The grading system plays an important role in student learning. In their book Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment in College, Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Anderson state that “grading infuses everything that happens in the classroom.” They also argue that grading “needs to be acknowledged and managed from the first moment that an instructor begins planning a class.”

a. How could the grading system a teacher uses affect the incentives of students to learn the course material?

b. If teachers put too little weight in the grading scale on a certain part of the course, such as readings outside the textbook, how might students respond?

c. Teachers often wish that students came to class prepared, having read the upcoming material. How could a teacher design the grading system to motivate students to come to class prepared?

Source: Barbara E. Walvoord and Virginia Johnson Anderson, Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment in College, 2nd edition, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010, p. 1.