A comprehensive history of evaluation in American higher education. In Grading the College, Scott M. Gelber offers a comprehensive history of evaluating teaching and learning in higher education. He complicates the conventional narrative that portrays evaluation as a newfangled assault on the integrity of higher education while acknowledging that there are many compelling reasons to oppose those practices. The evaluation of teaching and learning, Gelber argues, presented genuine dilemmas that have attracted the attention of faculty members and academic leaders since the 1920s. Especially during the peak era of faculty authority that followed the end of the Second World War, significant numbers of professors and administrators believed that evaluation might improve institutional performance, reduce the bias inherent in traditional methods of supervision, strengthen communication with laypersons, and encourage a more deliberate focus on the distinctive goals of college. Gelber reveals the extent to which professors and academic interest groups participated in the development of our most common evaluation instruments, including student course questionnaires, achievement tests, surveys, rubrics, rankings, and accreditation self-studies. Although these efforts may seem distant from the present era of shortsighted scrutiny and ill-conceived comparisons, Gelber demonstrates that the evaluation of college teaching and learning has long consisted of a set of intellectually sophisticated questions that have engaged, and could continue to engage, faculty members and their advocates. By providing a deeper understanding of how evaluation operated before the dawn of high-stakes accountability, Grading the College seeks to promote productive conversations about current attempts to define and measure the purposes of American higher education.

Grade inflation runs rampant at most colleges and universities, but faculty and administrators are seemingly unwilling to face the problem. This book explains why, exposing many of the misconceptions surrounding college grading. Based on historical research and the results of a yearlong, on-line course evaluation experiment conducted at Duke University during the 1998-1999 academic year, the effects of student grading on various educational processes, and their subsequent impact on student and faculty behavior, is examined. Principal conclusions of this investigation are that instructors' grading practices have a significant influence on end-of-course teaching evaluations, and that student expectations of grading practices play an important role in the courses that students decide to take. The latter effect has a serious impact on course enrollments in the natural sciences and mathematics, while the combination of both mean that faculty have an incentive to award high grades, and students have an incentive to choose courses with faculty who do. Grade inflation is the natural consequence of this incentive system. Material contained in this book is essential reading for anyone involved in efforts to reform our postsecondary educational system, or for those who simply wish to survive and prosper in it. Valen Johnson is a Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Michigan. Prior to accepting an appointment in Ann Arbor, he was a Professor of Statistics and Decision Sciences at Duke University, where data for this book was collected. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.

The moment is right for critical reflection on what has been assumed to be a core part of schooling. In Ungrading, fifteen educators write about their diverse experiences going gradeless. Some contributors are new to the practice and some have been engaging in it for decades. Some are in humanities and social sciences, some in STEM fields. Some are in higher education, but some are the K-12 pioneers who led the way. Based on rigorous and replicated research, this is the first book to show why and how faculty who wish to focus on learning, rather than sorting or judging, might proceed. It includes honest reflection on what makes ungrading challenging, and testimonials about what makes it transformative. CONTRIBUTORS: Aaron Blackwelder Susan D. Blum Arthur Chiaravalli Gary Chu Cathy N. Davidson Laura Gibbs Christina Katopodis Joy Kirr Alfie Kohn Christopher Riesbeck Starr Sackstein Marcus Schultz-Bergin Clarissa Sorensen-Unruh Jesse Stommel John Warner

Ensure your school’s grading procedures are supportive of learning, accurate, meaningful, and consistent. Discover how the “seven essential Ps” can improve your effectiveness in supporting assessment and communicating student achievement. You will also learn how to avoid inaccurate grades caused by penalties for lateness or academic dishonesty; extra credit; group rather than individual work; and marking down for attendance.

"Joe Feldman shows us how we can use grading to help students become the leaders of their own learning and lift the veil on how to succeed. . . . This must-have book will help teachers learn to implement improved, equity-focused grading for impact." —Zaretta Hammond, Author of Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain Crack open the grading conversation Here at last—and none too soon—is a resource that delivers the research base, tools, and courage to tackle one of the most challenging and emotionally charged conversations in today’s schools: our inconsistent grading practices and the ways they can inadvertently perpetuate the achievement and opportunity gaps among our students. With Grading for Equity, Joe Feldman cuts to the core of the conversation, revealing how grading practices that are accurate, bias-resistant, and motivational will improve learning, minimize grade inflation, reduce failure rates, and become a lever for creating stronger teacher-student relationships and more caring classrooms. Essential reading for schoolwide and individual book study or for student advocates, Grading for Equity provides A critical historical backdrop, describing how our inherited system of grading was originally set up as a sorting mechanism to provide or deny opportunity, control students, and endorse a "fixed mindset" about students’ academic potential—practices that are still in place a century later A summary of the research on motivation and equitable teaching and learning, establishing a rock-solid foundation and a "true north" orientation toward equitable grading practices Specific grading practices that are more equitable, along with teacher examples, strategies to solve common hiccups and concerns, and evidence of effectiveness Reflection tools for facilitating individual or group engagement and understanding As Joe writes, "Grading practices are a mirror not just for students, but for us as their teachers." Each one of us should start by asking, "What do my grading practices say about who I am and what I believe?" Then, let’s make the choice to do things differently . . . with Grading for Equity as a dog-eared reference.

Accurately report students’ academic strengths and weaknesses with standards-based grading. Rather than using traditional systems that incorporate nonacademic factors such as attendance and behavior, learn to assess and report student performance based on prioritized standards. You will discover reliable, practical methods for analyzing what students have learned and gain effective strategies for offering students feedback on their progress.

The second edition of Effective Grading—the book that has become a classic in the field—provides a proven hands-on guide for evaluating student work and offers an in-depth examination of the link between teaching and grading. Authors Barbara E. Walvoord and Virginia Johnson Anderson explain that grades are not isolated artifacts but part of a process that, when integrated with course objectives, provides rich information about student learning, as well as being a tool for learning itself. The authors show how the grading process can be used for broader assessment objectives, such as curriculum and institutional assessment. This thoroughly revised and updated edition includes a wealth of new material including: Expanded integration of the use of technology and online teaching A sample syllabus with goals, outcomes, and criteria for student work New developments in assessment for grant-funded projects Additional information on grading group work, portfolios, and service-learning experiences New strategies for aligning tests and assignments with learning goals Current thought on assessment in departments and general education, using classroom work for program assessments, and using assessment data systematically to "close the loop" Material on using the best of classroom assessment to foster institutional assessment New case examples from colleges and universities, including community colleges "When the first edition of Effective Grading came out, it quickly became the go-to book on evaluating student learning. This second edition, especially with its extension into evaluating the learning goals of departments and general education programs, will make it even more valuable for everyone working to improve teaching and learning in higher education." —L. Dee Fink, author, Creating Significant Learning Experiences "Informed by encounters with hundreds of faculty in their workshops, these two accomplished teachers, assessors, and faculty developers have created another essential text. Current faculty, as well as graduate students who aspire to teach in college, will carry this edition in a briefcase for quick reference to scores of examples of classroom teaching and assessment techniques and ways to use students' classroom work in demonstrating departmental and institutional effectiveness." —Trudy W. Banta, author, Designing Effective Assessment