BY KIMBERLY BERNHARDT
Like many of my colleagues across the country, I am unsure whether I will be teaching face-to-face, online, or hybrid courses this fall. While I hope to adapt my teaching to whatever model is necessary to serve students, I am not confident that our current pedagogical framework—in which students work throughout the semester and are assigned a grade at the end—is flexible enough for this unique situation. What we need now is a pedagogy focused on building community. A pass-fail grading option, in which students can receive course credit for meeting standards, is a powerful way to support this goal.
For weeks, the news has been filled with articles speculating on how and when universities will open. These range from articles insisting that campuses must reopen in the fall to those calling for rethinking the nature of higher education. No one—including college presidents, politicians, and scientists—seems to know the right thing to do. Given the uncertainty of this situation, it’s no surprise that college students are feeling anxious. And while faculty often report concerns about the mental health of a few students each semester, this fall will be different. Rather than a few struggling students, everyone will be struggling to adjust to whatever this pandemic brings.
It was only a few months ago that students were scrambling to pack their things and vacate dorm rooms—some with only a day’s notice. Some went home to familiar surroundings but also to parental job losses, crowded conditions, and housing and food insecurity. Some returned to sick family members. Others—including some of my students—continued living in near-empty dormitories after their home countries closed borders. As I write this, weeks after the end of the semester, one of my students is still waiting to see her family. She is living alone in a dormitory suite built for four, afraid to go outside, and waiting for her country to let her go home.
When we return to teaching in the fall, these students—along with others who may be leaving the relative safety of home for the first time—will be filling the seats, physically or virtually. How can we best serve these vulnerable young people? The pandemic isn’t over, and we can’t know what will happen next. But unlike last spring, we now have time to think about what we want our COVID-19 classrooms to look like and plan accordingly. A pandemic-informed or responsive pedagogy will account for the virus’s incalculable impact on our students’ lives. And it will require that we shift the focus in our classrooms from assessing student performance to creating communities that can support student learning throughout this crisis.
As Mays Imad explains, we must “recognize that amid a pandemic, our students may have a difficult time completing basic tasks . . . including keeping track of the slightest changes in our classes, making decisions about their learning, being motivated to study or to show up, prioritizing assignments, engaging with classmates or the subject, managing their time, or simply not quitting.” Given the circumstances, Alison Stanger argues that we should shift our approach to learning to one that engages our care for others and that “rewards empathy and community.” While acknowledging the strange, cobbled-together pandemic world we will inhabit this fall, such a shift would underscore the fact that education has always been communal; it takes place within a community of scholars who learn from each other. A pass-fail option recognizes what students have learned without penalizing them for the varied and unequal effects of COVID-19.
To be sure, some will argue that pass-fail is unfair—that students who work harder or achieve more deserve to be rewarded. The simple answer is to make pass-fail an option for students rather than a universal practice. The more complicated answer is that it will be impossible to fairly assess students during this pandemic. We won’t know if the student who spent weeks quarantined in a crowded apartment would have earned an A had she been able to study and write in a quiet library, just as we won’t really know how effective our online teaching is in comparison to our in-person teaching. I have twenty years of experience teaching in person—and two months of experience teaching online. Even with my best efforts this fall, I will still be learning what works and what doesn’t in an online classroom. And for those teaching in-person or hybrid classes, there’s no way to know how concerns about our own safety will impact the immeasurable things that encourage student participation and understanding. Moreover, it seems problematic to compare students taking courses remotely with those who are in classrooms. While I know that my colleagues and I will make every effort to give students the best education and assess them fairly, a pass-fail option is equitable, just, and necessary.
Given the varied impacts of the pandemic, we should focus on what we can teach students in addition to course content. One clear message that we can all convey is that higher education is a learning community rather than a competition. And the best way to show that is to remove the pressure and the limitations of grades and give students a pass-fail option for the fall.
Guest blogger Kimberly Bernhardt is a senior language lecturer at New York University, where she teaches writing to first-year students.
When did higher education shift from being about the acquisition of skills, knowledge, and critical thinking to become all about “a pedagogy focused on building community”?
How much knowledge can one absorb if you can “receive [full] course credit for meeting [MINIMAL — 60%] standards”? Would you want your doctor, attorney, or accountant to have “PASSED” all courses with what would have been grades of D-? More important, what incentive would students have to go beyond the MINIMUM requirements and thereby not expand their horizons?
As usual, students’ “feelings” are invoked over their academic proficiency. I’m all for helping with legitimate mental health issues, especially during the Plague, but can’t we do both?: emphasize accomplishment AND keep students healthy? For weeks, the news has been filled with articles speculating on how and when universities will open. I’m not sure that Pass/Fail for all is a solution for either.
