Communicating Learning in the Gradeless Classroom

As Alfie Kohn writes, “When the how’s of assessment preoccupy us, they tend to chase the why’s back into the shadows.” Here at Teachers Going Gradeless, we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on the why’s, with the how’s often being relegated to our bimonthly Twitter chats.

That makes sense, as our founding premises are very different from the one laid down by the unholy trinity of grades, GPA, and testing—namely, the need for a standardized how, of one right way of doing it for everyone. Gradeless teachers rightly see this insistence on standardized solutions as part of the “deep structure” of the accountability movement (Lissovoy, 2003), thus, perhaps, our wariness at any one right way to go gradeless. 

That said, we also know another feature of the current era in education is its tendency to isolate us from one another, fashioning us independent contractors in a bidding war for scarce resources and support. In some small way, my cofounder Aaron Blackwelder and I hope to provide what Lissovoy calls “[n]etworks of solidarity” that exhibit “the creativity, imagination and energy that make us human.” 

We also hope to heed John Dewey’s warning in Experience and Education:

A philosophy which proceeds on the basis of rejection, of sheer opposition, will…tend to suppose that because the old education was based on ready-made organization, therefore it suffices to reject the principle of organization in toto…When external authority is rejected, it does not follow that all authority should be rejected, but rather that there is need to search for a more effective source of authority.

In other words, anyone who advocates a partial or total refusal of some debased system (in our case, grades) should, in the same breath, be prepared to offer a replacement. As I’ve written before, I'm afraid that, by our words and silences, the gradeless movement has sometimes implied that an educational Eden will automatically emerge when we hold grades at bay.

Furthermore, when and if that ideal does not appear, it is the teacher's fault — for not trusting students, for not designing meaningful learning experiences, for not "creating culture." I recognize that all of these are part of my job as an educator, but my serotonin levels fluctuate far too much to do any of these consistently well. It seems to me that allowing ourselves to discuss the problems we've encountered in going gradeless is a first step toward developing that "more effective source of authority." Part of that means proposing other systems—ones that are more humane and responsive, yes—but also ones that are intelligible to students, parents, and other caring adults. 

We cannot wait for everyone to get on the gradeless bandwagon to communicate clearly with those who have a right and responsibility to know.

Communicating Expectations

Teaching contains the seeds of assessment, grading, and reporting within it from the very beginning, whether we admit that or not. In articulating the knowledge, understanding, and skills to be demonstrated, teachers roll out the expectations against which a student's grade will ultimately be determined. This is true whether those expectations are related to meeting content standards, demonstrating growth, or exhibiting work habits like punctuality, participation, or time on task. Gradeless teachers tend to emphasize the first two and exclude the third, but, whatever we do, let's stop pretending that it's not us dictating what counts in our classrooms.

That said, most gradeless teachers spend a little time soul searching what these expectations should be. Most of us have decided that retrenching back to some salient “power standards” is the best way to focus our efforts and give our students a meaningful seat at the table. The gradeless classroom is fundamentally open, dialogic, and intersubjective, and coming with too much on our end means there will be little room for self-expression, dialogue, or ownership as we approach the subject area to be studied. As a English Language Arts teacher, I’ve found that a modest 10-12 standards feels like a good amount.

With subject areas like mathematics, science, and history, this number seems less possible perhaps, but I’d argue that these subject areas have fallen prey to a kind of fragmenting, disintegrating impulse that has robbed them of their essential character. Zooming out to see the forest rather than the trees feels like a step toward reclaiming these disciplines in their organic wholeness. Beyond the endless lists of algorithms, formulas, and facts, what does a mathematician, a scientist, a historian actually do? Give students a chance to experience this!

Bottom line, a teacher who comes with too much of an agenda is going to have a hard time granting students agency.

Once in place, one of the more well-worn methods of sharing expectations is through rubrics. Arguably, using rubrics is grading by virtue of the gradations they usually include, even when the numbers are removed. For gradeless teachers, rubrics are the epitome of ineffective feedback in that they commit the cardinal sin of pairing scores with comments. 

