We want them to pursue passions, develop interests, and become those creative problem solvers that we desperately need them to be.
That grade often determines class placement for the following year, honor roll and principal roll designation, and that whole college process thing that everyone talks so much about. Because we are still stuck with grades, we must do everything in our power to make sure they are an accurate reflection of student mastery of the skills set forth in the standards.
There should not be anything outside of actual performance and mastery that determine a grade. It is why homework should not be incorporated into an average.
As stated earlier, there is absolutely zero guarantee that the homework was the work of that particular student. And, perhaps even more importantly, a grade that comes from practice lessens the impact on the grades that do show actual performance. That argument can be applied to extra credit.
Once a teacher begins to add extra credit to an average, that average is meaningless as it is no longer about the standards and skills. It is especially meaningless because it is a result of an activity outside of the graded work. A student could raise an average from a B to an A just because of something outside of the stated assessed work. Or, a student could go from a 92, a very good average, to a 96 because of extra credit. Again, numbers should be meaningless when it comes to learning.
But, if we are stuck with this current system, this practice of adding points makes grades illogical, misleading, and even less meaningful than they are already. In theory, extra credit makes no sense. In the case of extra credit, both theory and actual practice agree. Extra credit can actually cost kids in both academic standing and in an economics sense. With some students being offered extra credit, their averages inflate, thus moving them up in their class rank.
If another student has a group of teachers who do not give extra credit, this is an unfair practice. Where it becomes even more costly is when colleges determine financial aid packages. Obviously, the higher the rank, the more money a student will receive in merit scholarship money or whatever academic awards colleges might offer.
If extra credit was the determining difference between a student who ranked 10th and the other who ranked 11th, the well intentioned practice not only gave one kid an even more inaccurate grade, it just cost another kid quite a bit of money.
As teachers, we must be more mindful of what a grade actually means to a kid and a family once they leave us. Again, we are supposed to be in the business of helping kids learn and realize their dreams. Giving every student a fair chance to access opportunity is one of the cornerstones of the profession.
Extra credit creates an inequity that can actually take away opportunity. We must do better. And, we can. It does require a little bit more of an effort, but if we want to truly prepare kids for life, we owe them more. We should not be giving them anything. Instead, we should be making them actually prove that they have mastered our content. The idea of giving a redo is perhaps the single most misunderstood concept in education. On more than one occasion, I have been told that I am soft on kids, that I never take the hard line with them.
And, I want students to continue to work on it until they show mastery. That includes rewriting essays until they received the highest scores on the rubric in every area. That includes looking at projects again, completing the elements that were missing. It includes redoing most assessments.
In other words, students are really prepared for those. Redos are not easy. It is certainly easier to just give extra credit and boost a grade. Grades will be good; everyone will be happy.
That intention of reward will result in happiness. Except, that it undercuts everything that we should be about in our industry. If we want to make our assessments meaningful and, thus, our grades a true indication of what the student has learned, we must employ a redo policy. This will allow students to earn grades that better accurately portray their performance level.
Extra credit tells everyone that the number, the grade on the report card, is the only thing that matters. Extra credit takes the burden off of having to work to master a skill. A redo tells everyone that the work assigned in class is so important that we will keep going back to these writings, these assessments, until you show it is mastered. A redo says that our work is important.
A redo says that the process of learning is the most important. A redo allows a teacher to give a grade that more accurately shows how a student is mastering content.
A redo is fair for everyone because it is the work expected from everyone. My freshman student was correct. While practices like extra credit are done with the very best of intentions, the results are damaging to kids. It damages student learning. It damages the importance of that learning and what we do in our classrooms. It damages accuracy of grades.
It further damages the divide between students with means and those without. And, it potentially damages students in terms of academic standing and financial aid. The temporary happiness of the practice does not come close to outweighing all of those flaws. Like homework, we must look past the institution of tradition to properly evaluate the impact of this long standing practice.
We must do everything in our power to make learning the focus of what we do. We can, however, accomplish this by pushing students to continue to redo their work. When we do that, we will get the results we are all—students, parents, and teachers—are looking for.
Thank you for this! I agree with you on every single point. Extra credit has become a way to help every student reach their highest potential or diminish some disadvantage. You have beautifully clarified that this is simply not the case. Which brings us right back to the elephant in the room; what are grades for?
