The course completed with the usual flurry of activity that left me unable to spend much time writing about what we were doing.
Then life took over. This is now being written as the second group of students being a markless adventure one year after the previous group started.
I have had time to reflect on the experiment.
During our last few days together I asked students for their feedback on the experience. The only negative I heard was that some parents didn't like it because they did not 'trust' the students (or me) when we said they were doing ok/good/excellent. They wanted marks. Black and white.
Other students reported that their parents were good or happy with the way things were going - especially since the reasons for and barriers to success were more obvious.
The students themselves had some great things to say. They liked that they knew where they were doing well and where they needed to improve. They liked that all criteria was equally important, which allowed them to be good a science even though they weren't so good at such and such. They found it less arbitrary. Students also said that it left them unafraid. They pretty unanimously agreed that they felt way less stress about science than they had expected and they felt confident when going into things like tests and exams.
All of the students were successful. Most seemed to have enjoyed it. All tried. Never once did a kid quit on the course because they had done poorly on an assessment or evaluation.
The Markless experiment fulfilled many of the goals I had set for it. The program certainly wasn't perfect, but it provided enough that I am going to try it again.