The Pick Your Own Grade University By James Reed

     I think that it is an excellent idea for Arts/Farts courses at uni to allow students to pick their own grades, as discussed here:
  https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/47730/

“A literature class at Davidson College this fall will use “contract grading,” allowing students to pick ahead of time their grade for the class and the workload they need to complete to earn it. The offer is posed by Professor Melissa Gonzalez for her Introduction to Spanish Literatures and Cultures course, SPA 270, at the private liberal arts college in Davidson, North Carolina. She is one of several professors across the nation who allow this pick-your-own grade method, billed as a way to eliminate the student-professor power differential and give students control of their education. But critics contend it is just another example of how colleges coddle students from the harsh realities of the real world, which includes competition and goal expectations. As for Gonzalez, she argues there is “a strong pedagogical rationale for contract grading” in an Aug. 1 email to students obtained by The College Fix. “It can help students focus on learning more than on grades, and therefore make more progress in their learning, with less anxiety.”

     Let the Arts folk give themselves all high distinctions. What does it matter, for there will be no jobs for such types in the tough economy we live in? I checked today for firms wanting experts in 19th century lesbian poetry in Chile, but found nothing.

 

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Friday, 29 March 2024

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