As Dylan Wiliam notes,

When teachers pair grades with comments, common sense would tell us that this is a richer form of feedback. But our work in schools has shown us that most students focus entirely on the grade and fail to read or process teacher comments. Anyone who has been a teacher knows how many hours of work it takes to provide meaningful comments. That most students virtually ignore that painstaking correction, advice, and praise is one of public education’s best-kept secrets.

This finding, reproduced countless times before and since is at the very core of the gradeless movement. We would like our feedback to mean something to students, to help them move forward. But without the gradations, how can you let students know where they stand in relation to success criteria?

One solution that has occurred to many recovering rubric users is the single-point rubric, communicating only a single set of success criteria, rather than the usual multiple rows and columns of “not yet.” (My own single-point rubrics follow the design of Cult of Pedagogy’s Jennifer Gonzales, not those of Jarene Fluckiger, which, in my opinion, still retain elements of gradation.)

The structure of the single-point rubric eliminates gradation, provides ample space for written feedback, and invites more peer- and self-assessment. Still, there’s something stifling about the approach. Although more welcoming in design and less focused on failure, the single-point rubric still doesn’t meaningfully “involve students as partners in assessment” (Stiggins, 2001). Students have a better chance to examine where they stand in relation to established criteria, but they have little opportunity to consider why such criteria would be desirable. 

For this reason, I have found that using exemplars and mentor texts is a better, more authentic way to come to shared notions of quality. I’ve found that discussions around an exemplary piece of writing—by a student, the teacher, or a published writer—can result in establishing criteria that feel relevant, worthy of imitation, even inspiring to student writers. The resulting criteria are more dialogic, as opposed to the monologic standard of a rubric. 

What I describe above mostly involves me choosing the text to examine, but students are often ready to identify their own mentors and models in writing. Allowing students to bring their own favorite texts to these conversations can feel even more authentic, satisfying, and edifying—for both teacher and student. It also represents a opportunity for culturally relevant pedagogy as described by Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995), in that students are able to engage in high levels of “academic” analysis, while also choosing texts that allow them to “maintain cultural integrity” and gain appreciation for the “constructed nature of things such as ‘art,’ ‘excellence,’ and ‘knowledge.’” 

Although I still scaffold that discussion (usually providing certain technical concepts or lenses through which to examine the work), I like this process of allowing students to “apprentice themselves” to an acknowledged master, identifying and describing 2-3 traits they consider worthy of imitation and approximating them in their own writing. Whether the style of writing is more or less familiar to the student, involving them in the process of examining, identifying, and approximating aspects of exemplary work fosters a mutuality and respect that is lost in traditional, teacher-centered notions of “communicating expectations.”

Communicating Progress

Although the first grading system likely began at Yale in 1785, the gradebook—where regularly entered scores accumulate toward a final grade—came later. Some trace it to one of Harvard’s most-hated presidents, Josiah Quincy, who created an elaborate daily system that deducted points for a variety of offenses, including missing chapel or violating curfew. Students could accrue 0-8 points each day, for a maximum of 17,000. (Henry David Thoreau, who earned 14,397 points over the course of his years at Harvard, was among 34 classmates who asked Quincy to abolish the system.)

Online grading software became widely available in the early 2000s as software developed by local startups were acquired by larger technology firms. If online gradebooks had been around during Quincy’s day, Harvard parents might have had a rough sense of how their students were performing and behaving on a daily basis. Although generally seen as improving parental involvement, online gradebooks have arguably had many negative effects, such as inviting greater surveillance and less risk-taking. As I have pointed out elsewhere, the online gradebook “inevitably infects the culture of the classroom, causing even purely formative activities to lose their essential character...turning every assessment into a summative one.”

This is one area where it seems more difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. Students, parents, and interventionists have come to depend on the single letter or number as a proxy for how students are doing. With increasingly scarce time to peruse detailed comments, the online gradebook can provide terse yet timely communication among caring adults. During the pandemic, this kind of communication felt vital at times, as students who had relied on the in-person relationships and wrap-around services of school now seemed to be slipping through the cracks. 