I suspect the headline of having been written by a blog staff member or editor rather than the “senior language lecturer” [Wjhat is a language lecturer?] but neither the author nor Academe Blog nor the AAUP have the authority to tell colleges what they “must” do.
With respect to Dr. Tomasulo’s comment, some of the communitarians have wanted Pass / Fail all along, and the pandemic plays into their paws.
Hi Joseph, At my institution, “Senior Language Lecturer” is the title given to full-time contract faculty. I have a PhD in English Literature so it isn’t due to lack of any degree.
Best,
Kim
Thank you. It is a somewhat unusual rank / title, — not your fault of course that your institution has a uninforming nomenclature. Language lecturer sounds like somebody who teaches a language or languages or teaches about languages, the term for the latter usually being linguist. It doesn’t sound like somebody who teaches (about) literature.
I completely agree! We’ve been arguing for a more appropriate title for years.
K
For those at the City University of New York, how about this for a title: CUNY linguist. 🙂
Joseph, as the AAUP staff member responsible for the blog, I work with guest bloggers to come up with titles, and this is the one the author provided. Her argument makes it clear that she is using the word “must” to call for and emphasize the importance of a policy that she thinks all colleges should adopt. Neither she nor the AAUP are claiming authority to mandate this. Also, just a reminder that opinions published on Academe Blog do not necessarily represent the policies of the AAUP.
Note also that the author did decide to modify the title, which now uses the word “should” instead of “must.”
Good decision. English modal auxiliaries don’t all mean the same thing and are not generally interchangeable.
“Would you want your doctor, attorney, or accountant to have “PASSED” all courses with what would have been grades of D-?”
Attorney here, law school prof. and wife of a physician/medical school prof. First point: in most graduate and professional programs, a D- is not a passing grade. Second point: many professional schools already use a pass/fail system. Third point: the old joke about “what do call the person who graduates last in their medical school class?” applies here. Passing implies sufficient competence to undertake the next level of qualification, which in the professions is typically some form of certification or licensing examination. Do you expect every physician you see to have been the top performer in his or her medical school class? Where do you, personally, draw the line? The B- law school graduate? Is it ok if she has a high Bar Exam score? What about the A student with middling USMLE scores?
Sorry to seem snippy about this — it didn’t seem like a reasonable objection to the proposal.
Maybe my comments regarding D- students were not the best way to phrase my overall argument, although I still don’t consider them them “unreasonable.” My mistake was using doctors, lawyers, and professional school attendees as my example — since there are apparently special criteria for those professions. Mea culpa on that point. But, for most other fields, a “Pass” grade could signify an “A” or MINIMAL competency in a course — or in one’s entire major. In an era of grade inflation, imagine what that low-end “Pass” REALLY means.
Sure, “passing implies sufficient competence,” some “A” students may become underachievers thereafter, and, anyway, we don’t generally get to review the transcripts of our CPAs, barbers, and even professors. But should we, as a society, be releasing a large group of graduates into the world who have not had the incentive to learn as much as they could about a subject by going for the “easy D.”
BTW, if the “Pass/Fail” idea is so good, shouldn’t it apply to grad school too?
My understanding is that the pass/fail proposal presented here is a temporary measure, limited, one hopes to the 2020-21 academic year, not a proposal for a wholesale and permanent rejection of letter grades for all time. Whether or not your concerns are reasonable, those of us who are actually teaching in the Fall may feel that bending a few rules, making some accommodations, and cutting students some slack for two semesters, at most, will not doom higher education.
Apart from that, having attended a college many years ago that did not assign grades, I am familiar with other ways of (1) motivating students to perform at their best level without the carrot of a letter grade; and (2) maintaining narrative records of student performance that can be used for those who wish to pursue graduate or professional school. Faculty who assign pass/fail outcomes still know whether students performed well or not.
Finally, in the graduate programs in which I have taught, courses are, for all intents and purposes, pass/fail. There is basically no occasion when a grad student’s GPA is relevant anymore; I am unaware of jobs that require submission of a transcript except to verify that a degree was in fact granted; and we don’t have things such as valedictorians that are chosen by grades. I may be exaggerating a bit, but I cannot think of an occasion when a student’s grades make any difference at all. (In fact, I can think of cases in which pass/fail might have been preferable. In one recent instance, for example, a graduate student who was terminated from his PhD program for poor performance sued that program for discrimination — three faculty members testified at trial that the student had done “failing” work, but the student’s attorney pointed to the grades they assigned: 2 C grades and a B-. The plaintiff’s attorney turned to the jury and said “they might not be stellar grades, but don’t they seem like passing grades to you?” The jury found in favor of the former student. Had those faculty members assigned a “Fail” in their courses, the issue would not have arisen.)
