Grading practices is an aspect of a course’s framework that can have adverse impact on student social-emotional engagement. There is no doubt that, as Joel Feldman explains, “mistakes are necessary for any learning to happen, and yet traditional grading treats mistakes as unwanted, unhelpful, and deserving of penalty.”

Feldman notes that many believe that “using points to motivate students is to assume that extrinsic motivation—rewards and consequences provided by the teacher—is the most effective way to promote learning.” From his perspective, this a widely spread misconception that needs to be challenged. Gerald E. Knesek argues that the focus on grades translates into “no real emphasis on learning—the true purpose of education.” He recalls that “when I encounter students after they have graduated, they almost always remember what grade they received in my class; yet when I ask about what concepts they learned, they hesitate before answering.”

A grading policy that reduces anxiety and stress and moves students to persevere and learn is resubmission. Generally, student perform poorly in course assessments for three reasons:

• Interfering event or condition that impeded success.
• Assessment design impeded knowledge communication.
• Inadequate preparation or weak understanding of instructional objective.

Whatever the case, resubmission allows the student an opportunity to “learn the material, continue in the trajectory of the formative process, and to remove any feelings of helplessness to learn or to do well in the class.” If students are not allowed to revisit and learn from their mistakes, then there are voids in this formative process which will impact a student’s ability to achieve the course’s student learning outcomes. What must also be considered is that once a student has made a mistake in learning, the path to redeeming that mistake without resubmission can seem hopeless. To emphasize this point, let us assume that a student has received a 0 in one assignment and 85s in two other assignments. The average score is a 56, or no-passing grade. After completing an additional two assignments, at a score of 85, the student is only at a 68, again a non-passing grade.

How might resubmission change the grade trajectory, motivation, and engagement of this student in the remainder of the course?