From this perspective, my first foray into gradelessness years earlier was probably irresponsible. It was November of that year when my principal approached me to ask if I was planning on entering any grades. When I told him no, he asked me when I had planned on letting him know that! Emails from special ed seemed to have a special edge to them, as case managers tried to garner evidence about their students’ progress. While I was reveling in “a future of growth not grades,” some of my most vulnerable students were in danger of being left behind. What’s more, the caring adults who helped them navigate toward success were suddenly left without their expected roadmap. Over time, I began to ask myself: how could I communicate student progress to caring adults without inviting back the petrifying influence of grades? 

Some teachers seem content to reduce this scenario to a “murderer at the door” ethical dilemma, which is usually no big whoop for anyone not named Immanuel Kant. Because communicating student progress in graded ways has degraded both students and teachers, the thinking goes, teachers are under no obligation to answer to those who request or require this. To an extent, this makes perfect sense, and there are definitely situations (like COVID) where we should either give them all A’s or let them pass with distinction.

In the long term, however, it doesn’t quite work to liken case managers, guidance counselors, helicopter parents, and other adults in a kid’s life to murderers. 

I’ve found that Thomas J. Sergiovanni’s metaphor of “building in canvas” provides a helpful ethical framework for teachers dealing with this quandary. As Sergiovanni describes,

The challenge is to reflect the images and values of bureaucratic sponsors on one hand and to make the decisions that count for excellence in schools on the other. The answer is to build bureaucratic systems in canvas—like the folding canvas tanks the U.S. military built to serve as decoys while creating an illusion of strength. Building in canvas is not a bad idea when tinkering with the structure of schooling...If schools master the art of building in canvas, they are able to provide the right public face—thus gaining the freedom to interpret, decide, and function in ways that make more sense for teaching and learning. (17-18)

This metaphor may sound deceptive and craven to some, but anyone serious about expanding gradeless practices will have to come to terms with this fact, and fast.

In my own setting, building in canvas has involved, one, sending out an awesome letter at the beginning of the year explaining the method in my madness, and, two, allowing my traditional assignment-based gradebook look a little more like a traditional assignment-based gradebook. And although I still refuse to enter numbers, I am not above putting in a single checkmark or zero to indicate that the student has completed and demonstrated competency on the assigned work. This category is weighted 0% so as to have no effect on the letter grade. 

And the letter grade? It’s 100% based on a preliminary grade chosen from my Descriptive Grading Criteria, the descriptions we use for the student-involved grading process that takes place at the end of each term. The only time this grade changes during the marking period is if a student falls behind by too many assignments, at which point I override the chosen letter grade with an “I.” Of course, any zeroes likely means that students are not “consistently and/or frequently demonstrating targets,” the description of an “A.” Frequent reminders about the original letter and a friendly willingness to field questions or concerns makes this approach to communicating progress fairly painless. 

Case managers, parents, and other caring adults are still able to get on their kid’s case, while, in the classroom, we are blissfully free to keep the focus on feedback. At the same time, however, I continually try to lure students and parents away from the information-poor, soul-sucking grid of the gradebook toward the rich artifacts, reflections, and feedback found in Seesaw, our online portfolio platform.

Communicating the Grade

Most gradeless teachers are required by their institution to assign a final grade eventually. The main consideration here is making sure this isn’t a surprise to anyone involved. Teachers need to lay that groundwork in the previous two steps. 

Up to this point, the gradeless class has engaged in regular dialogue and discussion around what quality can look like. The gradeless teacher has continually provided “pictures” of quality, referencing exemplary work before, during, and after student attempts. Students have received feedback from both the teacher and their peers, letting them know where they stand in relation to success criteria. And finally, students have had ample opportunity to make substantive improvements in response to feedback, either on subsequent attempts or in revisions of the current task. Using a portfolio platform, students, peers, parents, and others can all participate in this process.

