What questions do you have about alternative grading? by Emily Donahoe

2025-06-09 22:02:18 UTC

What are some of the success stories for alternative grading?

2025-06-09 22:06:53 UTC

How do you get buy-in from colleagues and administrators when you want to implement alt grading?

cravens2 — 2025-06-09 22:54:03 UTC

Are there specific alternative grading strategies that can be used that would not create a significant inequity across different sections of the same course if not all instructors agree to deviate from the traditional model?

2025-06-09 23:09:12 UTC

What is alternative grading? Very, very new to this! Looking forward to new learning!

2025-06-09 23:20:09 UTC

Looking forward to the conference!

2025-06-09 23:52:43 UTC

How do you fit alternative grading (multiple attempts) into an already crowded curriculum/schedule?

kbartoszynska — 2025-06-10 01:01:09 UTC

The ChatGPT/AI question. I guess there might be many, so broadly -- how has AI complicated or shifted the way you approach alternative grading?

2025-06-10 03:07:48 UTC

I'm wondering how to manage alternative grading efficiently for larger classes.

2025-06-10 11:33:24 UTC

I am interested to know if anyone has experienced a situation where they have utilized alternative grading strategies, but instructors in other sections of the same course do not. Does this create an issue for students (and adminstrators) when students are choosing a section to enroll in?

2025-06-10 13:15:47 UTC

Very large classes require some form of automation in assessment to be cost effective. What can alternative grading methods offer that don't break the budget in large classes?

sewright82 — 2025-06-10 13:30:29 UTC

I'm looking for resources (whole books, book chapters, research articles, popular media articles, blogs, tedtalks, lecture videos, anything counts as "texts" for this course) that are not directed at faculty/instructors/practitioners. If they are aimed at students, even better! This is for a first year course to teach reading, research, and metacognition that I'm teaching in the fall (and probably beyond). The content is secondary to those skills, but am leaning more and more toward centering it around the topic of grading; a way to think critically about their past and future education and give them some practical skills for college success as well, breaking open some pieces of the invisible curriculum for our large population of first generation college students.

fiozm75331 — 2025-06-10 13:46:43 UTC

What is the best way of balancing multiple attempts with overwhelming amounts of grading? I like letting students reassess but the amount of feedback I have to give gets to be a lot.

2025-06-10 14:12:13 UTC

Similar to a few others, I'm wondering about using alternative grading methods in large classrooms. I teach a ~350 person statistics class, and would love to try some alternative grading approaches. However, I'm unsure which methods could be practical in that large setting, and the best way to train TAs on how to help in this endeavor

docshipherd — 2025-06-10 14:58:00 UTC

How do you introduce/use alternative grading with a large group of struggling students - ones who need multiple attempts to meet standards/specs across assignments - so they don't get discouraged and give up?

2025-06-10 17:19:12 UTC

Has anyone successfully implemented alternative grading in the laboratory setting? What does it look like for you? What kinds of assignments work well with this structure? How do you ensure students get the feedback they need to be successful in their laboratory skills development and scientific writing? Okay, lots of questions. Feel free to answer any or all!

2025-06-10 19:30:33 UTC

I have a question on the nuts and bolts of standard-based grading. What exactly does it mean to fulfil a standard? Let's say the course is Calculus I and the standard is "find derivatives of composite functions". To satisfy the standard, does a student need to solve one chain rule problem on a test correctly? A set of problems - of varying difficulty and with different types of compositions? On one test or more than one? Etc. I understand what it means to successfuly complete an individual problem (not looking for perfection, minor computational or careless errors are ok, evidence of understanding is key), but I don't know what it means to complete a standard.

peter87043 — 2025-06-10 19:44:01 UTC

I am interested to find out what is being taught as best practice for grading by education departments in our institutions of higher learning.

2025-06-10 19:50:01 UTC

I am challenged by using the traditional gradebook features available at my institution (we use Canvas) with alternative grading. Any “hacks” people have on how to use an LMS for alternative grading are most welcome!

