[fattless]

This is a neat concept and could work well, especially in the more subjective, art based classes. One of my favorite classes was digital audio production. A big part of that was the amount of creativity we could take with it, partially thanks to the grading. The teacher graded very easily, as long as you utilized this technique and “tried” you get 100 on the assignment, or a pretty high grade. This let me worry less about if I meet the requirements or not, and instead spend time putting creativity into it. He would always offer feedback as well spending time critiquing weak aspects about it and it helped me a ton. Yes, this means the class became a big blowoff for a lot of kids, but I liked being able to dip into the creativity without many worries.

The grading discussed in the article probably couldn’t apply to stem classes or something with a definitive right or wrong answer, but giving less focus on raw number grades in more creative classes can push kids in the right direction. I heard somewhere that kids are increasingly putting less creativity and energy into assignments because they are concerned with hitting the teachers exact expectations, and I think I see that in my own experiences.