Davidson College Professor Allows Students to Pick Their Grade Before Class Starts

The Associated Press
The Associated Press

A professor at Davidson College will allow students to pick their grade before the class even starts this fall.

Professor Melissa Gonzalez, who teaches Introduction to Spanish Literatures and Cultures at Davidson College, employs a “contract grading” system which allows students to pick their grade before the class begins. Based on the grade they choose, the student will be given a certain amount of work. The higher the grade, the more work that must be completed to earn it.

The College Fix published a report on Gonzalez’s grading system last week. In an email to students, Gonzalez cited a 2009 study on “contract grading.”

“The contract helps strip away the mystification of institutional and cultural power in the everyday grades we give in our writing courses,” the research paper reads.

The paper goes on to explain that conventional grading systems make students feel uncomfortable. As a result, allowing students to choose their grades allegedly allows for a more productive learning environment.

Using the contract method over time has allowed us to see to the root of our discomfort: conventional grading rests on two principles that are patently false: that professionals in our field have common standards for grading, and that the ‘quality’ of a multidimensional product can be fairly or accurately represented with a conventional one-dimensional grade. In the absence of genuinely common standards or a valid way to represent quality, every grade masks the play of hidden biases inherent in readers and a host of other a priori power differentials.

This seems to be a recurring trend amongst idealistic professors as they put together they syllabi in August. Last August, a professor at the University of Georgia came under fire for a similar policy that would have allowed students to choose their own grades. Ultimately, the university forced the professor to use a standard grading system.

“The professor has removed this language from the syllabus,” a University of Georgia spokesperson said. “In addition, the University of Georgia applies very high standards in its curricular delivery, including a university-wide policy that mandates all faculty employ a grading system based on transparent and pre-defined coursework.”

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