2025-06-10 20:12:39 UTC

How do I integrate alternative grading in my classrooms while working within the university grading system, especially as a graduate instructor? What tips would you offer to manage the workload of providing feedback within alternative grading systems, since they often tend to be extensive, time-consuming, and individually specific (I’m speaking particularly from the perspective of teaching writing intensive humanities courses)? And finally, how do you manage the disappointment of spending so much time, effort, and energy into giving in-depth feedback, and having students not use it in their work?

2025-06-10 20:28:23 UTC

Has anyone encountered student resistance to the whole idea of revisions? It's someting new that I experienced this past year: students just want to get their partial credit "points" and move on. Say in the traditional grading scheme they would get 5-6 points for a task (out of 10), but now it's a "not yet" and they actually have to do more more for the task to count and they resent that. (?)

2025-06-10 20:33:08 UTC

What factors differentiate a great digital tool to support alternative grading from a good one?

2025-06-10 20:47:57 UTC

would like to hear more about the discourse related to equity with labor-based grading. I realize Dr. Inoue's will be speaking so this might be part of that presentation

peter87043 — 2025-06-10 21:20:45 UTC

The climate for couching Alternative Grading in DEI rhetoric may be getting a tad chilly. Selling the concept based upon better learning outcomes rhetoric might be a more acceptable approach for state & local boards, governors, legislators and the public.

phil_stringer — 2025-06-10 23:43:01 UTC

As a high school teacher at a very academic private school, I hear the message that SBG works in high school, but universities are more traditional. Does anyone know of a list of universities / programs that are using non-traditional grading? (I'm sure Matt Townsley has a list started...).

2025-06-11 00:01:06 UTC

What forms of grading have you found to be most effective for asynchronous online classes?

2025-06-11 00:47:56 UTC

I feel like clarity and up-to-date access for students to their current grade in the LMS has been at odds with my desire to encourage students' self assessment in collaboratively determining their grades. It's either been super collaborative but unclear (and thus anxiety-producing for students, or in some cases, students have unrealistic expectations of how high their grade can be based on stated benchmarks, no check ins between midterms and finals, etc.) or it's super clear but with very little room for collaboration or negotiation. I'm wondering if others who do collaborative grading (or other similar systems) help students have up to date information on their progress. This is as much a pedagogical/assessment question as it is a "how do I wrangle my LMS to align with my ungrading philosophy" question. Thanks for any insights/ideas!

2025-06-11 02:16:55 UTC

I'd be grateful to hear how folks are deciding among alternative grading approaches. For example, some approaches (collaborative ungrading?) seem to lean more toward holistic assessments (often with less certaintly/clarity for students re: their ultimate grades) wheres others (specs grading?) seem to lean more concrete (with more certainty/clarity for students re: their ultimate grades). Are there principled reasons to favor certain alternative grading approaches/combinations—perhaps depending on particular contextual factors such as discipline, learning objectives, course level—or is this based more on differences in personal style or something else?

2025-06-11 03:08:35 UTC

what are some strategies to help students understand what their current grade is in the course?

carriedickson — 2025-06-11 13:20:50 UTC

How do you ensure that students meet deadlines as the semester progresses, or come prepared for a class discussion having done the reading?

These are the 2 big reasons I haven't fully dropped traditional grading, even though I use an alternative method.

2025-06-11 13:40:46 UTC

As a department of me plus an army of adjuncts, I often get new adjuncts who use my materials and change the grading scheme back to traditional points. Any advice on how to get these adjuncts on board with alt-grading?

2025-06-11 13:48:36 UTC

What are some alternative grading practices that I can use to avoid running into problems with AI?

2025-06-11 14:23:22 UTC

What are ways in which LMSs can better support the use of alternative grading in a course?

2025-06-11 14:24:33 UTC

How to table faculty resistance to setting up this system of grading when they feel like "it's too much work"?

2025-06-11 14:47:30 UTC

I'm interested in grading strategies for proof based math courses, in particular strategies for reassessment and/or specifications grading that is feasible to implement.

