2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Traditional grading in engineering education often centers on point-based quizzes and exams. Students receive a numerical score, glance at it, and move on—frequently without engaging with the feedback or reflecting on their mistakes. Instructors, meanwhile, spend countless hours deliberating over partial credit, only to find that their feedback is rarely used. This disconnect between grading and learning prompted a redesign of my sophomore-level material balances course at Penn State, a large R1 university (class size of approximately 120 students).

In Fall 2025, I transitioned to standards-based grading (SBG), guided by Grading for Growth by David Clark and Robert Talbert. My goals were to:
1. Encourage deeper learning and mastery of core concepts,
2. Reduce reliance on partial credit as a path to passing,
3. Support students who intuitively grasp content but skip foundational methods, and
4. Reclaim instructional time from grading to focus on teaching.

The course now features standards-based assessments and project work evaluated using specifications grading. This paper will describe the implementation process and present outcomes from the first semester—student feedback, TA and instructor reflections, and assessment quality and grade distributions. The findings offer insights into how SBG can reshape student engagement and instructor workload in chemical engineering education.

Clark, D., & Talbert, R. (2023). Grading for Growth: A Guide to Alternative Grading Practices that Promote Authentic Learning and Student Engagement in Higher Education (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003445043