I’m sorry to disagree with my friend Barbara Piper again but these are mostly differences brought about by differing life (and academic) experiences — hers and mine.
For instance, while the original article may have been written only about the upcoming Fall 2020 semester, there have been MANY calls for Pass/Fail (or more euphemistically, Pass/No Pass) “grades” for all courses, well before the Plague appeared on our shores.
I’ve taught at two universities that did not use letter grades: UC, Santa Cruz, and Sarah Lawrence College. In both cases, “narrative evaluations” of each student were used instead of traditional grades. I’m still debating whether that system is better or worse than letter or numerical order; maybe it’s a tie. However, these proposals make no mention of ANY kind of evaluation other than “P” or “NP.”
“Reasonableness,” like so much else, seems to be in the mind of the beholder. If I don’t agree with your cohort — those who expect to teach in the Fall (include ME in that group, albeit on-line) — then my ideas are, ipso facto, not reasonable.
In Spring 2020, I began teaching in-person but my university elected to go on-line for rest of the term. Fortunately, I had had 12 years of prior “remote” teaching experience and was easily able to convert course material. Others, not so much. Because of the change, students could VOLUNTARILY opt for a P/F option, even for required courses that normally required a “B” of better. That seemed “reasonable” to given the circumstances. That practice may be continued in the Fall, which will begin with in-person education until Thanksgiving and then switch to on-line instruction for the rest of the term. Reasonable?
My graduate education was VERY different from Barbara Piper’s. For instance, my high MA grades were instrumental in getting me accepted to a prestigious doctoral program. And my high Ph.D. grades helped me land jobs after completion of my doctoral studies. So, it may be true that “There is basically no occasion when a grad student’s GPA is relevant anymore” in Prof. Piper’s field, but MANY colleges expect to see MY transcripts before appointing me even to an adjunct line. (It’s not just me; it’s on their websites.)
I did some research and learned that at one high school there were 19 valedictorians!!! (So as not to hurt anyone’s feelings by using GPA or other indices of academic accomplishment to decide.)
The anecdote at the end of Barbara’s post is just that: an anecdote. One would have to look at the precise wording of the department’s handbook to learn what is acceptable work to remain in the program. In most programs I’ve been affiliated with, a “B” (3.0) average had to be maintained to remain matriculated. Folks were routinely dismissed for lower grades; they did not have to Fail (0.0). It sounds like the profs and administration at the college in question didn’t have their policies in clear written form or had negligent attorneys.
Thanks for your long reply, Frank — if I may — which is a very reasonable response. I will stand corrected on the issue of grad students and grades versus pass/fail: your note reminds me that we, too, consider the GPAs of applicants to our PhD program who have or are completing MA degrees, and grades do matter in such cases. Apologies for having forgotten that. I will also acknowledge that your experience trumps my impression here: if prospective employers are indeed interested in your grad school grades then no more need be said. That’s good enough for me.
The suit I described was much more complex than my simple description, which was just intended to highlight the ambiguity in assessing performance as passing or failing. The university had a very clear minimum GPA for continued enrollment, but the core issue was that the grad student had failed to maintain continuous registration, which results in automatic withdrawal from the program, and the program declined his petition for re-admission. The university claimed that he had multiple failures in his brief graduate career, including a failing grade on his end-of-first year qualifying exam (his advisor begged for an extension to allow a re-take a year later); failing levels of performance in courses, etc. None of that was sequitur to the issue of what “fail” means to an instructor of a graduate seminar versus a jury.
May I end this quick note with one of my original points? I was prepared for the 2020-21 academic year to be abandoned completely, but my university would never consider losing that much tuition income, so we are charging ahead, though most of us will be teaching remotely. It was with that in mind that I suggested that a single academic year with a more generous policy of allowing students to take courses on a pass/fail basis would not be the end of the world. On the other hand, it’s close enough to the start of classes that my opinion is not really relevant….
Cordially, Barbara
Sadly, making classes pass/no pass does not always put the focus on student learning because it winds up giving a “pass” to teachers who “fail” to give meaningful formative and summative feedback to students–feedback that graded work is structured to do. I know some teachers who, not having to give grades, will not spend the time required to give meaningful feedback–a key to teaching the material and students learning it.
As a short-term, practical solution for the problems of the fall semester, this makes a lot of sense. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some schools bring all their students back in August, only to send them home again mid-semester as cases rise out of control. (Are we seriously expecting American teenagers, set free on a college campus after 6 months of quarantining in their childhood bedrooms, to social distance?) Such an event would likely cause severe disruptions to coursework and, as the blogger explains, make assessing student performance a challenge. In other words, I expect a lot of schools will end up here anyway, so why not bow to reality and institute it from the start? Of course, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of “bowing to reality” these days…