In case I haven’t convinced you that devaluing numerical grades in favor of formative feedback works, check out these comments from my students. In them, the students relate how they appreciated the lack of late policy–allowing them to choose their own deadlines for scaffolded elements of their final project–and the grading schema based largely on check/no-check.
“With less stress and anxiety about grading and deadlines, I was able to think more critically about the information and I wish other classes were more along these same lines.”
“I never took advantage of the flexible deadline policy but it was nice for others that it was there. The grading was also nice because it let us focus much more on the actual content of the assignment instead of worrying about what we needed to include to get a good grade.”
The project for this particular course included an annotated bibliography, literature review, theory and methods write-up, draft, peer review, and final submission. By breaking up the assignment into multiple pieces that each received individualized feedback, students were set up for success:
“I really liked that the final project was split into smaller parts that I completed throughout the quarter. It helped lessen the stress and allowed me to get a clear grasp of my project as I learned more throughout the quarter. Robyn’s feedback was also very helpful and thorough and I could tell that she read through each student’s project carefully.
And these comments were echoed by many:
“Deadline: This helped me a lot because I was struggling in starting the work and using research in writing. Breaking assignments down: loved this, because it was easier to measure progress this way. Grading: This took the pressure off of getting a certain and grade and allowed me to focus on creating work that I am proud of. Feedback: The feedback is very valuable, it gently nudged me towards a better, clearer direction.”
Students felt comfortable in the class and through reflection recognized why and how such policies and materials could continue to help them personally and professionally.
“Thank you so much for your approach to grading in the course. I think a frequent problem in college and other learning environments is a strong focus on grades rather than where it really should be: learning. Your grading approach of flexibility allowed less time to be spent on stress and thinking about grades, and more time to be spent on enjoying and diving into the material.”
“I think Robyn has done a really good of making the class interactive and people comfortable speaking up. Feels like a small group of friends learning about an interesting topic that I’ve never heard about which I appreciate.”
All these quotes come from the course I taught as a Collegium of University Teaching Fellow at UCLA in 2019. It is called How Smell Shapes the World. I am grateful for my students’ anonymous feedback.