A Better Grading System?

Inside Higher Ed has an article on a Duke Professor who implemented a new grading method for her seminar class. Here’s how it works:

Her approach — first announced on her blog — works based on contracts and “crowdsourcing.” First she announced the standards — students had to do all of the work and attend class to earn an A. If they didn’t complete all the assignments, they could get a B or C or worse, based on how many they finished. Students signed a contract to agree to the terms. But students also determined if the assignments (in this case blog posts that were mini-essays on the week’s work) were in fact meeting standards. Each week, two students led a discussion in class on the week’s readings and ideas — and those students determined whether or not their fellow students had met the standards.

Could this model be implemented at Cornell? The Professor Cathy Davidson claims that while almost all of the students- fifteen out of sixteen- are earning A’s in the course, the system has resulted in students working more and producing better quality writing assignments. Fair enough, but I have three separate qualms with the general argument of this article, titled “No Grading, More Learning.”

First, this complicated system of self-governance clearly isn’t the only way to get students to work more at improving their writing skills. My writing seminar instructor motivated us by getting us really interested in the topic- texts on the Antichrist in philosophy and medieval literature- and constantly grilling us on our writing styles. We always received low grades on our papers, so we eventually sort of gave up on getting good grades and just committed to writing good papers. I definitely ended up improving my writing skills, and to my surprise, the professor gave me a high grade.

Second, I doubt that this system would be applicable to any kind of class outside of writing seminars. Not that this article necessarily makes the case for this, but this point is worth emphasizing. How could this be implemented in a class with even 50+ students, and what kind of grading system would there be in math or sciences courses?

Finally, even if such a system does get students to “learn more,” the fact that all students end up receiving higher grades eliminates an important aspect of why students get grades in the first place. In case you haven’t realized, grades are used for signaling. By getting an A in a calculus class that has a B median grade, you signal to grad schools and employers that you’re a better student than the peers you’re competing against. It’s great if you feel like you actually learn more along the way, but for short-term advancement, this grade signaling is mostly what matters. I think the goal of an improved grading system is to get all students to work more while still allowing better performing students to use grades as signals of their achievement, not getting rid of this aspect of grading all together.