Grading for Equitable Learning

April 30, 2021
hands holding stack of papers

Powerful possibilities open up when considering how we might embrace Teaching More by Grading Less (or Differently) (Schinske & Tanner, 2014). The resources below aim to:

  • explore current scholarship on how Improved Grading Makes Classrooms More Equitable (Feldman, 2020) and manageable for both our students and ourselves, and 
  • offer practical grading strategies that reduce anxiety, increase transparency, encourage consistently meaningful learning, and therefore foster educational justice.

Alternative Grading: Practices to Support Both Equity and Learning

UVA’s CTE blog post explores how specifications grading can help to make grades a more meaningful part of the learning process.

ATL Conversation: Grading for Learning

A panel of URI faculty teaching in a variety of diverse disciplines and settings discuss their experiences with Standards-based and Specifications Grading. (Recorded March 2021)

Grading for Equity

A book by Joe Feldman

Humane Assessment During the COVID Pandemic and Beyond

An Inside Higher Ed article by Rosalie Metro

Learning Community – Grading for Learning: Empowering Students with Agency for Growth

If you’re interested in exploring grading strategies that reduce anxiety, increase transparency, and encourage consistently meaningful learning, join us for this Spring 2022 Learning Community!

Meaningful, Moral, and Manageable? The Grading Holy Grail

An instructor shares why she decided to try specifications grading and lessons learned from her experiment.

Teaching More by Grading Less (or Differently)

After reviewing the history of and research on grading practices, the authors share four strategies for making the process 'more productive, better aligned with student learning, and less burdensome for faculty and students.'

Specifications Grading

Is Specifications Grading Right for Me?: A Readiness Assessment to Help Instructors Decide

Article that contains 'a readiness assessment tool that prompts instructors’ reflection on how institutional culture, identity, and course/curricular contexts may pose or alleviate the risks of adopting nontraditional grading practices.'

Meaningful Grades with Specifications Grading

An introduction by JHU Innovative Instructor series

Specifications Grading

A book by Linda Nilson

Specifications Grading: We May Have a Winner

A Mathematics professor shares his experience with Specifications Grading

Ungrading

Grades Can Hinder Learning

An article from The Chronicle of Higher Education by Beckie Supiano

Ungrading

A book edited by Susan D. Bloom

Ungrading: An FAQ

Jesse Stommel offers key insights and considerations about Ungrading: An FAQ

Antiracist and Labor-Based Writing Assessment

Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Just Future

An ebook by Asao B. Inoue

Equitable and Inclusive Assessment Practices for Diverse Writing Intensive Classrooms

Handout by Asao B. Inoue from a 2020 Faculty Workshop at Pima Community College

Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom

An ebook by Asao B. Inoue

When Your Grades Are Based on Labor

An infographic on labor-based grading from a student perspective

Growth Mindset

Carol Dweck, Growth Mindsets and Motivation

A video with Dr. Carol Dweck

Mindset, and the Power of “Yet”

An article by Jamie Beck

The Power of Yet

A TEDx talk by Dr. Carol Dweck