to see increasing positive correlations between self-grades and teacher-grades.
Students would learn to become academically task oriented. they would learn the importance of appraising the task and characteristics of different qualities of their work. they will understand that they are not helpless pawns in a grade game, but active agents who can do well in an ABCDF system once they understand the relationship between an assignment and an evaluation.
In the end, students will have either an experience with a compassionate teacher who wants to free them from a cruel and one-sided system of evaluation for a short
time in one course or an experience with
an empathetic teacher who finds difficult flaws in the system yet is aware that it is pervasive. this teacher is focused on giving them opportunities to learn how to learn in a system designed to rank
and sort them, not to help them grow to
their potential. given the reality of the mission to make students college and career ready, I'd say rather than spending time writing aspirational and emotive language on a syllabus, invest time in
designing long projects with thick description of different levels of performance and nail down the logistics of how to do it.
don't ungrade—UPGRADE.
What you've described is not actually that different from what I'm doing. And I hope none of us are "sugarcoating" or "keeping letter grades in the shadows"! I think there are ways to both acknowledge the reality of grades and the weight they carry for students *and* to minimize their harms in our own classrooms. I engage students in conversation about all these things at the beginning of the semester. "Aspirational" syllabus language around grades is not the most important thing, but I don't think it's a waste of time.
Here's a bit of mine that goes into the why. It goes on way too long before and after this, because it's still modeled on Isao Inoue's Labor Based Grade Contract. I like the simplicity of your collaborative grading explanation. I have been thinking of mine as a combo of specs and collaborative grading, but maybe the tracker sheet is a better way of getting at that. This class has been made up exclusively of Dual Credit students.
"Grades focus students on the wrong things.
Like other labels, they affect how we view ourselves and how we act based on that view. Negative labels tend to shut down the learning process, creating a fixed mindset. Positive labels are no less damaging. Why put out more effort if you’re already a “good” student? And what if you try something new and it’s a huge failure? That’s terrifying, to risk losing your “good student” identity. These attitudes aren’t healthy, and the labels themselves are not actionable – how does having a C help you do better?
These labels and attitudes can also inhibit growth. You’ve heard that writing is a “process”, but when the product is what’s being judged (with the stakes discussed above), it’s hard to engage in the trial and error required for authentic, meaningful learning. "
I especially like the part about process versus product here! This is something I've been thinking a lot about since the arrival of generative AI.
Very good food for thought! Thank you for specific examples too re: syllabus language and/or first day of class. I struggle with how to present this, with clarity, so that students could drop the class if they want something else. Can I explain, without great context, a system that needs context, time, and examples to be more clear? I also struggle with using statements like “I trust you.” I wonder if my saying it creates less-than-productive space for my students to wonder if either I ‘doth protest too much’ or whether other professors do not trust students.
I understand this. I do think students are starting from an (implicit or explicit) assumption that professors don't trust them--but maybe I'm too pessimistic!