2025-06-11 15:02:33 UTC

Any institutions out there who are in need of someone to facilitate alt-grading learning communities, book clubs, etc? If so, give me a shout!

Email: stephanie.kratz@heartland.edu

2025-06-11 15:03:26 UTC

How do I best manage assessment in alternative grading? I've tried different things but it seems like it's a lot more work in some ways. I also feel like it's harder to give feedback.

acraft2_1 — 2025-06-11 15:07:09 UTC

How can we make flexible deadlines work for the types of students who really need hard deadlines for executive functioning?

2025-06-11 15:30:49 UTC

Are there some graduated steps to starting SBG? It seems really overwhelming to overhaul a whole course from the get-go.

2025-06-11 15:34:30 UTC

How can we balance student agency and collaborative grading with the possibility that students' sense of what helps them most may be what they're most comfortable with but not necessarily what most helps their learning? (e.g., findings on the benefits of retrieval practice vs. students' perceptions of what most helps their learning)

jdt13 — 2025-06-11 15:40:36 UTC

How can faculty developers best support higher education faculty in considering and implementing alternative grading strategies?

2025-06-11 15:49:56 UTC

I am excited to learn from all of you :-)

weshuu — 2025-06-11 15:50:31 UTC

For those who are department chairs, do you have experience implementing alternative grading policies?

rickmoore2_1 — 2025-06-11 15:50:55 UTC

I'm curious about maintaining student motivation throughout the semester with collaborative grading / ungrading in situations where students are talking other classes that use traditional grading that might motivate them to direct their efforts there

2025-06-11 15:51:01 UTC

Any recommendations or suggestions for rubrics to use with short answer questions?

2025-06-11 15:51:12 UTC

Any other academic librarians here who use alternative grading? I presented a panel at ACRL with other librarians from around the country.

2025-06-11 15:51:55 UTC

Is there a place for references - resources for all the philosophies and approaches that will be presented in the conference?

2025-06-11 15:52:16 UTC

I am looking forward to learning about more of the research into how and why alternative grading works to support and improve student learning. I feel that if I understand the why, it is easier for me to make the necessary changes to my classes.

2025-06-11 15:52:58 UTC

I've started using standards based grading in math (Calculus II) and find myself worried that I'm seeing grade inflation rather than increased learning.

2025-06-11 15:53:02 UTC

I am looking to incorporate contract-/labor-based grading for my first-year seminar course. Anyone have success with this format? How do I convince low-motivated/first year students that this is a good approach as compared to quibbling about points all semester?

cravens2 — 2025-06-11 15:53:17 UTC

I have seen literature on using specification grading in General Chemistry II, but not much of anything for General Chemistry I. Are some of these non-traditional strategies better suited for courses after the first semester? Has anyone successfully implemented alternative grading in General Chemistry I or other similar courses that serve a wide range of students from different majors in their first semester of college?

2025-06-11 15:53:17 UTC

I'm looking for tips or tricks for working with incoming freshmen. I have several ideas already (some of which are probably not great), but I'd love to hear from others who have implemented alternative grading with this population--what's worked and what hasn't?

2025-06-11 15:53:36 UTC

How do you get student buy in? I find that some classes I have are open minded to my alternative teaching approaches, but the younger college students coming in seem to be less enthusiastic about trying these new techniques. I know I work at a university where we have a ton of students who work full time. My fear with a fully ungraded class is that they won't turn things in on time and I will be scrambling to give the feedback needed for them to learn.

2025-06-11 15:53:43 UTC

I teach journalism classes, deadlines are real and mportant. We scaffold our classes in the first two years to teach the "how" and to "practice" with lots of rewrites etc. However, classes are client based in the upper level classes and have very real deadlines, does anyone have any advice for altenative grading given those parameters?

2025-06-11 15:54:02 UTC

I know that offering timely feedback is so important for students' motivation and learning yet I struggle with that - sometimes I grade a month after the assignment was submitted. I need HELP with that!

mutmainm — 2025-06-11 15:54:11 UTC

How are you implementing alternative grading in your classes with AI in the picture? I tend to emphasize process over product but I'd love to know how others are navigating AI's impact on both process and product.

