What follows is the conclusion to a three-part series of posts detailing a pedagogical experiment that I tried out for the first time this term, which I call “An Experiment in the Redistribution of Grades” (ERG). You should read all the details of ERG in the original post here, but the basic idea was to give students the opportunity to collectively devise a plan for redistributing among their classmates any “extra” points they had accumulated at the end of the semester. Two important things to note: first, the redistributed points were not “extra credit” points, but rather “surplus” points, or what I call “pointless points.” (For example, a student with a 96 average at the end of the semester will receive an grade of “A,” but will also have six “pointless points” leftover.) Second, if a class decided to adopt a redistribution plan, there was no way that the plan could hurt any individual student’s grade. It could only help. That is, no student in my classes this semester could receive a grade lower than what they “earned.”
I designed ERG to take place in three steps. The first two steps happened at the end of the first week of the semester– so, in students’ third class period together. Each section of my PHIL220 (Contemporary Moral Values) course was given the opportunity (STEP 1) to decide whether or not they wanted to adopt a redistribution plan and, if they did, (STEP 2) to deliberate about the terms of the collection and redistribution of points at the end of the course. As it turned out, all four sections of my PHIL220 course decided in favor of redistribution, and I detailed the separate plans they devised in my post earlier this semester here.
The final phase of ERG didn’t happen until the last day of class. In STEP 3, students were reminded of the redistribution plan they adopted back in August, and they were give the opportunity to accept, amend, or discard it. This is where things got… well, interesting.
One somewhat surprising fact of STEP 3 was that many of the students had completely forgotten about the ERG plan they adopted only four months ago. (This was a good thing for me to learn, because one of my concerns last August was that having a redistribution plan in place might alter students’ behavior and/or performance in my course.) When I reminded them of the details of their plans, CLASS A and CLASS B immediately and unanimously voted to accept their original proposals without amendment. Not so with the other two sections, however.
(Just a reminder that you can read each section’s original redistribution plans here.)
Initially, a slim majority of CLASS C voted to adopt their plan without amendment, but the class as a whole quickly determined that the dissenters should be heard before making a final decision. The hold-outs’ primary sticking point was that the initial plan required points to be redistributed “low to high,” i.e., first to those with grades closest to an A, then to those closest to a B, and so on. After some (really careful and very impressive) discussion, the dissenters were able to convince their classmates to reconsider, and CLASS C ended up reversing their order of redistribution. Like CLASS A and CLASS B, not one student in CLASS C even suggested discarding the redistribution plan altogether. All three of these sections had arrived at a final decision in less than 15 minutes.
CLASS D, on the other hand…
It’s funny how classes manage to take on their own collective identities. Not haha funny. Inexplicably curious, sometimes exasperating, really strange funny.
Students arrive to my class in August as twenty-five strangers. Very quickly, leaders emerge. Then, those principals set a tone, establish an ethos, enact a disposition, model a set of thoughts or behaviors or manner of interacting that, slowly but steadily, everyone else begins to adopt as a norm. By the time December rolls around, I find myself thinking of each separate section as a distinct personality. If the students in any section actually did merge and morph into a single person, I’d easily recognize them on the street.
I’d describe the “personality” of CLASS D as classically liberal (in both its positive and negative connotations). They’re principled in a Kantian/Rawlsian kind of way– ideal, abstract, universal– but they are also deeply, passionately meritocratic, which means that there’s always a tiny, entitled, Nozickian libertarian hiding under the bridge there, waiting and ready to gobble up anything that looks like charity. They’re strategically, punctiliously, committed to procedure and the rule of law. They’re excellent technocrats, practiced bureaucrats. And so, given the opportunity to revisit a decision that would substantively impact their station, they seized it like a Golden Ring.
CLASS D was the only section that took the entire class period to complete STEP 3. Their deliberations were almost exclusively directed at amending their original plan in such a way that would maximize benefits for the already well-positioned. CLASS D also spent a significant amount of time trying to determine the best way to “game” the game: looking for loopholes in the ERG rules, floating super-complex redistribution amendments (some of which amounted to multiple-level redistributions, i.e., redistributions of redistributions, which I vetoed), and surveying their classmates to “guesstimate” each students’ current standing in the course, so that the amended plan could be tailored to not benefit the “undeserving.” It was like IRL reality TV.
