🖋️Grading Best Practices

Since this course is not a “traditional” curriculum and is more of a capstone experience, the recommendations for assessment are also more holistic and reflective of the process and not the product.

Flexible Grading

The strongest Project Modes occur when you can take students' minds off of grading altogether.

While students should have a sense of what the expectations of project mode ought to be, using grades as the primary motivator for student work will lead to situations where students who are struggling to meet a specific standard feel tremendous stress, and students who meet the standard easily will have a defensible reason to say "we're done" and stop work.

Emphasize the core skills students need to meet in the planning phases (Project Launch), and de-emphasize it during the work phases (Project Mode).

Consider de-emphasizing demonstration of specific content knowledge, and emphasizing the following items in your rubric.

• Worked the whole time

• Equitably divided the labor

• Completed all planning documents, including mockups, design specs, MVP definition, and feature roadmap

• Presented their work & completed corresponding presentation practice or planning

• Learned at least one new thing, or demonstrated a skill that they struggled with earlier.

A student or student group that does all these things should receive an A on any given project.

If a teacher is using a mastery-based grading system, they should alert students to opportunities they have to demonstrate mastery of a skill they struggled with previously.

A good grading system should encourage student risk-taking and the decision to work outside your comfort zone, not reward it.