“What’s my grade?”
Students are anxious about their grade. Teachers grade student work to evaluate student learning.
Students should be able to understand how their grade on an individual assignment is related to their course grade. The common grading system based on points and percentage seems clear but students still ask, “What’s my grade?” One problem with grades based on points is students are more concerned about accumulating points (performance goal) at the expense of understanding course content (learning goal).1,2
Specifications grading3 is an alternative grading method that is based on a student’s mastery of the course content and focuses on student learning. In specifications grading, course learning objectives are clearly defined with course assignments graded pass (master) /not pass (not master) with no partial credit. Most importantly, students are given multiple opportunities (second chances) to demonstrate their mastery of a learning objective.
These general chemistry and organic chemistry courses used specifications grading in the following way:
one course learning objective/skill was covered each week in lecture and lab.
Students worked on lecture and lab assignments to learn and practice the objective/skill.
At the end of the week, a quiz (5 questions, 15-20 minutes) was given based on that week’s course objective/skill and graded pass (master)/not pass (not master). A pass grade is 80% or higher. A student who did not pass a quiz gets a second chance to take the quiz again later in the term.
A student’s course grade is based on the number of quizzes passed, not points and percentage.
Advantage for student: second chance to demonstrate mastery of a learning objective on a not passed (not mastered) quiz due to a bad day, personal issue, had to work, etc. Much better for the student to get a second chance to demonstrate mastery than to repeat the entire course. The student can answer the “What’s my grade?” question on their own because the student knows the number of quizzes passed and not passed, which quizzes to retake (if any), and the total number of quizzes to pass to earn their grade in the course.
Disadvantage for student: the student has an “incomplete” grade until all quizzes are taken.
Advantage for teacher: the teacher can clearly identify the course objectives/skills mastered by each student. Weekly quizzes allow the teacher to give more detailed questions to demonstrate deeper understanding by the student compared to midterm exam questions.
Disadvantage for teacher: maybe more grading but faster because no partial credit.
Important for teachers: find an app(s) to help you grade faster and more efficiently. I used Google Forms with the free Flubaroo add-on in General Chemistry and Gradescope in Organic Chemistry.
Google Forms has different question types; responses are linked to a Google Sheet. I graded student responses one question at a time for more uniform grading to reduce bias and the “halo effect”.4
Flubaroo is a free tool that helps you grade a Google Forms/Sheets assignment quickly, gives you a summary report of the grades, and lets you e-mail students their grade.
Gradescope is a web-based grading app. Assignments, e.g., paper-based quiz, are scanned and uploaded to the Gradescope site (students in my organic chemistry classes scanned their quizzes and uploaded them to the site), sorts each assignment by question so you can grade submissions one question at a time to reduce bias, send grades to students, export grades to your gradebook, and provides detailed statistics on each question.
1. Muller, J.Z. (2018, April 24). Against metrics: how measuring performance by numbers backfires. Aeon. https://aeon.co/ideas/against-metrics-how-measuring-performance-by-numbers-backfires
2. Pink, D. (2025, March 3). Why not get rid of grades? When the goal is an A, real learning gets lost. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/03/03/grade-inflation-why-not/
3. Arnaud, C. (2021, April 25). How an alternative grading system is improving student learning. Chemical and Engineering News. https://cen.acs.org/education/undergraduate-education/alternative-grading-system-improving-student/99/i15
4. Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 84.