A class with no exams?!

I’ll jump right to it. I don’t like exams. Exams standardize learning in such a way that requires that all students learn the same material at the same pace and communicate their learning in the same way. I know that learning is not the same for everyone, and learning is most certainly not linear.  People don’t go from point A to point B in an uninterrupted, direct way when it comes to learning. Some students think of exam grades as a reward and/or punishment given by an instructor. In this case, grades and exams invoke fear and reward a student’s ability to take an exam, not necessarily affirming the knowledge a student has gained.

I am more interested in making sure that you learn the necessary content and in an introductory biology course like General Biology, that mostly means that you grasp the fundamental concepts of basic biology, but more importantly, that you can use the nature of science to ask and propose answers to questions. 

As such, in this class, you will be graded on your ability to demonstrate your knowledge in the way that you feel the most confident about. I will give you a set of assignments each week that set a baseline, then mark how close you’ve come to meeting the learning goals for that week. Each student can pick their path to demonstration of learning, and a savvy student can do so with time left for revisions if they need a little more support. We will use a rubric and you can decide which level of learning you want to aim for. The rubric scores will be converted to grades at the end of each unit/module.

I know that this may be different from the way you have been graded in the past. But, I believe in true, on-going and formative assessment as a key to learning. All I ask is that you keep an open mind throughout the grading process and try your best. Shift your focus away from trying to figure out “the right answers” and shift towards applying what you’ve learned in a way that is visible to the rest of us.

And, of course, please reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns!

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.