What My Grades Mean

I probably should have titled this post, "What My (fake) Grades Mean."

I found this assignment a bit difficult, as I have never actually taught a class in an academic setting and assessed students. The following is a description of a hypothetical grading system I might use, based on grading systems I have experienced as a student. I believe that it meets the goal of giving me something to reflect on and evaluate the purpose of grading.

Here are the grades that I give: A+, A, B+, B, C+, C, I, F.
Notice that there are no "-" grades. This simplifies the classic grading scheme a bit and focuses on the positive.

Starting from the bottom:

F: An F is failing grade. The student's performance was very poor, and they mastered very few of the learning objectives. The student will need to repeat the class to receive any academic credit for it. An F means that the teacher failed to reach the student, and the student failed to learn.

I: An I stands for incomplete. The student showed at least adequate performance and progress on the activities they completed, but they did not complete enough of the course to earn academic credit. The teacher and student will make a plan for the student to complete the course work in a timely manner and the instructor will adjust the grade based on work the student completes. If the student does not complete coursework in a timely manner, the grade is adjusted to an F.

C: A C means that the student has mastered a minimal but acceptable amount of the content and skills. They have completed enough of the course to earn academic credit for it. This grade means that the student is preforming acceptably, but that the teacher needs to figure out what can be done to help the students performance increase to at least an "average" level. The C student is mastering about half of the learning targets, which is minimally acceptable, but they are barely proficient overall.

C+: This grade reflects slightly higher performance than the minimal required to pass, but not by much. A C+ student is performing somewhere between the minimal required to pass and the "average" performance expected in the class.

B: A B is the grade that an "average" student is expected to receive in my class if they complete almost all or all of their work and put some effort into it. This grade means that the student is doing just fine, but that there is still plenty of room to improve. They are mastering most of the learning targets, but not all.

B+: This grade means that the student is performing slightly better than "average." Their work is not at the exemplary level, but it is close. They have a very good grasp of the content and skills learned in the class. Most of the learning targets have been mastered, and there are no to very few targets that the student is far from mastering.

A: This grade means that the student is performing very well. They are mastering close to all of the learning targets, and there is little room for the student's performance to reasonably improve. An A means that the student has mastered almost all of the learning targets, and the few that have not been mastered have been almost mastered.

A+: This grade means that the student is performing exceptionally well. Within reason, there is almost no room for the student's performance to improve. The quality of their work is significantly better than what is expected from an "average" student. They have mastered all of the content and skills that I expected them to learn.


This grading system meets the needs of administrators. They want a datum to record, and this gives them one. From this grading system they can tell weather the student did or did not complete the course, and if they barely passed, performed acceptably, or performed exceptionally. Administrator are not usually looking for explanations or justifications, and this system give the administrators the minimal amount of information that they desire.

This grading system meets the needs of some parents. They know the relative performance of their child, but almost nothing about how and why their student received that grade. A concerned and/or dedicated parent would need to seek out additional information from the teacher to truly understand their child's performance. A letter grade does not give strengths and weaknesses or tell a parent how they might help improve their child's performance, but it does tell them the general level at which their child performed in the class.

This grading system does not meet the needs of most students. Most students have learned to adapt to similar systems, but that does not mean that their needs are being met. The letter grade describes the level of their performance as assessed by the teacher. A letter grade does not tell the student what they did well, what they struggled at, or what they could do to receive higher grades in the future. The student does have a record of their achievement level, but they should already have an idea of what it should be.