As Marie notes, he did give grades and the grades were uninformative about the quality of student learning.
Schools that use narratives rather than grades do provide information about the quality of student learning. In addition, there is an implicit grade associated with the decision about whether the student satisfactorily completed the course. My daughter graduated from a college that used this system and it was quite rigorous. Students could be judged to have not completed a course or more seriously, their contract for a collection of courses for the term. Credits were awarded in terms of completed contracts, so failure to complete a contract meant loss of the entire term (even if one or two courses were satisfactory). The narratives were serious descriptions of strengths and weaknesses in individual student's learning. Interestingly, the day-to-day experience for students looked a lot like that of students in schools with traditional grades (papers with evaluative comments, homeworks and exams where percentages of correct responses were tracked, etc) with an overlay of "what counts" as satisfactory progress. Quite a different picture form "everyone gets and A." I'm curious as to how this professor supports his claim that students learn better under his system. Wouldn't that be based on some evaluation of their work? As Chris says - it's an empirical question. Claudia J. Stanny, Ph.D. Director, Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Associate Professor, Psychology University of West Florida Pensacola, FL 32514 - 5751 Phone: (850) 857-6355 or (850) 473-7435 e-mail: [email protected] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
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