Rick Barnard

As an alternative to traditional grading schemes, a standards-based (or mastery-based) system grades a student according to how many concrete learning objectives (the "standards") they have demonstrated proficiency in by the end of the course.  In the last few years, there has been a growing interest in bringing this approach to math courses at the undergraduate level. In this talk, I'll provide a brief introduction to standards-based grading.  I will also discuss my experiences with this approach, including potential benefits and drawbacks, to adopting this method in both lower- and upper-division math courses. I'll also discuss some general strategies I've found helpful in designing a course in this way.