Thank you for your post. I wanted to reply to this one, specifically, because I teach a course that is 100% project based, which I agree is a great approach to knowledge transfer and open ended learning.

I also grade. I thought grades would be a motivator for my students. What I’ve learned is that for some it is and for some it isn’t. Last year I had a few students skip entire groups of assignments because they did the math and were okay with getting a zero for 15% of their grade. Clearly grades didn’t motivate these students.

I grade for multiple reasons – some I’m learning aren’t good reasons. I grade with lecture quizzes in an attempt to improve lecture participation. This isn’t the best approach so this coming fall I’m going to continue lecture based grading but with the Top Hat learning system integrated into my lectures to make them more interactive – I hope it helps. I know there are many other ways to improve lectures, too.

I also grade because my department is ABET accredited and I have to provide lecture, assignment and assessment proof that my students are performing well enough against ABET dictated learning objectives. Even when I don’t agree with the learning objectives or the recommended assessment methodologies.

Finally I grade to give feedback. This is the only one I really believe in. I learned in some Engineering Education classes last spring the true value of feedback. Assess the students, provide thorough feedback and let them resubmit the work. There is research that shows this improves knowledge transfer. I suppose that I could provide the feedback without the grade but my department isn’t ready for that yet.

My students learn the most from the build and test phase of their project (it is Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Capstone, where they design, build and test an actual device) where they experience failure and trial and error. Parts don’t fit together the way they thought. Friction makes things difficult, etc. I’m facilitating this learning and, for now, have to assess them on it with quantifiable results.

I guess the bottom line is that project based learning IS awesome but it isn’t the end of assessments (at least not yet or not in this university/department/class). And that I’m experimenting with different classroom and grading techniques to minimize the affects of learning-for-the-test in my class the best ways I can. Each year it is a slightly different experiment. I originally thought (naively) that in four or five years I’d have this teaching thing down pat. In reality it is a constantly evolving, moving target. I like it better that way. Or else I would lose my desire to learn and evolve as a teacher.

Hello! I agree that there is a huge gap between the current grade-based education and the ideal no-grade system. To fill this gap, instructors can gradually dilute the importance of grades by adding more research projects and hands-on activities to curricula. As I mentioned in the post, we still had homework assignments which were graded, but the major part of our total score was based on the final project.

Jon,

Snaps for this post. I really enjoyed reading it!

I guess the one question I’m left with is about the space that is given to instructors to change up their class structures if the whole university or institution is not on board? Dr. Nelson made a comment near the beginning of the semester about possibly getting in trouble with some entity in the university hierarchy for not conforming to the norms of class structure and assessment.

I think Ben asked a question above that links to this too. If instructors do not have the liberty to make these structural changes on a case by case basis, how do we start the conversation?

You’re asking some really good questions here!
What I’ve been slowly realizing as I read through this module’s blogs, is that I come from a certain academic background and that that background leads me to have specific views on some topics that may not hold true across all fields.

There are a lot of science, engineering and math students in our class. I study international relations(IR). While there is some quantitative work in the form of statistical analysis in what people in my field do, for the most part IR scholars are responsible for good research design, critical thinking, creative ideas and clear writing. I do not think these things are testable and assessments can have many different forms. For most of the classes I’ve taken as a graduate student here, out final assessments have been 25 page research papers that we work on throughout the semester. We might get some credit for participating in seminar discussion or proving reading completion/comprehension, but for the most part we’re graded on papers. If my professors suddenly started trying to test me in my classes, I don’t think I would take very kindly to that change. But likewise, it sounds like a lot of our classmates ARE required to take tests because that’s the way their fields have traditionally done things. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t really have answers, but I do think it’s important for all of us (myself included) to consider where we are situated and how there will not be any blanket statements that can account for assessments across all fields.

Really interesting take on the ways assessment is in some ways *required* in engineering courses to keep up with national (or is it international?) standards.

I agree that not all learning will ‘spark joy’ for all students. And certainly not all assessments will. However, I do think there are ways for students to tailor their assessments to themselves without getting rid of those things that do not spark joy. The midterm that you took for your course assessed everything you had learned for the first half of the semester in just one question. But might there have been a way to have students work on a project that ended up being similar to that test question but in a context that they were interested in? Or, ever more simply, what about having students complete that one question as a take home problem rather than an in class test and have stricter assessment requirements? That way you could avoid the pitfall of testing those with test anxiety.

None of this is to argue with the ideas that you’ve presented in your blog post. As someone who is not in a science or math based field, I was very appreciative to read about a field where testing or slightly more regimented assessment is necessary.

Hi Ben. Thanks to you and G for the great conversation. I know several adults and children with ASD who are so thoughtful, very much like your nephew. It’s almost as if they are more like “old souls” and wise in ways that most of us aren’t. G sounded like that in your conversation. If Gina and G have never hear of Temple Grandin – they should check her out; successful and inspiring ASD leader.
https://www.templegrandin.com/

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Gary – I enjoy your posts. After reading everyone’s’ comments I’m concerned about two things. (I support less grades, but am playing devil’s advocate a bit).

First – I’m not certain, as I don’t have the data, but aren’t a majority of the 5114 students moving towards teaching in higher ed? If so, we need to find a way to get this conversation going with large numbers of educators in primary and secondary school as well.
Second, I feel that the proposed movement away from grades is more feasible in primary and secondary education but less likely to happen in higher ed due to accreditation reasons.
I remember myself (and my children) getting elementary school report cards with grades line “S” Satisfactory or “N” for Needs Work, which makes me think it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for, at least, primary schools to get back to.

Excellent post! I love the beginning of the post where you talk about children and self-exploration. The way that children learn is to play, to explore. To do this the children must be given the space to play and be allowed their innocence which is part of the “space” to play. I have two small children and my own observations of them match what you are discussing. Part of the space that I was mentioning before includes turning off the TV adn freeing their minds to explore the world. I believe that conformity has its place. It is how we function as a society, but I have to agree that conformity taken to far can become toxic. Thanks for the post. Well done.

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Thanks for the post. I glad that you focused on the line from the text, “a flexible state of mind in which we are actively engaged in the present, noticing new things and sensitive to context.” It didn’t strike me until I read it on your blog post. I would like to add that mindfulness is becoming a very valuable, and even marketable, soft skill that will serve you in every dimension of life. For example, if you were to apply this quote in your marriage, being flexible, engaged, sensitive to context, I would imagine that many of the problems that plague relationships wouldn’t ever occur. It might be possible to say that this sentence is a very eloquent way of articulating “don’t be selfish!” Focus on others’ hopes and needs by truly giving yourself to them while you are together. Again, thanks for the post. Nice find.

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Thanks for sharing the experience. I like that you have had a positive experience in a grade-diluted environment. I believe that your experience is special because students often lose interest if they are not being graded. And it is important to give credit to the teacher for creating an environment where students care even if they are graded in a conventional way. Unfortunately a good grade is the only reward that many students understand, and when that is removed they begin to look for a different reward which should inevitably lead them to the right answer which is, obviously, the education. It is a chore to stay up all night fighting for a letter grade. It is engrossing to stay up all night to accomplish something that you believe will be a true contribution. Again, thanks for the post. Keep them coming.