Assigning grades in a non-traditional classroom

Back in 2017, I was introduced to Michael Quinn Patton’s GUIDE framework for structuring a principles-focused evaluation. This was around the time I started to work in a non-traditional classroom. The juxtaposition got me wondering if a set of principles that were Guiding, Useful, Inspiring, Developmental and Evaluable would be helpful to the Semester in Dialogue?

In 2018, I supported a couple of Semester alum to develop a set of principles using Quinn Patton’s framework. The students came up with a set of seven principles including ones about dialogue, impact, communication, and content knowledge, as well as principles for relationship building, self-reflection and experiential learning.

Over the years, application of the principles has been guiding, useful and inspiring, but it has been harder to apply them as a tool for evaluation. Evaluable in this context is the complex challenge of assigning grades.

The container of a post-secondary institution is highly transactional built on the deeply held belief that learning can be assessed quantitatively, based on transactional assignments and tests. Students complete their assignments and faculty give them a grade. This is based on the notion that growing knowledge is just complicated. If raising a child is considered complex, isn’t their educational journey also complex?

In the Semester in Dialogue, we tried to be relational. We wanted to get to know each student individually and support their unique learning journey. We wanted to stress learning over accountability, so we did not offer any grades during the semester, we only provided feedback. The sense of uncertainty and the freedom to make choices in their learning journey led to considerable anxiety among students, but almost always enabled emergent learning outcomes that the students will carry with them throughout their lives.

In 2019, we tried to turn the principles into learning outcomes and assess a student’s application of the principles for each assignment. This was still very transactional. More recently we tried to zoom out on the students learning journey by using the principles as a framework for each student to self-assess their learning journey throughout the semester. As their instructor, I also used the principles as a framework for assessment. Together we discussed how our assessments compared. This was definitely a more relational approach, but in the end, grading is still a transaction that can’t be avoided.