Integrating Equitable Grading Practices in Computer Science Courses

Intent

Adapting equitable grading practices, specifically those described in “Grading for Equity” by Joe Feldman, to post-secondary Computer Science (CS) courses.

Problem

“Grading for Equity” by Joe Feldman is a popular and highly held resource in the education community. However, the application of the grading principles and recommendations described in the book is not always straight-forward. Higher education instructors, in particular, may be challenged by the fact that the text’s focus is K-12 education.

Solution

This play outlines suggestions and recommendations to integrate equitable grading principles, based on “Grading for Equity”, in post-secondary CS courses. The recommendations have been tested by the source’s author in her own courses.

Applicability

The recommendations described here could be particularly helpful for post-secondary computer science educators, but could also be useful to educators in other fields, particularly those where project-based courses are common.

The institution where these recommendations were first applied is described as a “ a small, rural, residential, Bachelor’s degree granting college for students with learning challenges such as ADHD, ASD, and dyslexia”. Class sizes are typically small (15 students or less), therefore not all recommendations may extend easily to larger classes.

How to Implement

Here is a summary of the recommendations included in the source:

1. Remove daily effort-graded activities associated with lectures.
2. Simplify lecture-based activities so that they can be easily completed in class.
3. For courses that include a project, keep the project as both formative and summative assessment, with a final weight of at least 50\% of the grade. This represents an alternative to Feldman’s recommendation that team-based work should not be graded, but should be considered since projects are a fundamental aspect of many CS courses.
4. Include exams (summative assessments) in all courses, to verify that the students achieved a deep understanding of the course material. For courses with an important project component, include project related topics in the exam.
5. Eliminate late submission penalties.
6. Eliminate work for extra credits.
7. When possible and especially for high-stakes assessments, set the lowest grade to 50 instead of 0.
8. Group projects should receive a group grade, but that grade should be subsequently adjusted based on team members’ peer evaluations.

Additionally, to increase knowledge of equitable grading practices and incentivize their adoption, one could consider finding ways to disseminate this information in their department and engage with colleagues through reading groups or presentations.

See Also

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Source

Source: Assiter, Karina V. “Integrating Grading for Equity Practices into Project-Based Computer Science Curriculum.” ACM Inroads 14, no. 1 (2023): 22-29. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3582559

Described by: Giulia Toti, giulia.toti@ubc.ca

References

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Community Discussion

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