Q+A: Managing the Logistics of Going Gradeless When ... Technically, You Can't.
Bucking the gradebook system in subtle ways that won't get you fired (including a sneak peak at my gradebook right now!)
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Goodness, I love our community chat.
About eight years ago, at my previous school, I decided to go gradeless in my twelfth grade classes. I told the students. I explained to their parents. And I told no one else — no administrator, no colleagues — relying instead on forgiveness instead of permission.
(You can time travel to read about my entire process and how I managed it here, here, and here.)
Lo and behold, in February (I started this experiment in August!), my administrator stopped by my room and pulled a chair over to my desk. She was (okay, understandably) surprised to hear that I wasn’t giving my students traditional grades. She was equally kind and aghast.
But, in that conversation, she said something about grading that has stuck with me — even now that I am back in a situation where I just cannot get away with those shenanigans anymore.
She said, “Regardless of whether you grade or don’t grade, it needs to be clear to everyone where grades have come from, what they mean, and how students are really doing in your course in terms of skill mastery.”
Fair enough!
If anything, this conversation convinced me even more deeply that grades can mean many things and, by themselves, are not a clear feedback tool. Conversations with students, reflection, and self-assessment actually provide students with information that helps them move forward.
These days, I teach in a middle school where going gradeless isn’t going to fly. At least not right now. But I can still adhere to principles of gradlessness to guide me:
Grades are not objective. And they mean something different to different teachers in different classes.
Ergo, grades aren’t good communication. Written + oral feedback are good communication.
While our culture reinforces that grades are motivating, we shouldn’t use them as a reward or a punishment.
Relationships with students and intrinsic motivation improve the less we use grades and the more we talk about learning.
Okay. I know I haven’t answered the question yet. Here’s the question: how do those of us in systems where we just can’t go gradeless embrace the ethos of gradlessness while still putting grades in the gradebook and not creating a tangled web of work for ourselves?
Here are some strategies that are working for me: