CUNY Academic Commons

I would love to explore helping students set SMART goals with their educators at the beginning of the semsester (or without). This seems like a very concrete tool that can give them ownership over their learning.

I find that growth mindset fits very well with the concepts of standards-based or mastery grading, and I’ve begun offering frequent quizzes in my college algebra classes that assess specific content standards. Students receive a grade of “Check-Minus”, “Check”, or “Check-Plus” and can retake a different version of each quiz at any point in order to show me that they have improved their understanding of any given standard. I tweak this process a little bit each semester, but at this point, I still convert the mastery grades into a numerical grade at the end of the semester based largely on how many of the standards students have mastered.

In the past, I have experimented with ungrading in some of my classes. I have explained to students that ungrading encourages students to focus on the process of learning, rather than on the grade itself. I can improve upon my implementation of ungrading by relating it directly to  growth mindset. When discussing ungrading at the beginning of the semester, I can tell students that the goal is to see mistakes as learning opportunities. Students are not penalized for making mistakes or facing challenges in their learning process, but are instead encouraged to take the necessary steps to overcome challenges.

This really resonates with me as I am always looking for ways that students can engage in experiential opportunities that allow them to apply course learning in real-life contexts. If you have any examples of any of the work your students have done on the Open Lab (or other places) and are willing to share, it would be interesting to see!

On the first day of my college algebra class, I let students out of class 10 minutes early with the assignment to form groups and take a selfie of their group in front of the Math Lab, an academic tutoring center on campus, and my office door. I tell them the next day, “These are the places to get help this semester, and now you know where to find them!” The purpose of this activity is largely to help students begin to develop effective strategies for learning by giving them a point of connection with the resources that exist on campus.

I also like the idea of exam wrappers and often give one that includes asking students to reflect on their performance, describe how they prepared for the exam (and how much time they spent preparing), and make study commitments/goals as they look ahead to the next exam.