My Strategy for Tackling End-of-the-Semester Grade Grubbing
It pays to be proactive rather than reactive when designing courses.
Happy Wednesday, work friends!
When I opened the Bluesky app earlier today, I was reminded that we’re full-fledged into grading season.
You know, the time of year when faculty members and instructors begin posting on social media about being in grading purgatory.
Among those who have already finalized their grades are posts describing desperate emails from students inquiring about last-minute extra credit opportunities or the possibility of submitting missed assignments due the first few weeks of class.
These stress-filled interactions led me to name one of the candles in my candle line for academics, Grace While Grading.
Grace is for me when completing my least favorite task as an instructor, and grace is for my students as I review their submissions and assign final grades.
While the candles smell nice, they are not the strategy I allude to in the title—they simply make the grading process more pleasant.
My actual strategy was sparked while listening to a 2020 episode of the Tea for Teaching podcast.
Tea for Teaching is a podcast about innovative and effective teaching practices hosted by John Kane and Rebecca Mushtare.
The specific episode that inspired my teaching practice aired on April 15, 2020. It featured an interview with Dr. Kevin Gannon, then Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and Professor of History at Grand View University (he is now the Director of the Center for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence and Professor of History at Queens University of Charlotte).
Dr. Gannon had just released his book Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto.
During the episode, Dr. Gannon discusses the importance of instructors building equity rather than equality into their course designs.
He explained that while equality and equity are related concepts, faculty too often fixate on equality—ensuring they have clear expectations of all students that are communicated clearly.
Equitable teaching has a different focus. Its main goal is to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to learn and succeed by connecting them to resources that will help them learn while also considering students’ prior backgrounds and levels of academic preparation.
Photo by Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu on Unsplash
Shifting to an equity framework forces instructors to embrace a growth mindset rather than a deficit model of teaching and learning.
In my course, this has meant brainstorming a grading approach that assumes many students will develop notetaking, reading, and study skills over the semester rather than having these fine-tuned skills from the start.
As I have embraced this reality, I’ve thought deeply about keeping students motivated to make an effort even if they have a rough start to the semester.
After years of tweaking my approach, I now offer five ways for students to earn extra credit: in-class group games/activities, sending articles connected to course materials, submitting “conversation starter” questions before class, offering post-meeting reflections on course topics, or providing stand out summary statements of the “three takeaways” from a particular class meeting and lecture.
I’ll likely discuss these strategies in greater depth in future posts. Today, I highlight them because they are weekly opportunities I offer students to proactively demonstrate their effort and engagement so they are not in the position to “grade grub” in the first place.
I also use a grade distribution that adjusts the weight of assessments based on the point in the semester. Early assignments count less because students are still figuring out the course and learning how to succeed. I explicitly discuss this design with students in a more extensive discussion about intellectual humility, which I describe in more detail in this post.
Finally, I allow earlier grades to be replaced by later grades if students improve. For example, I use reading quizzes that students often find challenging in my courses. Per the course syllabus, they earn a 6, 12, and 16-week quiz average. If their quiz average improves at 12 weeks, I replace the 6-week grade with the 12-week grade. For example, if a student earns 70% at 6 weeks and 95% at 12 weeks, their 6-week and 12-week quiz grades become 95%.
I’ve found that including these opportunities makes it easier to redirect students’ attention to their level of effort over the semester rather than discussing whether or not I am being fair when deciding not to “give a grade” at the end of the semester.
While I still have students who occasionally ask to have their grades bumped, in my experience, most students will acknowledge that they did not do their part by taking advantage of the opportunities they were provided. Consequently, they accept the grade.
I consider this a win at my most exhausting point of the semester. But more importantly, it is a win for students who are still growing and developing into mature adults who are learning what it means to be accountable for their (in)actions.
Until next time,
Brielle, aka Your Cooperative Colleague