Research shows that the more we give students qualitative feedback and withhold quantitative grades, the more students are able to absorb that feedback and improve their learning (Schinske & Tanner, 2014). Alternative assessments can support that process.

Building trust with your students is foundational for developing alternative assessment practices that work. It’s important to explain to students why you chose your assessment methods. Wherever possible, provide clarity and transparency around your decisions and expectations. Keep in mind that your students may have spent most of their academic careers growing familiar and comfortable with standard assessments.

Questions to inform your assessment decisions:

  • What does it look like when students are learning?
  • How can you clearly communicate your expectations to students?
  • How can you give students opportunities to reflect and assess their own learning?

Reflecting on your answers to the above questions can help you prioritize where and how to include alternative assessments in your course.

Alternative Assessment Examples

The five-point system is a compromise between students wanting everything graded and instructors who know that grades can distract from learning. Students earn five out of five points for every assignment, big or small, as long as they do three things:

    • Submit it on time.
    • Follow the directions.
    • Do the work completely.

The work doesn’t have to be correct or high quality; it just has to be done. Students receive not just points, but feedback in multiple ways throughout the term: peer review, instructor comments, self-reflections, and comparing their work to models and examples. This helps students learn from their effort and progress. Points averaged over the term are the “effort grade.” At the end of the term, students write a final reflection letter to the instructor explaining what they’ve learned and making the case for the grade they think they deserve. Their proposed grade is averaged in with their effort grade, and that is the grade they earn for the class.

Popularized by Danielewicz and Elbow (2009), contract grading clearly lays out — at the beginning of the class — the tasks students must complete and the behaviors expected of them. The instructor attaches a grade to the contract so students know exactly what to do to earn that grade.

Asking students to give feedback to their peers gives them an opportunity to learn from one another and think critically about their work. Consider giving students specific elements to focus on during peer review and model what good feedback looks like. It helps to provide students with a rubric, checklist, or series of questions to answer as they examine their peers’ work.

Possibly the most radical of alternative assessment methods, student self-assessment requires a paradigm shift for both the instructor and the student. It requires students to truly believe they have the freedom to determine their own grade and the instructor to truly believe that students are capable of doing so fairly. Students can self-assess in large or small courses when they are taught how, and doing so deepens their learning and motivates them to keep learning. Self-assessment can happen in a variety of formats:

    • Exam wrappers
    • e-Journals
    • Blogs
    • Weekly reflections/check-ins
    • e-Portfolios

Implementing Alternative Assessments

Any use of alternative assessments is likely to be new for at least some of your students. As you implement alternative assessments in your course, it can help to prioritize clear communication around students’ process and progress, and your expectations — even when you and students have designed those pieces collaboratively.

Give students regular feedback on their process work that is not linked to points or grades. Students are more likely to remember feedback and incorporate it into future work if it is not paired with a grade. Check out these research-based tips for giving students meaningful feedback. Low stakes, formative assessments that give you and your students feedback about their learning come in many forms:

    • Practice quizzes
    • Zoom polls during presentations
    • Follow-up surveys
    • Google Doc reading quote and question collection
    • Discussion-forum-based, student-led Q and A
    • One-on-one check-ins

Give students clear guidelines, examples, and rubrics that describe the desired learning outcomes for a given assessment. Allow time and flexibility for students to ask questions and make suggestions about how they might meet the learning outcomes in more than one way. Employing a Universal Design for Learning strategy will serve a diversity of learners.

Danielewicz, J., & Elbow, P. (2009). A Unilateral Grading Contract to Improve Learning and Teaching. College Composition and Communication, 61(2), 244–268. https://stats.lib.pdx.edu/proxy.php?url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40593442

Schinske, J., & Tanner, K. (2014). Teaching More by Grading Less (or Differently). CBE Life Sciences Education, 13(2), 159–166. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.cbe-14-03-0054