What We Talk about When We Don’t Talk about Grades

In this article, John O’Connor and Avi Lessing discuss their decision to create gradeless classrooms. They reached this decision by witnessing the profound cost grades hold for students and teachers alike. Grades threaten to reduce students to mere scores and teachers to bookkeepers, both groups focused more on grades than learning. By eliminating grades, O’Connor and Lessing observe tremendous benefits, including a greater sense of intrinsic motivation, a more robust approach to revision, increased conversations with their students, and more authentic student-teacher relationships.