As a college student, I remember my professors handing out extra credit like candy, and
students would rush to fulfill their requests like fighting for treats when pinata treats spill across the floor. I was not one of those students. I supported myself through college with one or two part-time jobs and going to school full-time. Although my family wished me well, they could not provide financial resources. So when those extra credit points were dangled in front of me and other students could just reach out and grab them, I remember that feeling of unfairness deep in the pit of my stomach.
Extra credit points as a concept are not bad; instructors want to give students an opportunity to raise their grades, particularly if there are high stakes assignments or exams and goodness knows we all do not perform at our best every day. I agree that instructors should design courses that provide multiple ways for students to be assessed and they should have opportunities to improve their grades.
My issue is equity. I have seen extra credit points being offered for showing up a lecture by said professor or someone in another department, volunteering for a service project like clean-up days, or being a greeter for a conference hosted at that college. Nearly all of the time, these extra credit opportunities are not related to the course content or learning objectives. If they are, which is better, the extra credit signals that this assignment is important but just not important enough to part of the regular assignments for the class.
Most of the time, extra credit is a luxury for students who have been blessed with the most valuable commodity of all, time. When you are working, commuting, taking care of family etc. you do not have the luxury of time to do "extra" beyond the course requirements which are not part of your normal schedule.
College students are time-strapped, stressed out, overbooked and generally unhappy and it doesn't matter their major or their university of choice.
A researcher at Yale University found that students do not have free time in their lives which is one of the factors contributing to their unhappiness. Anyone can now take her course on
Coursera to learn more about being happy. In my opinion, we don't need to add to this stress with one more thing to schedule, those extra credit assignments. We don't need to dangle more candy in front of them, to raise their anxiety about grades even more. And who are we assigning these credit points for? Us or the students?
As I mentioned earlier, designing a course that allows students to raise their grades, to give them second chances to improve their grades particularly for high stakes assignment is a solid pedagogical strategy. I don't believe that is what extra credit does and it just adds to the equity gap among students who do not have the ability to make room in their schedule do those these extra credit assignments.
I do offer students the opportunity to improve any grade in the course, other than exams, by taking my comments and making the suggested edits. This encourages self-improvement based on feedback, which we will do for our work lives. I think this addresses the spirit of extra credit, in a way that benefits both professors and students. More important to me, it moves away from the notion of handing out extra credit candy for showing up, something that adds to the equity gap instead of reducing it.
My own background includes work experience in some wonderful culture and heritage organizations, from county museums, to state historical societies, to small historic houses. Since then, I have done research and consulted with dozens of cultural and heritage nonprofits. I realized recently that there is a strong connection between my teaching and my museum background.
