Contract Grading: A More Equitable COVID-19 Grading Practice Worth Keeping

By: Dr. Lauren E. Burrow

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic I was online teaching elementary education majors from my home office while simultaneously co-teaching my own young children in our living room. After my department mandated a transition to 8-week courses in fall 2020, I felt like I no longer had the time nor mental capacity to evaluate objectively and efficiently the many, many writing assignments I needed students to complete in my Writing Methods course. With COVID-19 demanding all of us to be “okay” with unpredictability and always ready for compassionate flexibility, I embraced contract grading for my online composition class. Contract grading, as I use it here, is a little bit of holistic grading, standards-based grading, and master-based grading. “Mastery-based contract grading is a holistic assessment approach for learning and grading in which students choose their desired effort and outcome by contracting for either an A or B” (Ward, 2021, abstract). More specifically, “’contract’ aptly describes the type of written document that spells out as explicitly as possible the rights and obligations of all the parties” (Danielewicz & Elbow, 2009, p. 247) of how to earn a course grade.

Knowing students would still be experiencing unanticipated disruptions during a global pandemic, I needed a grading system that rewarded them for the writing assignments they tried and did not penalize them for first drafts or lack of previous writing experience. Also, like Wagnon (2014), I wanted a grading system that increased the likelihood that students would spend time reflecting on my feedback rather than simply track a numerical grade that only evaluated the writing knowledge / skills they had brought with them into class. I had previously utilized a form of contract grading for students’ honors projects, so I was familiar with the flexible, efforts-based principles of contract grading. Given the uncontrollable and often unwanted realities of pandemic learning, I decided it was a good time to give all my students more voice in and control over their final course grade.

How I Did It

I introduced my grading contract as a brief written outline with an accompanying video from me explaining why I was pursuing a constructivist approach to grading that semester. I identified the 12 genres of writing that students would be responsible for crafting writing samples for and the basic qualitative markings each submission would receive in the gradebook: (1) “thoughtfully completed, on time”; (2) “thoughtfully completed, late”; and (3) “incomplete / not submitted.” These broad confirmation categories were meant to encourage students to focus on the personalized feedback offered for individualized growth instead of a numerical grade earned. The mere completion of multiple writing assignments made up the majority of students’ cumulative grade. Students could late submit up to three times and still earn an “A” and not submit one assignment for a “B.” At the end of the semester, they could choose up to two pieces to revise/edit for a final grade bump to demonstrate individual writing growth based on course learning.

Benefits

Danielewicz and Elbow’s (2009) study claimed that contract grading made evaluative feedback more effective for learning, gave students more sense of control, yielded more work from students, and reduced instructor record keeping. Thoughtful, rigorous submissions were the norm for most of my writers as I consistently received lengthy, witty, poignant writings throughout the semester. Free from the fear of losing points for grammar and mechanical mistakes, I saw an increase in risk-taking as students experimented with writing styles; meanwhile, the frequently personal writing content helped me to develop more informed professor-student connections in what could have been a lonely virtual space. The contract grading system took away the need for students to “plead their case” when needing extra time to construct their writing assignments as family tragedies, work obligations, and historic winter storms struck; students were extended the respect that all humans deserve to monitor and regulate their own learning goals. Finally, giving initial credit for work completed freed me from the time-consuming and disingenuous task of evaluating writing still in a draft stage.

Obstacles

Introducing students to a new method of grading in an online environment was complex. Laflen and Sims (2021) attributed resistance to grading system change, in large part, to students’ preference / expectation for receiving conventional numerical grades. Recurrent explanations of and references to the contract grading system were required throughout the semester because I frequently received panicked emails from students wondering about their class grade. Finally, executing my contract grading system was complicated by the constraints of my university’s learning management system which forced me to assign a numerical score to the qualitative category I wished students to see.

A Call for More Contract Grading

My experience with contract grading has convinced me that “labor-based grading contracts are a good choice for use with … diverse groups of students because they take into account and reward students for their effort” (Laflen & Sims, 2021, p. 120). For fall 2021, I plan to provide progress reports to help students transition into a grading system that honors their efforts towards personal growth as writers. I also hope to realize Shor’s (1996) promise that “learning contracts [can be] a way of sharing power, redistributing authority, and negotiating through dialogue” (p. 20) by reserving time at the beginning of the semester to share previous contract grading examples and then inviting students to contribute personalized contracts that reflect the needs of a new community of learners.

With COVID-19 still causing harm and disruptions, I encourage instructors to use contract grading to design a course that can better withstand the unpredictability of an ongoing global pandemic. Contract grading demonstrates professors’ understanding and compassion for the difficulties students are enduring while pursuing their educational goals. Identifying what must be done while also considering who is enrolled in a course can help draft a contract grading document that meets both course requirements and individual students’ needs. Finally, adopting contract grading now can help pave the way for more equitable grading systems after the pandemic’s end.

References

Danielewicz, J., & Elbow, P. (2009). A unilateral grading contract to improve learning and teaching. College Composition and Communication, 61(2), 244-268.

Laflen, A., & Sims, M. (2021) Designing a more equitable scorecard: Grading contracts and online writing instruction. In J. Borgman & C. McArdle (Eds.), PARS in practice: More  resources and strategies for online writing instructors (pp. 119-139). University Press of Colorado. DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/PRA-B.2021.1145.2.07.

Shor, I. (1996). When students have power: Negotiating authority in a critical pedagogy. University of Chicago Press.

Wagnon, A. (2014). Improving writing feedback with options. English in Texas, 44(1), 86- 87.

Ward, E. (2021). Easing stress: Contract grading’s impact on adolescents’ perceptions of workload demands, time constraints, and challenge appraisal in high school English [abstract]. Assessing Writing, 48.