Bonnie—You hit the nail right on the head…grades. We either need extreme overhaul or to go gradeless. That may seem controversial, but I think if we are rooted in standards, we could do it well and put the focus back on learning. It makes people feel like they did everything they could to help a kid. Meanwhile, the only way to do so is to make sure they learned the skills, like you said. I truly believe the intentions are out of a good place, but the practice is far from good.
Thank you! This is so beautifully and insightfully stated, and I agree with every single point you make! When I was teaching high school math, I did not believe in extra credit, much to the dismay of students and their parents.
I would allow test and quiz retakes after a student would take the time to relearn the material. Very few ever did, partly because of the school culture that extra credit was the norm, and they were not used to actually having to understand the material to earn their grades. In my final year of teaching, I offered extra credit: 2 points each day for a student putting a distraction phone, electronics, anything distracting into the re-purposed shoe holder serving as a calculator caddy.
Wonderful post! Ramae—Thank you for commenting and sharing. Having just spent the last hour-plus reading your work, I am even more humbled by your words. That school culture part that you pointed out is key. A friend of mine—who actually inspired this piece—texted me about what I thought about an extra credit initiative that was being discussed. Extra credit should be about more than sitting in the back of the room and scrolling on a cellphone.
In my syllabus, I explain that to earn extra credit, students must not only attend the event but they must also write a two-page analytical reflection paper connecting what they learned at the event to their class materials. And I have strict rules for both how they must complete these assignments and the deadlines they must adhere to. I used to believe all that, too. But, since deciding to offer extra credit opportunities, I have encountered the opposite. Often the very best students, who do not really need the additional points, are the ones most likely to attend extra credit events.
Other students -- usually the more mediocre to poor ones -- attend events and simply neglect to follow the instructions of submitting the follow-up paper.
That is the other reason I do not think simple attendance is enough to warrant additional points. In reality, I find that very few people actually do the work for the extra credit that I offer.
In any given semester, with about to students taking my courses, only 15 to 20 people may attend an event for the purpose of extra credit, and as few as five of them go on to write the paper. To earn extra credit in my classes, students must formulate a thesis statement about what they want to focus on. They must also present a brief summary of the central points from the event. Then they need to think of specific and vivid stories and perspectives that emerged in the session that were meaningful.
They must identify connections that they were able to make between the event and aspects of our class, such as lecture material, discussions, readings and classroom guest speakers and films. I also ask that they address the relevance that the event had for them personally and to demonstrate what was the most powerful and memorable aspect of it that they experienced. And I ask them what discussion, if any, they initiated with others after the event and how that impacted them.
Lastly, I ask that they reflect on any ways in which the event could have been improved. Each extra credit assignment gives students the opportunity to earn five points, but if they do not write a strong enough paper, they cannot earn all five points.
And yes, at times, I have even assigned no points. I also take the liberty to assign points beyond five if the paper is exceptional. By handling extra credit this way, I see it as a gesture of good faith. Students who take advantage of these opportunities tend to see both the value and meaning of the event they attended and the value added to their final grade.
At a campus with fewer regular evening activities that are intellectually stimulating, and at one that is more remote and rural, students who attend these say it helps them to feel more a part of the campus community and connects them in important ways to their peers, professors and other resources for their professional and personal growth. An interesting issue about extra credit is that some people attend an event and consciously decide not to write about it.
Recently, I invited students to accompany me to a film on meditation that was part of a special screening off campus. My best-performing student in that class attended, loved it and chose not to do the paper.
She was there for her own curiosity and the enrichment it provided. As a scholar of gender, I see extra credit as interestingly gendered.
Again and again, it is by and large women students who take the most advantage of any extra credit opportunities I offer. That is not simply because more college students are female than male. Even in my classes with the greatest gender balance, this is the case. Perhaps it is because male students might feel more confident, or even entitled, about their grades over all, particularly with female professors.
Some are also less apt to keep planners and log events on their calendars. I find that when they do attend, they are less likely to submit the required accompanying paper that would earn the extra credit. At the end of every term, a few will email me or come to my office begging and pleading for any last-minute attempts to salvage their grades.
That is a good time to ask them why they chose to skip the extra credit opportunities that had already been offered during the semester. That said, I have often been perplexed by students who are very attentive to extra credit pursuits yet do not come for help for papers and tests that they have bombed, or focus more energy on five points of extra credit than a much larger project.
I use this as a time to remind them about priorities and energy. And the thing is this: extra credit is not necessary. It is simply an extra gift, a token, a gesture, a possibility.
Cohan is an associate professor of sociology at the University of South Carolina at Beaufort. Expand comments Hide comments. View the discussion thread.
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