In this class, individual assignments and other required components will be assessed as complete or incomplete. Early in the semester, you get to decide in advance whether you’ll receive an A, a B, or a C, based on instructor expectations and requirements necessary to receive that overall grade. Lower grades may be assessed at instructor discretion. This approach (sometimes called ungrading or collaborative grading (or sometimes contract or labor-based grading) is supported by over 40 years of research in educational psychology and the scholarship of teaching and learning. This approach is also grounded in the work of Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator and philosopher, and bell hooks, a Black feminist, scholar, and activist. Their work in critical pedagogy and theories of education advocated for teaching approaches that promote students’ critical thinking and knowledge ownership and dismantle systems of oppression.
bell hooks makes this point in her book Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (Routledge, 1994). “I entered the classrooms with the conviction that it was crucial for me and every other student to be an active participant, not a passive consumer” (14). I’ll also quote from the introduction of Peter Mayo’s 1999 book Gramsci, Freire and Adult Education: Possibilities for Transformative Action: “There is no such thing as a neutral education process. Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of generations into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes the ‘practice of freedom’, the means by which men and women deal critically with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world” (5).
More practically, I would much rather spend the semester focusing on your desire to learn and my desire to teach. Quoting Miriam Posner, a professor at UCLA, “rather than play the role of adversary, which is time-consuming and draining for me, I’ve chosen to spend my energy teaching and to leave the decisions about grades in your hands” (link to her blog post about contract grading). As pedagogy scholar Peter Below has stated, I would much rather spend time focusing on the activities that lead to learning than haggling over how to quantitatively assess high-stakes final products you submit.
The advantage of this approach to evaluation is that you, the student, decide how you want to approach the course; if work is completed satisfactorily and in a timely fashion, there shouldn’t be any grade surprises. This means planning ahead, thinking about all of your obligations and responsibilities this semester and also determining what grade you want or need in this course. If you complete the work outlined for a particular grade, you get that grade. Done.
To summarize:
Image credit: Jesse Stommel, “Why I Don’t Grade”, blog post (26 October 2017)
What does this look like in practice?¶
Early in the semester
We will have a conversation about different grade options and the expectations and requirements necessary to receive that overall grade.
During the semester
There are only two grades for any assignment: Complete/Incomplete. Complete is full credit. Incomplete (poor quality, late, or not submitted) is no credit.
If an assignment is marked as Incomplete, you will have the opportunity to revise and resubmit (within a defined time frame).
I will provide feedback on assignments and other course requirements, especially in situations where you are receiving an Incomplete.
At the end of the semester
We have a conversation about how the course has gone and what you’ve learned through the semester.
Final grades should not be a surprise. If there is a situation where you’re not on track to receive the grade you expect, this will become apparent and be communicated to you before the end of the semester.
We can have a conversation about expectations as needed so the final grade reflects a mutual understanding about instructor expectations and completed student work.
The instructor reserves the right to award a grade of D or F to anyone who fails to meet a minimum threshold for satisfactorily meeting the course learning objective. A D grade denotes some minimal fulfillment of course learning objectives. An F is the absence of enough work to warrant passing of the course. Both a D and F denote a breakdown of the learning environment I strive to create in the classroom and the relationship I want to foster with students.
Resources¶
Dan Melzer, D.J. Quinn, Lisa Sperber, and Saray Faye, “So Your Instructor is Using Contract Grading…” Writing Commons (n.d.)
A blog post that does a good job of introducing students to this grading approach.
Grade Requirements¶
Link to Google Doc with course-specific requirements (ND users)
FAQs¶
What if I contract for a grade but screw up one thing?
You get one temporary exemption. For example, if you anticipate an A but miss 3 classes. The original arrangement still holds, BUT the other elements must be fulfilled.
What constitutes an excused absence?
Excused absences are those permitted by University policy and verified as per section 3.1 (pages 4-5) of the Undergraduate Academic Code.
I recognize there are things that happen outside class (physical health, mental health, family circumstances, etc) that impact your ability to engage in the work of the class and are not explicitly addressed by University policy. If there are things going on that affect your ability to engage in the class (attendance, assignments, etc), please stop by office hours or make an appointment so we can have a conversation about how things are going and what next steps might look like.