I’m thinking that for all future iterations of ERG, I will institute a 15min time limit on STEP 3. That’s partly because I have a really great “last class” lecture, but also because I’ve decided that I want to give significantly more weight to students’ behind-the-veil-of-ignorance plan over their end-of-the-semester (and decidedly self-interested) revision of that plan.
Now that ERG has completed it’s first cycle, I’d like to share some lessons learned.
I can’t yet report the actual difference in grade distribution that ERG has effected on my classes because I’m still in the midst of grading final exams/papers, but it seems pretty clear to me already that it is likely to move between 40-50% of each class up one letter grade. On the whole, I’m very happy with how ERG went, both as a pedagogical experiment (for me) and as an substantive lesson (for students). If you are so inclined, I really do encourage you to give it a try as currently designed.
I should also say that this was my first academic year as an Associate Professor, and I doubt I would have tried out ERG without the security of tenure. If you are a precariously-employed academic, I recommend running ERG by your chairperson first. (Do not neglect to note that no student’s grade can be harmed by ERG, it can only be helped.) I had the good fortune of receiving enthusiastic support for this experiment from my Department Chair (Bru Wallace), who is as committed to pedagogical innovation as he is to student success. Still, CYA before tring ERG.
Here are some lessons learned from my first go-round:
- Students’ ability to imagine socio-economic orders alternative to those dictated by the logics of capitalism or classical liberalism is severely limited.
Like all intelligent, politically-engaged, and morally-reflective persons, I have my own commitments to how matters of “good,” “right,” “true,” and “just” are best determined. However, I do not view my role in the classroom to be that of a proselyte. My responsibility, as I understand it, is to teach students how to think– logically, consistently, responsibly, defensibly, and with an informed historical, social, and political awareness– but never what to think.It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that my personal views lean very strongly socialist, anti-colonialist, anti-racist, gender-critical, and techno-optimistic. In my day-to-day interactions with students in my classrooms, though, my default strategy is always to take the position of whatever philosophical figure I am teaching that day. I find that this is often confusing for my students, because their default strategy is to presume that professors are more or less ventriloquizing the Truth.
Of course, anyone who teaches unfamiliar ideas will regularly encounter resistance from students to those ideas. What ERG has made (painfully) evident to me is that not only are current students disinclined to consider social organizations or resource distributions alternative to the order in which they currently exist, but they seem almost incapable of imaging those alternatives as merely possible.
At the end of the day, the classroom is the ONLY civilized (even if sometimes uncivil) place we have to safely explore disruptive, unorthodox, unconventional, or radical ideas. If we cannot protect the classroom as a space where thinkers are encouraged to permit their reach to exceed their grasp, what’s a classroom for?
- The Meritocracy is strong with these ones.
As I described at length in my original post about ERG, one of the main goals of this experiment was to encourage students to reconsider their default, largely-unexamined presumption (a) that “grades” are assigned according to merit and, more generally, (b) that the metrics that determine GPAs, which are the primary assessment of students underwritten by academia, accurately reflect students’ merit. As I also noted in that earlier post, I think most (if not all) students know that grades/GPAs are not representative measurements of merit..But, Lordy Bagordy, students are sloppy drunk on that Meritocracy Kool-Aid.
I don’t know that I have a remedy for this, except to keep trying, gently but persuasively, to disabuse them of the delusions from which they suffer. ERG is a good start. Also, try saying things like this, frequently and with conviction:
Academia is not a meritocracy.
The job market is not a meritocracy.
The justice system is not a meritocracy.
Wealth is not a meritocratic determination
Social status is not meritocratic determination.Rinse. Repeat. And then repeat again.
- ERG will not work unless the Professor commits to total non-interference in students’ deliberations.
