by Michael O'Loughlin

After one year of university teaching I pretty much abandoned lecturing. I remember the occasion well. My students were having considerable difficult working their way through an assigned book and, frustrated at their lack of progress, I gave an impromptu and highly erudite lecture on the topic. I finished with an expectant "Did that help?" and, to my chagrin, my undergraduates glumly informed me that it did not. In the words of Douglas Barnes, whose book we were actually studying, (1) I was asking them to arrive without having traveled. I soon gave up on the attempt to put my own understandings into my students' heads, and concentrated on helping them to take responsibility for constructing their own understandings.
During the past sixteen years I have developed a variety of strategies for maintaining student engagement. Concomitant with this I have developed multi-modal forms of assessment. I abandoned "objective" tests when I gave up lecturing. In my courses students now typically do some or all of the following:

Weekly writings - weekly responses allow me to keep track of student work effort and give individual assistance to students who are struggling with issues from the readings. Credit is given if each assignment is done correctly, and if inadequate, students may rewrite.

Autobiographical essay - based on the belief that students need to connect new knowledge to existing understandings, I have students explore these connections through an autobiographical essay. Credit is given if assignment is done correctly, and if inadequate, students may rewrite.

Group discussions - based on the idea that students need to talk themselves into the vocabulary of the discipline, students are expected to read before class, and class time is frequently used for discussion. In the early stages of the semester I usually prepare discussion questions to structure the discussion and teach students how to read critically for meaning, Credit is given for active participation.

Term papers - provide an ultimate test of the capacity of students to speak the language of the discipline and I grade these rigorously. Letter graded.

Collaborative websearches - help students link course content to the latest knowledge and teach them how to engage in collaborative research. Letter graded.

Applied projects in the field- allow students to demonstrate the to link theory and practice. They are usually given the option of doing these projects in pairs or groups. Letter graded.

All of this sounds well and good. My classroom had many of the trappings of democracy yet I always experienced some discomfort at grading time. Despite my desire to give students their say, I retained all of the grading power. I assigned the grades behind my closed door, relieved that I did not have to confront those students whom I suspected would not have agreed with my decisions. As one of my graduate students aptly expressed it in a journal entry a few years ago: "When Michael said to trust him he looked a lot like Nixon when he said 'I am not a crook.'" I was busted and so I resolved to address the power asymmetry with my students.

For many years now I have invited students to write self-evaluations at the end of the semester, addressing what grade they believe they have earned in my class. I emphasize the distinction between "earn" and "deserve" and urge them to focus on "earn." I advise them to address all aspects of the grading rubric, as described above, and to tell me any other information that may help me understand their performance. After I have completed my grading I read the self-evaluations and I guarantee students that if their predicted grade differs by more than a grade fraction from my opinion (i.e., +/-) I will conference with them to try to resolve the discrepancy before making final grade decisions.

Do students take advantage of this process? To the contrary, students are often very conservative graders. They often say what they would like to get, but then go on to analyze carefully what they believe they have actually earned. If my grade is higher than what they assign themselves, my grade holds. I rarely have grade disputes, and the dialogue I have with students, both prior to grading, and when discrepancies arise, has helped keep me honest. I find that knowing I will have to look my students in the eye causes me to approach grading with due diligence. By the way, variation in student motivation, effort, and ability, ensures that my grade distributions are as broad now as they were before I introduced self-evaluation as an element of my teaching. The lesson I have learned from this is that democratization of the classroom that does not draw students into some kind of negotiation of the power inherent in the grading process will be readily recognized by students as possibly well-meaning but decidedly hollow.


1. Barnes, D. (1992). From communication to curriculum. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.