2025-06-11 15:54:45 UTC

What if a student just wants to know only 60% of every topic in the course and hoping to pass? If I practice mastery-based grading, that means a student would need to MASTER some number of topics in order to pass course. I had conversations with students about this in the past and I do not have convincing answers so far.

2025-06-11 15:55:07 UTC

How do you use alternative grading in classrooms where background knowledge varies greatly? Trying to teach developmental math where students come into my course with everything from not being able to add/subtract/multiply/divide to intermediate algebra knowledge.

ccreight1 — 2025-06-11 15:56:41 UTC

I’ve learned to stop thinking universally (i.e. a single universal system) and start thinking interconnected collaborative systems. How can we support each other in progressing our shared, interconnected, and even individual goals and values?

2025-06-11 15:56:48 UTC

I'm curious to know if anyone has used The Learning Record, and would love to hear your experience with it! I've primarily used Inoue's Labor Based Grading in my Writing classes, but recently my colleagues and I have used The Learning Record in a Writing in Science course. Would love to hear anyone's experience with The Learning Record.

2025-06-11 15:57:27 UTC

In this age of seemingly low student intrinsic motivation and high use of AI shortcuts, I am hopeful that we address both of these with more student-centered learning and evaluation. This means rethinking our pedagogy to be more active learning together, and provide value and authentic evaluation to our students.

2025-06-11 15:57:29 UTC

Even with alternative grading approaches in individual classes, students still leave these courses with university-wide "grades" (on their transcripts). Traditionally (and generally speaking), these grades represent students' skill level or content knowledge, but this isn't necessarily true when they're the product of alternative grading methods. I'm curious about how others outside of these alternative grading classrooms might (mis)interpret students' grades. For example, an A in my first-year writing class based on engagement-based grading may not be an indication that the student writes at an "A" level--but this is likely what others (other professors across the university) will assume. I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this potential disconnect.

gerbercarol7 — 2025-06-11 15:58:06 UTC

I concur with Michelle Davidson's comment on the use of ChatGPT in assignments. We learn from our mistakes (how else do we know when we get it right?). If students are pressured for the grade, they may see the need to use AI to earn the grade. I stress to my students that they need to learn FIRST what they do not know and then use AI later when allowed to polish their ideas or brainstorm. I am transparent in informing my students that I do use AI as a teaching assistant. The difference is that I have earned the right (40 plus years in business and 7 years of teaching plus MBA). Embrace AI but know your voice first!

elioutikova — 2025-06-11 15:58:50 UTC

Somebody said in the chat today that not all students come to us wanting to learn, and perhaps that is okay, but some of the students who don't want to learn also want perfect grades. I think this is one of my biggest challenges with alternative grading but also teaching in general: I don't know what to do with students who don't want to learn but want to get good grades (perhaps by "mimicking" or "studenting" that worked for them in the past.) I would love to develop some strategies for better reaching these students and getting them to try to engage with meaningful learning.

2025-06-11 15:59:37 UTC

As a comp instructor, I struggle with the expectation of SAE. While contract grading can easily adapt to product and even to process, language facility is expected by many professors and employers. How do we reflect and define the criteria for language application?

2025-06-11 16:00:20 UTC

How do I begin making the transition to alternative grading? I'm just beginning my journey, so I'm still having trouble envisioning how it will all work out for my classes. I could use some help with that first step.

2025-06-11 16:09:13 UTC

Rubrics—benefits? costs? in what ways are/aren't these essential? what can the "best" rubrics for student learning look like?

mosherm4 — 2025-06-11 16:22:14 UTC

When using labor-based grading in writing classes, how do others establish criteria for what constitutes enough revision for a second, third, etc. draft to be considered complete? I find word counts effective when grading first drafts, but I struggle to gauge the labor that goes into revision without falling back on a subjective assessment of quality.

2025-06-11 16:28:18 UTC

I'm having trouble seeing the substantive differences between contract grading, specs grading, standards grading. They don't seem that fundamentally different. What am I missing?

