Burden shifting

I've been mulling over Rebecca Schuman's "Confessions of a Grade Inflator" for a few days now. It's honest and insightful and I can relate to a lot of what she says. I don't, however, share her admiration for those professors with the "intestinal fortitude" to give out 'C's. Some of them, sure. But the mere willingness to make it difficult to get an 'A' is not by itself admirable, and the reason it isn't connects with another reason I sometimes tend towards grade inflation.

My worry with teachers who pride themselves on giving out 'C's is that they sometimes lack the self-awareness to realize that students aren't succeeding because they are not teaching effectively. Poor performance is automatically attributed to some failure on the student's part and never as a reflection of poor teaching. That is not admirable.

My own tendency is to take things in the opposite direction. I see disengaged students not doing well in a class and immediately think I must be doing something wrong, that I have somehow failed in the design or implementation of the course. This inclines me to give students a break on grades since I'm nagged by the feeling that it isn't their fault but mine.

Obviously the truth is likely to fall somewhere between these two extremes, but given my tendency towards the latter extreme, I have tried a lot of things over the years to mitigate its effects. I've settled on some version of contract grading as my favorite. The basic idea is to establish at the beginning of the course exactly what is required for attaining various grades and allow students to essentially choose the grade they want and then proceed down the path to attaining that grade. Most assignments are graded pass/fail and, if done right, no student should ever have any doubt about exactly where she stands and what grade she will get. All of this goes a long way towards eliminating the kinds of complaints that often lead to grade inflation.

It has a lot of other benefits as well, not least of which is that it gives some power back to students. To some extent I've already implemented something like this approach in Collo. Grades are spelled out clearly, assignments are basically pass/fail and there are a variety of ways to achieve the various grades. While I think this has in general been an improvement, it doesn't quite work as well as I would like it to. One problem is that the "menu" that is currently available is too short. We need more options. I would actually be fine with a more genuine contract each semester where what you do for Collo is entirely up to you (subject to my approval, of course.) I'm skeptical that that can work, at least immediately. But we can get closer to that if we can expand the classes offered and the range of things you might do that count for some kind of Collo credit.

I also think this is the key to making Collo less repetitive. If you think Collo wastes your time--and many of you do think that--then figure out how to do something with it that isn't wasting your time. There's a good chance I'll be open to that. As a bonus, I get to shift the burden back to you--not just for grades, but the direction of the course itself. Nifty trick, that burden shifting.