Alternative Grading and Assessment Practices for UDL

Introduction

What approaches to grading will increase equity in your classes, motivate your students, and encourage them to focus on learning (rather than “grade grubbing”)? This session will offer an introduction to ungrading, contract grading, and other equitable grading practices that align with Universal Design for Learning practices. You will be prompted to consider how these approaches can work for their courses. Individual follow-up consultations will be available if you want to implement an alternative grading framework in your course.

Pre-Work

None

Session Recording

Presentation Slides and Resources

Presentation Slides: UDL Alternative Grading and Assessment

Presentation Transcript: UDL Alternative Grading and Assessment (Word document)

Grading and Evaluating Writing

• Equitable Writing Assessment for Weinberg College Seminars
• Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom
• Toward writing assessment as social justice (College English special issue)
• Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Just Future
• What LMS Site Statistics Tell Us about Timing Instructor Feedback on Student Writing (Laflen)

General Chemistry Grading Tools

• Grade Tracker from Chem 181, Fall 2022 (linked here: Grade Tracker Word Document, and Grade Tracker Excel Document)
• Grade Tracker FAQ — additional tables of grade standards made accessible to students

Alternative Grading Frameworks and Practices

• Grading for Equity (Feldman)
• Specifications Grading (Nilson)
• Using Multiple Grading Schemes (Dyer)

Media Credits

Slide 1: “Piled Higher and Deeper by Jorge Cham” from www.phdcomics.com is included on the basis of fair use.

Slide 4: “Starring Role … Have you been good today?” by Pewari is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Slide 10: “Opportunities/Merit Ranking Chart” Where Does Grading Come From? Retrieved from https://asaobinoue.blogspot.com/2021/05/where-does-grading-come-from.html is included on the basis of fair use.

Slide 13: Image created by Lisa Del Torto.

Slide 21: Practice of grading illustration by George Wylesol, retrieved from https://www.educationnext.org/time-to-pull-plug-on-traditional-grading-supporters-say-mastery-based-grading-could-promote-equity/, is included on the basis of fair use.

Slide 25: Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash Slide 27: Photo by vnwayne fan on Unsplash