In my continued grading research, most systems I come across do seem to be a step in the right direction, but don’t quite go far enough to address the problem of grades taking away focus from learning. Contract grading is one of the systems that misses the mark because it tends to actually bring all the focus to a grade.

In contract grading, students pre-determine what they’ll do in order to get a certain grade (i.e., do this, get that a la Kohn, 1993). For example, completing all weekly assignments and two papers could result in a C. Adding a collaborative project and another paper might be a B. There’s often an element of quality in addition to quantity, too. For example, an A might be to do all those things above, yet at a certain higher defined level. The benefit of contract-grading is supposed to be to help students prioritize their time, perhaps doing a minimal amount of work to get credit for a required course they’re not interested in (e.g., gen ed course), which would free up time to do the most work for content they’re actually interested in, (e.g., college major). In the end, however, the grade is the main determiner for how much work students do. As you can see, it’s still all about the grade.

What if it were about learning, instead?

I can envision two tweaks to instantly improving contract grading that shift focus to learning. First, is reframing the entire contract around what the student intends to learn, stating something like “I expect to develop a basic understanding of the content.” From there, a rubric could list grade equivalents for how much the student intends to learn (e.g., basic = C, moderate = B, advanced = A). Granted, this option does still focus on the grade in the end, but the choice is less about doing assignments (that may, or may not result in actual learning), and more about the student taking ownership over their learning. It’s an improvement. A half step in the right direction.

A full step would be to set criteria for what it means to have those basic, moderate, or even advanced understanding of content, and just skip tying them to a grade whatsoever! Instead, have students self-grade, with or without a set of numbers to choose from (e.g., 55, 65, 75, 85, 95, 100). Would it matter if a student with a basic level of understanding self-grades the same as a student with an advanced level of understanding? Well, that all depends on the criteria you set, and is something you’ll have to reflect on. Letting students determine their grade this way independently from their intended learning level could require letting go of what you traditionally think grades mean. Of course, in reality this happens ALL the time with traditional grading systems. One kid never turns in anything but kills it on big assessments: grade of 85. Another kid does OK at everything the teacher requires: grade of 85. See? The result isn’t much different, but the path getting there certainly is when it’s focused on learning. N.B. I think that the common expectation of all students being equally highly proficient in all their classes is ridiculous. It makes no sense to expect what few students rarely achieve (and at what cost?!). Quite honestly, all the “when am I ever gonna use X?” questions that students have are pretty much correct. Education at the secondary level is far less about content knowledge than it is about developing skills to become independent learners. Yet the majority of educators naively think they’re preparing students for a major/career in that content area. It’s absurd! We could be more reasonable in what to expect from students, especially if we actually want to promote the joy of learning. So for me, I’d have no problem with two students developing different levels of understanding getting the same grade.

BASIC vs. Standard
This year, I found that a LOT of students just weren’t interested in Latin, the school’s only language. While there were always a few in the past, this year’s numbers were upwards of like 50% of classes. What went wrong? Well, aside from what was out of my control, like COVID-19 effects that no one seemed to be talking about, my best guess was that I had to adjust my teaching and get rid of personalized activities that used to be a big hit. Yes, students were generally apathetic, but they also found it VERY hard to listen, which is no good for a second language class. This led to incomprehension, which led to behavior problems. So, things like student interviews (Discipulus Illustris), or even just “how’s it going?” questions to start the class became impossible to continue. Since that wasn’t working, I moved almost everything in class to reading, reading, reading. While this proved incredibly effective as supported by ALIRA scores, those trusted activities for creating program buy-in were missing. Students really didn’t know how much less enjoyable and how much harder they were making class for themselves, but that die was cast. All I could do was watch things unfold, and respond as best I could. One response was to acknowledge their disinterest and create a BASIC level of participation, interaction, and learning for every activity. For example, “read Chapter 7 for gist, then do other class work” was an option alongside the standard “read Chapter 7, understanding everything, and continue to Chapter 8.” Surprisingly, most students chose the standard level. Perhaps it was just the choice that was enough to inspire. Hmm…

But grading? Naw. This wasn’t connected to a grade at all. I was getting closer to a form of contract learning that still allowed for maximum student ownership. If a kid had a massive History assignment, they could read some Latin in class, then go do what was stressing them out. It was almost like tiered reading scaffolding that didn’t require a student to move up through each one (i.e., reading Tier 1 only could allow them to participate in class at a lower language level). There were some students learning less Latin than others. And that’s fine.

So, the learning levels certainly could’ve been the start of a basic, moderate, advanced contract grading model following the self-grade approach without that criteria connected to a grade. I had even planned for reflection prompts asking students to consider if their intended learning level should factor into a grade (e.g., “Should choosing BASIC level affect your grade? How? Why/why not?”).