Meeting Abstract
There is a growing concern in higher education that students are focusing too much on grades and too little on their own learning and growth. Not only does grading for accuracy inadequately reflect a career in science, but it can disadvantage students with different backgrounds who may be unfamiliar with how to “play the game” of the education system. Across several disciplines in higher education, assigning grades to students based on their effort has shifted the focus to learning and self-improvement as well as created a more equitable and inclusive classroom. I’ve incorporated several aspects of labor-based assessment into my upper-level scientific writing course, where students routinely engage in a variety of writing assignments that are graded on completion instead of conforming to my own rubric. Students have appreciated the freedom to take risks in their writing without being penalized by point reductions and enjoyed having more ownership over their writing. In my laboratory course, students work toward achieving specific goals throughout the semester that prioritize technical mastery, experimental design, data analysis, and a peer learning environment. In evaluations and self-reflections, students found this goal-oriented approach to be very effective in their development as scientists, and it mirrored the types of experiences they hoped for in joining research labs. For both classroom and laboratory contexts, I present labor-based assessment as an approach to encourage self-motivated learning in all students regardless of their educational background.
