Felicita Arzu Carmichael is an Assistant Professor in the department of Writing and Rhetoric at Oakland University. This piece is part of a series of OU faculty sharing alternative grading approaches.

Drawing in Inoue (2019), a labor-based grading contract is an assessment practice that does not assign grades to students’ individual assignments or activities. Instead, students consider choices in their writing based on frequent feedback they receive from their instructor and peers. Students’ final course grade is determined by the amount of labor they are willing and able to do throughout the semester, and this final course grade is the only grade students receive.  

Labor-based grading contracts create the space for empathy, inclusion, and reciprocity in my writing classrooms. In my courses, I take an anti-racist approach to teaching and assessment by centering students’ experiences and perspectives and collaboratively drawing on those experiences and perspectives as a lens to study and practice writing rhetorically. I find that there is deep learning and growth that happens when no grade is attached to the individual work students do. For example, I am able to work with students to investigate their “language attitudes” (Baker-Bell, 2020, p. 11) in relation to their writing experiences and build on those attitudes to support students in making intentional rhetorical choices in their work. For me, teaching and assessing are also more meaningful because I get to engage with students about their writing goals and steps they might take to achieve those goals in a way that is not impeded by grades.

How I assess students tells them what I value, so involving them in their own assessment helps build reciprocity and trust in the classroom. Labor-based grading contracts allow me to put emphasis on the labor students are willing and able to do and not on the quality of their work; I find this to be an empathetic and inclusive assessment practice. Grades tend to hinder productivity because students might be more concerned with improving their grade than taking risks with their work and challenging themselves as thinkers and writers.

Student Comments

In my WRT 2060 Introduction to Writing Studies course, a fully online writing intensive course with synchronous meetings once a week, some students had the following to say about their experience with our labor-based grading contract:

• “For the time, I was not worried about my writing in the sense of conforming to white mainstream English. For the first time, I felt liberated and open to expressing my ideas in my own ways and voice. It gave me the freedom and tools to think outside of the box and not worry about meeting the expectations of a rubric.”
• “I must admit, the prospect of labor-based contract grading at the beginning of the semester seemed terrifying and uncomfortable. However, as the semester went on, I found myself not even caring about grades simply because there were none to care about. That, I think, made me appreciate commentary even more because the focus really was on my specific choices and strategies that were effective instead of a letter that represented my abilities in general.”
• “It is kind of funny because there was an element about just trying your best and not worrying about a grade at the end. Inevitably though there is a grade at the end of this, there has to be. So even though I know I was doing my best I was still nervous that there was not a tangible grade in front of my face. This is a result of grades almost always seeming to be-all-end-all. If you are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ it normally reflects within your ‘grade.’ Not having this security net was alarming, yet productive. Putting in the work is what will get that ‘A grade,’ and you have to trust in that.”
• “Honestly, at the beginning of the semester I didn’t fully grasp what the labor-based contract grading system was going to be like. But when I started to do assignments for this class, I wasn’t afraid to speak my mind or even say what was on my mind. I felt that this grading system didn’t penalize me for expressing what I thought or believed in. That this class was a way to express myself and share my ideas. Labor-based contract grading made me feel that my contribution to any of the assignments were enough because I put in the effort and I was able to express my ideas and thoughts. I wish more classes had this approach to grading because it gives students less anxiety and the room to express themselves without getting penalized for it.”

Conclusion

It is important to note that while labor-based grading contracts create opportunities for instructors to practice a more equitable and inclusive form of assessment, this assessment practice is not inherently anti-racist. In other words instructors must have an anti-racist orientation to teaching (Inoue, 2019) for labor-based grading contracts to be anti-racist. It is also important to keep in mind that students have intersectional identities, so they will not all labor in the same ways (Carillo, 2021). Some students will spend more time and effort in their laboring for the class, so the concept of “labor” needs to be critically considered so that some students are not placed at a disadvantage because of factors that are out of their control. Finally, learning management systems are not designed with ungrading practices in mind, so working closely with e-LIS early in the process to set up a gradeless class is vital.

References and Resources 

Baker-Bell, A. (2020). Dismantling anti-black linguistic racism in English language arts classrooms: Toward an anti-racist black language pedagogy. Theory Into Practice, 59(1), 8-21.