2025-06-11 16:29:41 UTC

How does the context of an asynchronous online course impact alternative grading practices? One thing I've noticed is the importance of community- and relationship-building to facilitate the trust of my students.

2025-06-11 16:30:37 UTC

LARGE STEM CLASSES:

I teach Genetics with 400 students so I am interested to hear about large STEM classes.

I see three sessions, all three tomorrow (see below). Did I miss anything? Will anyone else discuss successful strategies that they have implemented in large STEM classes? Thank you.

1). The keynote

2). Research and Special Topic: Student Perceptions and Pedagogical Dissonance by Hannah Kinmonth-Schultz

3). Research: Alternative Grading in Chemistry by Brandon Yik et al.

2025-06-11 16:31:21 UTC

Has anyone done grading contracts in a content-based STEM course? How did you set it up?

2025-06-11 16:45:30 UTC

How do those of you who teach pre-meds (or other pre-professional populations who are very strongly motivated to maintain a high GPA) talk to your students about alternative grading? There is so much grade anxiety in my upper level biology courses among students who are planning their next steps, and I think the focus on the final grade is hampering their actual learning. Have you experienced any resistance from students in this position? Or do you have any examples of how alternative grading could relieve some of this anxiety?

elioutikova — 2025-06-11 16:59:18 UTC

Also to follow-up on something from the chat: I would love to hear about how people use a "professionalism" standard in their grading system and what that might look like.

2025-06-11 20:45:25 UTC

Apologies if this topic has already been addressed elsewhere. I've not yet had an opportunity to read all threads. For folks who use collaborative grading, I'd love to hear how you manage cases where your assessment of a student does not align with the student's self assessment. I teach a graduate-level community-led, project-based, critical service-learning course where students receive a wealth of feedback from their community partner, faculty adviser, and peers. Students are supposed to use that feedback as evidence of their engagement and quality of work; however, I've had students recommend grades higher (e.g., a community partner documents that a student's work is inadequate then the student recommends the highest grade possible for themselves) and lower (e.g., a community partner documents that work exceeds expectations but the student recommends a "satisfactory" grade for themselves) than what the evidence supports. I've struggled with how to objectively and systematically reconcile differences across the evidence presented in feedback and students' recommended grades. Thanks for sharing any wisdom/experience y'all have!

2025-06-12 15:56:55 UTC

I find myself wanting to move away from using standard textbooks, and I'm wondering if this connects with my inclination toward alternative grading in any meaningful way(s). Thoughts?

acraft2_1 — 2025-06-12 22:11:47 UTC

Are there any COURSE COORDINATORS who would be willing to chat with me about how they do things? How to formally establish a coordinated course, policies, role designations, etc. I'm a de facto course coordinator for a multi-section course and am looking for support as our program grows and as we begin to implement alt grading.

Some of my Qs:

Are there common policies or best practices for defining and enforcing the role of a course coordinator?
What types of documentation (e.g., dept policies, coordinator agreements, syllabus statements) can be used to communicate expectations?
Are there department procedures for designating course coordinators with oversight responsibilities?
Which course components get replicated across sections for an effective course, and in which areas do your instructors have creative freedom?

rouec1k — 2025-06-13 01:11:45 UTC

I’ve been utilizing Collaborative Grading in my face to face classes and would like to also implement it in online-asynchronous classes. What tips or strategies do you use for online implementation?

2025-06-13 20:01:54 UTC

I have a junior level, project-based, discussion heavy course that I'm thinking of converting to ... ungrading/labor based(?) grading. Most students end up earning an A based on the current traditional grading scheme, and I honestly don't care about the grades, but I do care about students staying involved in the class, participating, doing assignments, etc. and the grades seem to "motivate" that currently.

Does anyone have suggestions of how to go about transitioning to a different grading system? Maybe a syllabus they'd be willing to share? I teach other courses using specs grading, but I don't feel my learning objectives for this course are well suited for that kind of a system.

Thanks in advance for any advice