I ran a teaching circle with fellow faculty at Wayne State this past year and called it, like my workshop, “Less Grading, More Learning.” We discussed different ways to de-emphasize grades, workshopped syllabi and assignments and generally reflected on our experiences. There were colleagues who had done some form of alternative grading before and others who were just starting out. Several themes became clear over this year and I am going to write a couple of posts about them. Here, I am starting with the one that seemed most significant to us: in systems where grades are de-emphasized, students revise their work.
Studies back up the point that if a grade is awarded, students are less likely to revise and are even less likely to read feedback because often times feedback becomes a justification for a grade rather than something constructive to work with. Butler compared in the 1980s how students worked with 1) grades no feedback, 2) grades with feedback, and 3) only feedback no grades, and found that the last group would revise whereas the others would not. A conference on campus last month focused on feedback. The invited key note speaker was Anastasiya Lipnevich who has recently found the same to be true. While Lipnevich didn’t completely eliminate grades, she tested how students reacted to feedback on drafts when grades were or weren’t present. Particularly interesting in her lecture was that praise worked much like a grade. If the feedback began with praise, students were less likely to revise. One reason could be that students got the same signal as a grade would provide: you did well (enough), so there isn’t much or anything left to do.
Last semester, I observed this process in a beginning language class. All our language classes are already minimally graded. We grade most assignments as complete/incomplete and allow retakes on quizzes, counting them as complete when students reach 80%. But in the minimally graded class, we give points on writing assignments and projects. Based on Elbow, we use a 100-80-60-0 scheme that makes it easier to be consistent with grades (although I found that there is still quite a bit of variation of how similar submissions are graded). This past semester, I also taught one section ungraded, so the writing assignments and projects were graded as complete/incomplete and could be revised based on feedback to achieve a complete. In a way, I saw the complete/incomplete as “A” or “not done yet.” Opportunities for revision were also available to those who received grades in the other section. The outcome was much as the studies suggested:
Whereas, students with 80 or 60 points in the minimally graded sections hardly ever revised (1 out of 15 did so for writing assignment 3), almost everyone who received an incomplete in the Ungraded section did (9 out of 11 for writing assignment 3). The main reason is likely that 80 points seem alright. It is a B and students might think that it’s not worth the effort to revise to get a better grade. An incomplete, however, signals that students are not done yet. They haven’t met the standards of the assignment yet.
Now the one problem I have encountered with this aspect is that it can also feel overwhelming. Students might not want an A but the incomplete tells them that they should keep working. Therefore, a balance needs to be in place that allows students to choose when they want to put in the work.
The result is quite clear though: students who revise, develop better language skills and retain the concepts better than those who don’t. Students know this, too. When asked in a survey, almost everyone said that revisions are beneficial to learning. So, let’s incentivize revising without pressuring students to work non-stop!
Sources:
Butler, Ruth. “Enhancing and Undermining Intrinsic Motivation: The Effects of Task-Involving and Ego Involving Evaluation on Interest and Performance.” British Journal of Educational Psychology. 58.1 (1988): 1-14.
Elbow, Peter. “Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking: Sorting Out Three Forms of Judgment.” College English. 55.2 (1993): 187-206.
Lipnevich, Anastasiya. “Mechanisms and Contexts of Instructional Feedback: How It Work and How It Doesn’t.” Keynote, Conference “Closing the Loop,” Wayne State April 8th, 2022.