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If your college or university’s re-opening plans are being delayed or cancelled at the last minute, now is the time to reaffirm your commitment to compassionate grading policies.
If you think students will not do the work without grades, ask yourself who education is for (and who it should be for). You can also ask other teachers who don’t grade whether students keep doing the work. (They do.)
If you think students need grades (for graduate/medical/law school applications, to show employers, or for their GPAs), consider that there are many institutions that don’t have grades. And their graduates still get jobs, go to graduate school, etc.
And, in this moment, for some students, institutions, or courses, the most compassionate policy might not be pass/fail, but could be to give students A/no-credit, A/B/no-credit, or some variation.
I‘ve seen teachers using contract-grading, self-evaluation, and others just giving all As. There is no perfect solution. We need to figure out what is right for the students at our institutions, in each of our disciplines, at this moment. And also what works for us as teachers.
If you or your institution is delaying a decision about compassionate grading policies, why? So many institutional and government leaders (particularly in the U.S.) have failed to respond decisively to the challenges of COVID-19. Now is not the time for equivocation.
Grades are a source of anxiety for students and teachers. Acting as humans and approaching students as humans is both pedagogically effective and increasingly necessary right now.
Students are feeling isolated, disconnected from their own education, and many are disabled, chronically ill, have small children at home, are homeless, etc. The most marginalized students are the ones most likely to be struggling right now.
Some students are doing okay, but that is a point of privilege. And most students will encounter challenges at some point this fall. We have to craft policies that anticipate those challenges and communicate care clearly to everyone.
Clutching onto overly bureaucratic policies for grading (or attendance) sends a clear message to students that the complexities of their lives don’t matter.
If your institution isn’t moving forward with an alternative grading policy for all students/classes, there are many approaches you might consider using for your own. Here are some examples: https://www.jessestommel.com/ungrading-a-bibliography/
