How Failing Twice Forever Changed the Way I Grade
When in doubt, look at grades from a student’s perspective.
I’ve been a student for approximately 26 of my 31 years of life. For most of that time, I’ve had it pretty easy.
But that changed when I started my second master’s degree.
I could blame the challenges I’ve had in my program on that fact that I enrolled in January 2020 (two months before the advent of quarantine), but that would be a complete misrepresentation — in fact, I’m one of those “kids” that actually likes online learning.
The real story is that I tried something new: more specially, a Master or Arts in Special Education (Applied Behavior Analysis). And if you’re like me and only took Psych 101 in college, you might not even know what the term “applied behavior analysis” actually means. (Hint: It’s based on B.F. Skinner’s notions of reinforcement and punishment.) One thing I did know at the time was that like Skinner’s pigeons, I needed training to learn how to thrive in my new environmental conditions. Based on ontogenic factors, however, I didn’t expect the learning curve to be a steep one.
I had just walked into my high school English classroom when a Canvas notification popped up on my phone: Assignment Graded: M4 VB-MAPP. I was about to find out the results of my first project in my first class. I swiped to open the app and saw…
40%.
I blinked, but nothing changed. The proverbial knot began to form in my stomach as one thought played on loop in my mind. How I am supposed to teach my kids today knowing that I just got a 40% on a project?!
But then I noticed the comments.
My professor, one of the leaders within the department, had taken the time to give me feedback. Still reeling from my initial discovery, I tossed my phone back in my purse, too afraid to read what she might have to say about a project that wasn’t even close to passing.
If only I had known how helpful her comments would be — not only for my own learning, but for that of the students in my own classroom.
Here’s the gist of what my professor wrote:
- Rachel, the most important thing you can do is to specify how this procedure would help a client acquire a verbal repertoire. (Notice how she used my name to further personalize this feedback?)
- Resubmit by the end of the current module (five days).
- You can still earn full credit once you demonstrate mastery of the required skills.
- Don’t hesitate to ask questions.
I was floored. Not only did I know the skills on which I could improve, but I also had a reasonable timeline to revise, the chance to bring up my grade, and assistance if I had questions. Suddenly, 40% seemed less like a harbinger of grad school doom and more like an opportunity to grow.
So I did. I reread, rewatched, relistened, relearned, revised, and eventually resubmitted that project. Knowing that I had a professor who actually wanted to help me learn and succeed sustained me through the rest of that class and motivated me to continue the program. Now that I knew I could overcome failure, I felt confident I could tackle even the most difficult of my courses.
Fast forward a year and a half, and I’m now in my penultimate class, an elective on verbal behavior. Two weeks after I’d submitted my first project for that course, I received the familiar notification on my phone that my essay had been graded.
38%.
It may be a new personal low, I thought, but it’s not insurmountable. But that was before I read the feedback.
Here’s the gist of what this professor wrote:
- Add more analysis.
- You must resubmit within 48 hours.
- You can earn up to a 70%.
I rarely use the term “gobsmacked,” but this felt like the appropriate occasion. First of all, I have meetings after school today AND tomorrow — how am I going to have time to fix this? And even if I “get it right” the second time around, why wouldn’t I be able to get full credit?
And that’s when it hit me: No wonder my students hate how most of their teachers grade.
It’s at this point in the story that I have a confession to make. While my grading practices were aligned to those of Professor #1 by the time I encountered Professor #2, they used to mirror those of the latter. After all, I’d grown up under the reign of pedagogical terror that is the “one-and-done” mentality. Whether you’re a Boomer or Zoomer (or fellow Millennial), you probably remember hearing similar refrains during your time in school:
If you fail, that’s on you.
You should’ve studied more.
You should’ve tried harder.
Life’s not fair.
You don’t get second chances in the real world.
Suck it up and move on.
Better luck next time.
And as I reread Professor #2’s feedback, I was reminded of the garbage this assessment philosophy produces: stressed-out students that are more concerned about “getting the grade” than gaining the skills. Students that do everything in their power to prevent failure rather than learn from it. Students that shut down as soon as they encounter the first obstacle instead of finding creative and innovative ways to work around it.
But if I had grown up with this type of thinking, what had happened to help me reconceptualize my own grading framework as an adult?
The answer boils down to my profound respect for — and more importantly, commitment to — growth mindset. When I learned about Carol Dweck’s research at an AVID Summer Institute in 2019, I was shocked. Students should be encouraged and praised for improving their skills rather than relying on “natural talents”? Teachers should provide multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate mastery even if it means that they may be learning different things at different times than their peers?
It didn’t take long before I was a growth mindset convert, and a zealous one at that. That same school year, I tacked a giant GROWTH MINDSET decal to my classroom wall, created daily and weekly reflections in which students shared the areas in which they’ve improved and the ones in which they could still grow, and restructured my entire course so students could learn what they needed at their own pace. A year later, my students have painted over that decal with a growth mindset mural that features flowers of all different shapes and colors alongside the beautifully-scripted quotation, “Plant flowers where you don’t think they’ll bloom.”
Suffice it to say that the majority of my students and I have wholeheartedly embraced the idea that we can change for the better, and the phrase hashtag growth mindset is shouted out even when our tired projector is struggling to connect to wifi.
So what if all educators adopted the growth mindset of Professor #1? Would we finally see optimism, motivation, and resilience we’ve always strived for our students to cultivate? Would we see students taking risks to innovate and create better opportunities for themselves, their peers, and their communities? My answer, and that of the hundreds of thousands of educators who’ve incorporated the concept of “growth mindset” into their own classrooms, is a resounding YES.
To Professor #2, I understand where you’re coming from because I’ve been there myself as a student and teacher. I know firsthand how scary it can be to let go of the “consequences” of grades and embrace differentiated learning in which students are their own agents of change. At the same time, I want to encourage you to try it; I have an educated guess you’ll figure out it’s what works best for our students.
