An Experiment in the (Re)distribution of Grades (Part 3)

{NOTE: Just a reminder that this is a re-post of my original reflections on my first implementation of ERG, which was around 2015-2016.]

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. More like inexplicably curious, sometimes exasperating, really strangely 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 watching reality TV IRL, seriously. Brilliant, more than a little bit depressing, but fascinating in a way that you could not watch to the end.

CLASS D ended up making no changes to their original ERG plan… but only after arguing it out until LITERALLY the last 30 seconds of the class. Their deliberations were, on the whole, a thing of beauty.

That said, I’m thinking that for all future iterations of ERG, I will institute a 30-min 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 (at the beginning of the term) over their end-of-the-semester (and decidedly self-interested) revisionist arguments.

Now that ERG has completed it’s first cycle, I’d like to share one admission and one preliminary warnings before I move on to the lessons I learned from it,

First: I can’t yet report the actual difference in grade distribution (if any) 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-half 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.

Second: I should also say that I implemented this experiment in my first academic year as tenured Associate Professor, and I doubt I would have tried it 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 Chairperson. Still, CYA before trying ERG.

1. Students’ ability to imagine socio-economic orders alternative to those dictated by the logic 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.

   If you intend to adopt my ERG plan, I very strongly suggest that you prepare yourself to NOT INTERFERE in advance. The students will see the possibilities they see, and they will not see the possibilities they do not see. Your role in this process is more or less to be a “court reporter.” Resist the urge to influence their discussions in any way.

2. Remind your students, and yourself, that the classroom is the ONLY civilized 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?

   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 some (not all!) seem almost incapable of imaging those alternatives as merely possible. In the first week of classes,you do not serve your students best by pointing out their lack of imagination. Think of the ERG as a thermometer. It’s the first week: you’re measuring the temperature of your class, not trying to cure them of the plague.

3. 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 is to encourage students to reconsider their default, largely-unexamined presumptions (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 under which and from which they suffer.  ERG is a good start. Also, try saying things like this, frequently, gendtly, 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.

4. 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, and most importantly 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 don’t know it yet, but 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 the outcome of their decisions. That’s hard, but at the end of the day, the points and how they are distributed (or redistributed) doesn’t affect your life at all.

   Let them cook.

5. STEP 3 is super tricky, and can be messy if you’re not careful.
   I never could have imagined what a minefield STEP 3 could be if it weren’t for one section of my classes in Spring 2017. Smart, savvy students who were super-invested in their grades came up with all kinds of ways to “game” the game on the last day and, had I not prepared for it in advance, I would have been caught off guard.You’ve got to be crystal-clear about your parameters before you get to STEP 3, keeping 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 conversation is likely to skew in favor of the class “thought-leaders.”

   DO NOT interfere in the deliberative process of the class at the end of the semester. At that point, they are already a “community.” They may (or may not) have established collective values at that point, but on the last day of the semester, that is their fight to have. You should have already prepared them for exactly this kind of dispute. You don’t get a vote. Mediate and mind your face.

   I strongly 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… unless, obviously, the dispute is susbative.

By way of conclusion, I should say that I don’t think this experiment is for everyone. If you genuinely believe that you are a fair, unbiased, impartial, expert grader and that the grades you assign are accurate and objective measures of your students’ performance in your courses, ERG is not for you.

But also, bless your heart if you believe 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.