Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Education
A Unilateral Grading Contract To Improve Learning And Teaching, Peter Elbow
A Unilateral Grading Contract To Improve Learning And Teaching, Peter Elbow
English Department Faculty Publication Series
Contract grading has achieved some prominence in our field as a practice associated with critical pedagogy. In this context, we describe a hybrid grading contract where students earn a course grade of B based not on our evaluation of their writing quality but solely on their completion of the specified activities. The contract lists activities we’ve found most reliable in producing B-quality writing over fourteen weeks. Higher grades are awarded to students who produce exemplary portfolios. Thus we freely give students lots of evaluative feedback on their writing, but students can count on a course grade of B if they …
Why & How Instructors Grade Participation In, Susan L. Rogers
Why & How Instructors Grade Participation In, Susan L. Rogers
NERA Conference Proceedings 2009
Although active engagement and participation in college courses has been shown to lead to increased learning (Weaver & Qi, 2005), instructors often struggle to get their students to participate more in class. This issue is sometimes addressed by including "participation" in grading criteria. The current study investigates this convention by identifying current instructor attitudes and practices towards grading student participation in undergraduate classrooms. To this end, a survey has been created and piloted amongst university instructors of varying disciplines. Data is presented in the context of current literature, and relationships between attitudes and practices in grading participation will be explored.