Marg Yaroslaski 

Program Chair, Applied Bachelor’s Degree in Leadership and Management

Before she came to Chemeketa last spring, Marg Yaroslaski, Program Chair for our new Applied Bachelor's Degree in Leadership and Management, taught Communication courses for many years. 

Students most often took these courses to satisfy a requirement, and many faced sharp learning curves. For outcomes assessment, she set a benchmark that at least 70% of her students would be able to demonstrate mastery of at least 70% of course outcomes, a common strategy faculty use.

Now as PC for Chemeketa’s brand new four-year degree, Marg is designing outcomes assessment for an entirely different audience. Her students are typically employed professionals highly motivated to be top performers. 

Marg wanted an outcomes assessment strategy that gave her working students flexibility and that helped them focus on learning and growing rather than on points. “These are students who are concerned if they get 92% rather than 95%,” Yaroslaski said. “It doesn’t matter that much, but they care. I wanted them to focus on their learning.” 

To do that, she decided to try “Contract” or “Labor-Based” grading, a strategy she learned last year at a Student Retention and Completion conference at Eola. In this design, students decide which grade they want to earn, based on how much coursework they want to complete. The instructor details for them the grades they can earn through different levels of “labor.”

For labor-based grading to work well, Marg says assignments need very clear explanations of what is expected, and all components need to be scaffolded to develop the learning she wants her students to achieve.  When submitted work does not meet an assignment’s expectations, she gives students feedback to help them better meet the expectations, and they can submit the assignment again. 

In this model, assignments serve as outcomes assessments. When students meet the assignment’s expectations, they have demonstrated new levels of mastery of the outcomes that a particular assignment is designed to help them build.

The design simplifies outcomes assessment down to two possibilities: successfully or unsuccessfully completed assignments, Yarokaski explains. The design also is perfectly wired to help students and faculty alike see immediately where something isn’t working. 

“As soon as they fall behind in some way, that’s an indicator to me that something is awry.” Conversations in class help her work with students to figure out where something isn’t working  - whether there’s a technical glitch, or an assignment could be clearer - and how to make a change for the better.

Would she go back to more traditional grading? No way.  Labor-based grading allows her to put all her focus on designing learning for her students and helping them achieve the outcomes. “There are no more conversations about how I graded something,” she said. She’s also learned more about her own expectations, which has helped to refine assignments. “Through this first year, I’ve realized that in my own head, I have a benchmark for what I want to see from students,” she said.  

Marg especially likes how this model helps her see right away how she can better help students learn what she intends. “I don’t have to get to the end of the term to see what to fix next time.”