This was really difficult for me, but I committed from the get-go to not interfering in students’ deliberations except in those cases where clarification or explanation of the basic ERG parameters was necessary. In STEP 1 and STEP 2, which happen in the first week of classes, I could (of course) already identify students who were inclined or disinclined, on principle, to adopting a redistribution plan. I was personally rooting for those who wanted to adopt a plan, but it absolutely had to be “mum’s the word” from me.To be honest, I was genuinely surprised that all sections of my PHIL220 course adopted a redistribution plan in the first week. (As I said in my original post about ERG, I expected the exact opposite.) This being the first time around with ERG, I found it challenging to not intervene in their deliberations, but upon reflection, I think it is of the utmost importance to stay out of the way as much as possible for a number of reasons.
First, ERG is a great opportunity, in the first week of class, to more or less “take the temperature” of your students. There are so many issues that come up in the redistribution deliberations, implicitly or explicitly, that allow you (as the prof) to get a real sense of the general dispositions of your students. Second, there is almost no way to intervene in their deliberations in a non-coercive manner. (Remember: this is the first week of classes, and so they are trying to impress.) Third, you have to let them make their own decisions– good or bad– and you have to trust in the ERG process.(They will get another chance at the end of the semester!)
Finally, and most importantly, you have to commit to having no vested interest in outcome of their decisions. At the end of the day, the points and how they are distributed (or redistributed) doesn’t affect your life at all.
- STEP 3 is super tricky.
I never could have imagined what a minefield STEP 3 could be if it weren’t for one section of my classes this semester. Smart, savvy students who are super-invested in their grades will come up with all kinds of ways to “game” the game, so you’ve got to be crystal-clear on your parameters before you get to STEP 3. Keep in mind that, by the end of the term, students know each other and the discursive pecking-order has been in place for several months, so (unlike the discussion in the first week) the STEP 3 discussion is likely to skew in favor of the class’ thought-leaders.As I mentioned above, I recommend allowing a max of 15mins for students to complete STEP 3. If, at the end of those 15mins, they are still undecided, I recommend taking an up or down, simple majority, “accept” or “discard” vote on their original plan.
But also, bless your heart if you believe you are that.
I recently came across an excellent piece by Jesse Stommel entitled “How to Ungrade,” which I highly recommend. I encourage all of my colleagues to give serious consideration to Stommel’s claim (with which I wholeheartedly agree) that grades “are never fair and they undermine teaching and learning.”
When I teach Aristotle, or Kant, or Butler, or Mills, part of what I aim to do is to introduce and clarify the basic concepts that ground virtue ethics, deontology, feminism, and critical race theory, respectively. But, beyond that, I also aim to help students along to a place where they are capable of asking informed, reflective, critical questions– even if also basic questions, like “is this true?” or “is this right?”— about the philosophies they have learned, and then to answer those questions for themselves. When I assess students’ work, that second facility weighs most heavily in the grade they receive.
So, why don’t we give students space to critically reflect upon the way they are assessed? Why do we expect students to passively, but dogmatically, accept one particular evaluation apparatus? Especially an evaluation apparatus that has been determined– over, over, over, and over again– to be irreparably biased, inaccurate, and discouraging? Why wouldn’t we want students to ask the same basic questions we encourage them to ask of any other theory that substantially impacts their lives: is this true? is this right? is this fair?
The ability to ask and answer those questions is, after all, what will be most important to students outside of the classroom: for determining the just and the true, for understanding their own station and that of others, for distinguishing between worthy and unworthy arguments, for measuring whatever they count as happiness or success, and for committing to the advocacy (or antagonism) of persons, principles, purposes, and projects.
The truth is, as I’ve said many times before on this blog, I would be perfectly happy to begin each semester guaranteeing every student an A. Not because I believe every student is “excellent,” but rather because I do not believe there is any real correspondence– and there hasn’t been for a long time– between “excellence” and an “A.”
Grades do not incentivize to students to learn. In fact, they get in the way of real learning. The only thing that grades do effectively is to reinforce tragic delusions: of academia as a meritocracy, of learning as reductively utilitarian, of competition as a more productive social arrangement than cooperation, and of education as the sole desert of the elite.