Many gradeless teachers have hit on grade conferences as a student-involved, dialogic way of arriving at a final grade. In my own class, students again reference my Descriptive Grading Criteria to select and support a letter grade to replace the preliminary one chosen at the beginning. For each bullet point, they provide evidence from their portfolio in support of these statements. Students can conference, write a letter, record a screencast, or create a slideshow. 

Here some math is appropriate as students must use some measure of central tendency to combine the grades from the four statements. For example, if three of the statements were in the B range and one in the A range, that would result in a B+ (mean) or a B (median or mode). I think there’s at least some value in inviting students to consider which is more reflective of their work.

Honestly, this stage of the process is my least favorite part. Conferencing, as well as the other listed methods, takes a long time. This is also the moment when the toxic influence of grades again comes between me and my students, between students and their learning. And in a way, by ceremonializing this part of the process, grades get the last laugh in the supposedly gradeless classroom.

Over time, I have tried to deemphasize this moment, moving toward a more efficient method inspired by Aaron Blackwelder’s “A Better Progress Report.” Students complete a Google Form to select and support their grade, including direct links to artifacts in their portfolio. Once submitted, I use the Chrome extension, Form Publisher, to generate an attractive-looking Google Doc to share with students and parents in Seesaw. Using the “Add comment” feature in this document, I respond inline to the student’s linked artifacts and reflections as I read. I also have Seesaw up at this point to review the quality of artifacts not included in this final review. 

In most cases, I agree with the final determination or raise/lower it by no more than a half grade, responding using Seesaw’s audio recording feature. If I believe the grade should be more than a half grade lower, I use Screencastify so I can specifically point out artifacts that seem to support that lower grade.

Here, as Ken O’Connor points out, “The issue isn’t whether grades are subjective or objective; the issue should be whether our grades are defensible and credible, and we have to be able to demonstrate that they are.” 

This is admittedly an unsatisfying answer, but it will have to suffice until we can move toward a transcript that doesn’t require us to reduce learning to numbers. MTC’s Mastery Transcript displays courses students have received credit for, with no grade. Credit in this case should stand for credentialed, meaning the student has demonstrated competence over the skills and understandings of the class. This is true for a class on packing parachutes, to use Ken O’Connor’s illustration, but should be true for other areas as well. Pretending we can’t recognize or certify competence degrades subject areas and the teachers who teach them, continuing the trend of lending ever more emphasis to scientifico-technical subjects.

Seen in this light, teachers and schools have the right and responsibility to be “gatekeepers.” Passing a student with a D- was and is a disservice to the student, the next teacher of that student, and the world. Similarly, a gradeless teacher who lets students slip by with questionable competence is not doing anyone any favors.

But credentialing should be enough for basic reporting purposes; like the checks and zeroes in my gradebook, it either is or it isn’t. Beyond conferring credit, schools and teachers should serve as advocates who support students to tell their own story, especially as they prepare to move into a new stage of life and education. Narratives and artifacts—not numbers and letters—best enable us to do this. Platforms like the Mastery Transcript help students and their advocates communicate this story in a clear, concise way, centering student strengths and interests. Again, using the principle of building in canvas, we can nominally reflect the “images and values of our bureaucratic sponsors,” while not allowing those same values to degrade learning.

Admittedly, this discussion may have chased the why’s of going gradeless “back into the shadows.” What I describe is one teacher’s way of dealing with a larger system that fundamentally undermines teaching and learning. That this last part of the process necessarily introduces dissonance into what is otherwise an elegant, responsive, humane approach is not our fault. 

As Paul Thomas wisely advises,

[A]dvocacy for change cannot become a constant source of fretting and self-flagellation. I wish more educators would advocate for de-testing and degrading the classroom, for rejecting averaging grades in favor of portfolios, revision, and effective teacher feedback. But day-to-day teaching must focus on the autonomy that teachers have, not what they are denied. Teaching is necessarily a tremendous psychological drain; we need not spend our energy on that over which we have no immediate control.

Arthur Chiaravalli serves as House Director at Champlain Valley Union High School in Vermont and is co-founder of Teachers Going Gradeless. Over the course of his career, he has taught high school English, mathematics, and technology. Follow him on Twitter at @iamchiaravalli.