Main Takeaways
Don’t penalize students for the learning process
Allow students to demonstrate their knowledge in ways that work for them
Emphasize learning and creating the conditions for learning over grades
Quick Wins
Changes you can easily implement to make a difference in your teaching and in the learning and experiences of your students
- Grade for content rather than form, register, or style: Remove all rubric elements that enforce standardized language use or privilege certain language varieties or registers over others
- Consider implementing a no-fault final exam: Design your course grading scheme so that the final exam can only raise, not lower, student course grades
- Use asynchronous assessment options where possible: Offer assignments and exams in asynchronous formats if feasible to give students sufficient time to confidently complete them
Bigger Impact
What more can be done to have a long-term, positive impact in your teaching and on your students’ learning and experiences in linguistics?
Suggestion #1: Create more varied assignment options
Consider how you can utilize assignment formats beyond traditional written homework assignments, exams, and papers to allow students to demonstrate their knowledge in a variety of ways.
Why?
- Knowledge can be demonstrated in formats that students feel confident with
- Value is given to skills beyond written communication
- Assignments can be connected to real-world applications
How?
- Consider offering a range of options for projects with guidance for each format and comparable rubrics across all formats
- Give students the option to record audio or video responses instead of written responses where feasible
- Create assignments that have clear connections to formats that students are familiar with, such as Wikipedia posts, infographics, podcasts, or TikTok videos
Suggestion #2: Adopt a new grading model
Consider moving away from typical percentage-based assignment grades and toward a grading structure that emphasizes learning. Some options are skills-based grading and labor-based grading.
Skills-Based Grading
This method involves identifying the core skills that a student should learn in your course and awarding students points when they successfully demonstrate mastery of each skill (see resources below for more detailed information).
Why?
- Mistakes during the learning process are an opportunity for feedback but are not penalized
- Emphasis is on mastery rather than partial understanding
- Assessment is clearly connected to the learning objectives of the course
How?
- Identify the list of skills that will be graded
- Design course assignments and exams to include multiple opportunities to demonstrate each skill
- Determine what counts as “mastery” of the skill and develop targeted feedback for students who do not attain mastery on a given problem
Labor-Based Grading Contracts
This method, which is especially useful in writing classes, involves grading students based on their fulfillment of labor expectations and contributions to the classroom learning environment (see resources below for more detailed information).
Why?
- Students have the freedom to take risks and grow in their learning
- Multiple language varieties and practices can co-exist
- Assessment and feedback is the responsibility of the entire class community, rather than the instructor alone
How?
- Determine what your labor expectations are for the default course grade
- Decide how deviations from labor instructions, including additional labor in excess of expectations, will affect course grades
- Formulate a grading contract for the course that clearly lays out the expectations and negotiate details of the contract with students
Resources
Skills-Based Grading
Gotta catch ’em all: Skills grading in undergraduate linguistics. Zuraw, Kie, Ann M. Aly, Isabelle Lin, and Adam J. Royer. 2019. Language 95:406-427.
Skills-Based Grading: A novel approach to teaching formal semantics. O’Leary, Maura and Richard Stockwell. 2021. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 6:869-881.
Skills-Based Grading – Website with helpful templates and samples from Maura O’Leary
Labor-Based Grading Contracts
Sample grading contract template from Asao B. Inoue
Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom. Inoue, Asao B. 2019. The WAC Clearinghouse & University Press of Colorado.