Carillo, E. C. (2021). The Hidden Inequities in Labor-Based Contract Grading. University Press of Colorado.

Inoue, A. B. (2019). Labor-based grading contracts: Building equity and inclusion in the compassionate writing classroom. Fort Collins, CO: WAC Clearinghouse.

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About the Author

Felicita Arzu-Carmichael is an Assistant Professor in the department of Writing and Rhetoric. Her teaching and scholarly interests focus on online literacy, social justice and inclusion and first-year writing. When Felicita isn’t teaching or researching, she enjoys cooking Caribbean food and playing tennis. 

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OU journalism faculty Kate Roff and Holly Shreve Gilbert developed this solutions journalism teaching approach with support from CETL’s Teaching Grant. 

Mainstream news media has long drawn criticism for its “negative” approach, but with recent coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, divisive domestic politics, and now conflict in Ukraine, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Even before the pandemic, nearly two-thirds of Americans said they suffered from news fatigue and a staggering 41% were already beginning to actively avoid news. As academics we have witnessed the toll that negative news cycles have had on our students, particularly over the last few years, impacting their mental health and ability to engage effectively with the world around them. 

The escalation of news avoidance has, however, prompted the rise of “solutions journalism”, a constructive approach that offers rigorous coverage of community issues from a problem-solving lens. This emerging style has been elevated by major publications with specific “solutions” news beats, such as in The Guardian, BBC, The New York Times, and NBC News, creating platforms for reporters to cover complex issues in a manner that doesn’t isolate readers. There’s a thorough collection of examples, from publications across the nation covering everything from economic mobility to climate solutions, curated by the Solutions Journalism Network’s Solutions Story Tracker. 

Here at OU, we provide training in this field in our journalism department, not solely to meet current industry trends, but to re-engage students with media in a healthy, productive, and supportive manner, particularly after a time of global crisis. You can see this work in action on our student's Solutions News Bureau site, like this story about a student nurse mentorship program that is helping to break down gender identity barriers.

It’s an approach that can, we believe, be applied across disciplines.

How to Engage Students with Solutions

Solutions journalism is not about “good news” or advocacy journalism, but about reporting on complex social issues with a focus on the responses. Like many of our disciplines across campus, this style doesn’t shy away from reporting on difficult issues, but zooms in on how communities are responding, and what’s working (or not, because that’s valuable knowledge too). Solutions journalism upholds four key pillars: 

• focusing on the response to a social problem; 
• sharing insight (what others could learn from the implementation of this response); 
• evidence (providing data or qualitative results that indicate effectiveness); and 
• limitations (what are the shortcomings of this response). We’ve always thought it to be quite an academic approach to reporting.

By encouraging students not to avoid a problem (whether that shows up in anything from misinformation to political divisions to inequities in healthcare to environmental disasters) but to also investigate the responses that are happening to these issues, we allow them to discover the whole picture. They tell us they feel more connected as they ask: What’s working to solve these issues? Where (and how) are responses happening? What can we learn from responses that aren’t working?

Is it working?

Increasingly, solution journalism researchers and practitioners are noticing the way this approach helps fill a “hope gap” in mainstream reporting. Last year, a SmithGeiger study found that not only do news consumers find solutions journalism stories more engaging but more relevant. Audiences report a stronger willingness to talk to other people about the issues, collaborate on initiatives, and hold officials in positions of power accountable for change. 

During a time when students feel overwhelmed and without agency in the structures around them, we have the opportunity to empower them with knowledge about not just the biggest challenges we face (across any of our fields of expertise), but about the responses happening in their own communities. That’s pretty powerful.

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About the Authors

Special Lecturer Kate Roff is an award-winning journalist and editor, and has worked for media agencies in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Costa Rica. She is the founding editor of Peace News Network, managing editor for Detroit’s Metromode and Model D, and a recognized solutions journalist. 

Adjunct Instructor Holly Shreve Gilbert is a freelance writer, public relations consultant, and publication designer. Her expertise includes story-telling for new media and media design. Formerly a feature editor, she has been teaching at Oakland since 1994 and serves as chief academic adviser for the journalism and public relations programs at OU.

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Social media has become a dominant language in American society, in particular among our Gen-Z students. According to Pew Research Center (2021), 84% of young adults (18-29) use social media, especially Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok. Incorporating social media as an instructional tool thus opens new opportunities to encourage social learning, engagement, and collaboration.

Micro learning via social media

Micro learning is a student-centered approach delivering materials in bite-size chunks. Social media acts as an effective channel to deliver micro learning experiences. Given its widespread use in public life, social media offers micro learning in conjunction with small stakes, real world application opportunities. 

Research has shown positive outcomes of using social media in higher education. Integrating social media in the classroom enhances students’ media/digital literacy and critical thinking (Pangrazio, 2016). It also increases student motivation (de-Marcos, Garcia-Lopez & Garcia-Cabot, 2016) and informal participation both in and outside the classroom (Ranieri, Rosa & Manca, 2016). Furthermore, it helps student acquire social capital that will aid their personal and professional growth (Davis III, Deil-Amen, Rios-Aguilar & González Canché, 2015).

For every goal, a platform

Grevtseva, Willems and Adachi (2017) provide an especially helpful chart to break down the media forms, learning activities, and affordances of existing social media platforms. For example, YouTube lends itself to narrative forms and learning activities focused on attending and apprehending. Instructors may use the platform to deliver mini lectures and diverse forms of evidence and arguments. A good illustration of this approach is Dr. Sean Says, in which he provides creative animated videos to convey musical concepts and theories to his students.

In contrast, Twitter lends itself to communicative forms and learning activities focused on discussing and debating. Instructors may use the platform to foster interaction in either synchronous or asynchronous discussion. In addition to the platforms Grevtseva et al. account for, newer social media can also be used to extend the classroom. For example, using TikTok to provide demonstrations and study skills. A prime illustration of this approach is empoweredteaching on TikTok, in which Vanessa Cronin demonstrates dance moves and other cultural forms for her Spanish language and culture class.

Social media campaigns via Instagram

I personally have incorporated Instagram into my Social Media and PR class in Fall 2021. Throughout the semester, students worked for the College of Arts and Sciences to help amplify its digital presence. Students first conducted a competitive analysis to understand CAS’s current social media standing. Based on this analysis, they developed a social media campaign proposal with sample posts. They also received Hootsuite training and earned two certificates in social media marketing. Not only were the students helping their university, but they also gained valuable experience that bolstered their resumes and portfolios.

Conclusion

While the pandemic created unprecedented challenges for students, social media enhanced pedagogy encourages playful praxis and community-building. Educators should see social media less as a distraction and more as a communicative form offering opportunities to fuel motivation in student learning.

References and Resources 

This teaching tip and more resources are available in CETL’s Social Media and Twitter for Teaching and Research: Faculty Resources.

Auxier, B., & Anderson, M. (2021, April 7). Social Media Use in 2021. Pew Research Center. 

Davis III, C. H., Deil-Amen, R., Rios-Aguilar, C., & González Canché, M. S. (2015). Social media, higher education, and community colleges: A research synthesis and implications for the study of two-year institutions. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 39(5), 409-422.

de-Marcos, L., Garcia-Lopez, E., & Garcia-Cabot, A. (2016). On the effectiveness of game-like and social approaches in learning: Comparing educational gaming, gamification & social networking. Computers & Education, 95, 99-113.

Grevtseva, Y., Willems, J., & Adachi, C. (2017). Social media as a tool for microlearning in the context of higher education. Proceeding of the 4thEuropean Conference on Social Media. ACPI. 

Pangrazio, L. (2016). Reconceptualising critical digital literacy. Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education, 37(2), 163-174.

Ranieri, M., Rosa, A., & Manca, S. (2016). Unlocking the potential of social media for participation, content creation and e-engagement. Students’ perspectives and empowerment. In E. Brown, A. Krastiva & M. Ranieri (Eds.),E-learning and social media: Education and citizenship for the digital 21st century pp. 223-248). Charlotte, NC USA: IAP.

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About the Author

Chiaoning Su is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, Journalism and Public Relations and the advisor of Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) at Oakland University. Her teaching philosophy centers on high impact learning achieved through playful praxis. She won the 2020 Honors College Inspiration Award and the 2021 Teaching Excellence Award. Prior to her academic career, Su worked as a communication specialist at Ogilvy Public Relations and for several political campaigns in Taiwan.

