Today’s post was written by library student assistant Isabella Castro. Isabella is a senior double majoring in psychology and sociology with a minor in health and society.
At our most recent Faculty Pub Night, Jordan Freitas, an assistant professor of computer science in the Frank R. Seaver College of Science and Engineering, discussed her 2025 publication, “Grades are Bugs.” The idea to stop implementing grades occurred to Freitas during her 2022 sabbatical. During this time, she read a paper about motivation in education, which reshaped her perspective on grading. Freitas’s work is a position paper that should, in her words, “engender fruitful academic discussion through a defensible opinion about a computing education topic.” Freitas recently presented the paper at the Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education conference and published it in the accompanying proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery.
Freitas’s goal was to use this paper as a rhetorical device, meant to reorient its readers. She wanted her audience to understand that “our ways of knowing can extend beyond the code and help us to see opportunities to improve ‘buggy’ and unjust systems.” After the event ended, Brendan Smith, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, shared, “I’m convinced ungrading is right and the answer. This is a chance to start aligning.”
One of the main takeaways from Freitas’s presentation was that there are three key questions students need to have answered in order to learn effectively. Those are: “Am I safe? Am I loved? What can I learn?” Freitas offers alternative approaches to grades, including checklists instead of points, portfolios, check-in meetings, and self-assigned final grades. These examples provide concrete ways in which professors can swiftly shift from letter grades to alternatives, empowering students to take charge of their learning.
Freitas then discussed Loyola Marymount University’s learning goals and outcomes, which are pivotal to this university’s mission. While LMU’s goals tell students to be creative, critical thinkers who integrate and use their knowledge in a variety of ways, grades teach students that there are limits. A student audience member shared, “Until I came to LMU, I didn’t realize how systematic I thought about grades. I wasn’t focused on the material, only grades. This talk opened my eyes to how grades have impacted me throughout my life.” Grades tell students that they need to follow instructions, produce the best content possible, maintain a high GPA, and that faculty are the “ultimate authority.” In the end, this devalues students’ academic journeys, teaching them to be quiet thinkers who simply listen and try to understand the given subject matter.
As a psychology major with a special interest in education, I think the traditional approach to grading is wrong. My current capstone course, “Psych and Education”, teaches that each person learns and processes in different ways, so why limit students? Implement the alternative approaches provided by Freitas and let students take charge of their own academic journeys because we are much more than just a number or a letter on a transcript.