Abstract
One rationale for alternative grading is that it supports intellectual risks and failures, which in turn promotes deep learning (Inoue, 2019). Risk and failure scholarship, however, suggests alternative approaches are necessary but insufficient (Bartkevicius, 2023; Teagarden et al., 2018). Consider Feigenbaum’s (2021) “Failure club” class, which used ungrading principles (Blum, 2020). Results somewhat disappointed, and he occasionally doubted his design, thinking “a course producing nearly all As cannot be intellectually rigorous” (p. 420). In response, Feigenbaum suggests teachers cultivate a willingness to experience “discomfort, ambivalence, and doubt” (p. 421), a form of intellectual risk-taking. This is necessary for students, Feigenbaum argues; his reflection demonstrates its importance to instructors, too. Our workshop addresses the entwined issues of grading and intellectual risk-taking. To help participants embrace risky-seeming grading approaches, we will lead them through four exercises and the conversations they inspire:
1. A question generation prompt to frame risk reflections (Rothstein & Santana, 2011)
2. A “risk rewarded” visualization to lower risk-aversion (Zaleskiewicz et al., 2020)
3. Our kaleidoscope revision to reframe grading policies
4. Our sea-change prompt to imagine new ways of grading
Participants leave with expanded assessment possibilities plus classroom-tailorable exercises for cultivating risk-taking in students.