How will I learn without grades? Isn’t grading part of your job?
Faculty in Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters are committed to “sharing new discoveries with their students, kindling a passion for inquiry, and empowering them to become researchers in their own right” (University of Notre Dame, College of Arts and Letters, “Discover”).
Decades of educational psychology research and scholarship on teaching/learning show that grades can actually run counter to those goals, because they…..
Diminish students’ intrinsic motivation
Aren’t actually useful metrics for student learning
Don’t constitute meaningful feedback on your work
Encourage competitiveness over collaboration
Can reflect instructor bias
Go back and re-read the paragraphs under “Grading & Assessment.” If you are interested, I can send additional resources on this approach, and we can have a further conversation about what this approach will look like in practice.
How will I know how I’m doing?
Complete/Incomplete grades will let you know whether you’re meeting expectations or requirements for specific elements of the course. Individual meetings with the instructor (required for each contract option) are also an opportunity to discuss your performance in the course and potential areas of improvement.
The Canvas gradebook is a useful starting place to keep track of assignments and course requirements.
How will I know how I’m doing, relative to other students in the class?
Who cares? This class is a learning community, not a competition.
How do you know we’ll actually try to do a good job?
I don’t. I’m trusting you. You wouldn’t be at Notre Dame without a significant level of intelligence and motivation. I’m trusting that you will bring that intellectual curiosity and desire to learn to bear on the work of this course.
Why don’t other professors use this approach to grading?
Faculty have a wide variety of goals and expectations for the classes they teach. Part of being a faculty member is having the autonomy to make decisions about how you structure, design, and facilitate the classes you teach. That includes different approaches to grading.
Participation & Engagement Expectations¶
Class sessions will consist of three modes of instruction and participation/engagement.
Lectures¶
Lectures will typically focus on the presentation of a key idea and may include some in-class activities.
Most lectures are pre-recorded and made available on Panopto (which you can access through Canvas or other instructional material). Sometimes lecture material will be presented as a document with notes.
Participation/engagement involves engaging with the content, using ungraded comprehension quizzes to test your understanding, and being prepared to actively apply and engage lecture content/concepts during in-class work time.
Discussions¶
Discussions will build on assigned materials and information presented in lectures. These conversations are an opportunity for you to build on individual reflections, engage with colleagues’ observations, and work collaboratively to more fully understand assigned material and core concepts.
These discussions will be framed by questions or prompts provided by your colleagues as well as the instructor. Participation and engagement involves showing up, interacting/engaging with colleagues, and providing well-developed contributions and responses. Discussion participation and engagement options will include a wide variety of formats, including:
Large group discussions
Small group discussions
Individual brainstorming/reflection
Collaborative annotation
Etc.
Collaborative Problem Solving¶
Collaborative problem solving will typically focus on working collaboratively through a series of steps to learn or make use of a particular tool–such as the command line, Python code, or a software designed to demonstrate a particular computing concept.
Assignment Deadlines, Late Work & Extenuating Circumstances¶
Assignments that are not submitted in a timely fashion will result in an Incomplete assessment. This policy protects both your time and mine. It also ensures that you will remain on track to complete all of your work by the end of the term.
I ask that folks contact me as soon as possible if such a circumstance will prevent you from attending a class session or completing the coursework according to the schedule outlined in the syllabus. Extensions (typically between two days and one week) are available in extenuating circumstances, so please reach out to me if you believe that you cannot meet an assignment deadline or if additional time would enable you to submit better quality work.
I recognize there are things that happen outside class (physical health, mental health, family circumstances, etc) that impact your ability to engage in the work of the class and are not explicitly addressed by University policy. If there are things going on that affect your ability to engage in the class (attendance, assignments, etc), please stop by office hours or make an appointment so we can have a conversation about how things are going and what next steps might look like.
Complete/Incomplete grades will be posted on Canvas. If you would like to discuss your performance in the course, stop by office hours or make an appointment.