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In this moment of the pandemic, people who cannot always attend on-site events are seeing flexible, online opportunities shrink. Some faculty are taking with them the lessons of the pandemic, noting that opening a livestream option for on-site events has opened the door to people who normally do not get to participate. Faculty see their instructional videos being accessed dozens of times. They see higher class attendance numbers and more people engaging due to an open chat window. They see higher enrollment in guest lectures and presentations.
Fortunately, the pandemic has accelerated the digital accessibility of some programs, such as caption and transcription tools in video conferencing, more mobile-friendly activities, and multiple format options. As we decide how we will do things now and in future semesters, let’s take stock of all we have gained in accessible practices and evaluate how best to keep them.

Assess your current accessibility practices.

The Digital Accessibility Quick Note and Checklist are good places to start. The 2-page Quick Note explains six areas that are most likely to affect your course, and the Digital Accessibility Checklist gives you actionable ways to identify what accessibility actions you are already enacting and which you are not yet doing. This checklist also prompts you to identify and consider accessibility beyond the web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) such as course design that allows for choice and flexibility. Accessibility includes so many considerations, such as cost of course materials and giving students activity choices.

Choose materials and features that center accessibility.

The pandemic helped accelerate accessibility features, and some were already underway at Oakland University:

• Captions in live online sessions. Zoom has a live transcript option, which is what they call their closed captions. Record the session when you think students will benefit, and the recording will have a transcript and audio recording option. When on Google Meet, remind everyone that closed captioning is available at everyone’s discretion.
• Record videos with transcripts in mind. Since we started promoting digital accessibility in 2017, auto-transcription has gotten so much better. While YouTube auto-generates captions that can be manually updated as needed (I still find the Accurate Captions: The Ninja YouTube Method very useful), I prefer using YuJa since its captions and transcripts seem more accurate and Moodle allows YuJa videos to be embedded directly. When I produce YouTube videos, I actually import YuJa’s caption files.
• Ask vendors about accessibility. If you use MyLab, Pearson, ProctorU and other digital education products, what is there track record for accessibility?
• In Moodle, let Brickfield be your guide. In the Accessibility Review block, click the button to schedule a review to start the course review process. From the student side, Brickfield offers students multiple formats. Which leads me to the next consideration…

Talk with students about available accessibility tools.

Students may not be aware of what the Brickfield icon next to Moodle links is. (It looks like a multicolored circle.) Share the Brickfield Student Guide with your class on e-LIS’ Digital Accessibility page, and mention it from time to time if you are scrolling through Moodle anyway, especially if you find particular formats useful for course materials.

Make explicit that you are turning on live captions in Zoom, and that each person can toggle captions on and off in Google Meet and can use a tool like Otter.ai to make a transcript in Google Meet. If you offer video recordings and transcripts, note that the recordings and transcripts are useful for review for a variety of reasons. Such prompts not only draw students’ attention to features that can help them in your course and others, but may prompt them to continue the same practices in their OU programs and beyond.

Build accessibility requirements into student work, and model the way.

For papers and multimodal projects, among other student work, build accessibility standards into the rubric. Share the Digital Accessibility Quick Note with them, and refer to standards that will likely influence their work:

• Text should use heading styles and descriptive hyperlinks.
• Images should include a text description, or alt text.
• Audio and video should have a transcript.

These may seem like a big ask, but these accessibility standards can be likened to checking for formatting and grammar, and build a routine that will greatly benefit work for the students themselves and any future audience with whom they might work. Show students class materials that have these features so that they see you are implementing the same practices, and they see how useful things like heading styles are.

Keep open options for engagement online, within and beyond the course.

We and the people around us have dedicated tremendous time, effort, and resources to increase online options. It is worth keeping these online options open to the greatest extend possible, even as more in-person options become available. This might mean allowing students access to online materials you have created, like past lecture recordings and video demonstrations. You might continue offering livestream options and recordings. Keep those options open for other work at the university such as committee meetings and events for the university and public. 

This moment is a crucial period when our plans and actions determine whether increased options for engagement become a part of our learning and work culture or fall to the wayside. Let’s not close the door to folks who have lived with many more open doors during the last two years.

For these resources and more, see the Digital Accessibility: Faculty Resources page.

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About the Author

Written by Christina Moore, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Oakland University. Others may share and adapt under Creative Commons License CC BY-NC. View all CETL Weekly Teaching Tips. Follow these and more on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.