Description: Obligation points are a way to give students credit for their contributions to the process of model-building, particularly work that we don’t want to grade for “correctness”. It can be used as a quick way to check effort on a homework assignment before the concepts are reviewed in class or to keep accountable for daily effort participating in class activities. Students keep track of their points on a stamp sheet that they keep in their binders and points are entered as they earn them. At the end of a grading period the stamp sheet is collected and the total points are recorded.
Rationale: In the process of developing models we elicit a set of initial ideas, then test and revise them. Along the way we often ask students (via doodle sheets, brainstorms, initial models etc.) to make their thinking visible without concern for whether they are “right or wrong”. Obligation points (you could call them something else – the name doesn’t matter!) provide a convenient way to give students credit for doing this work and participating in the process. It allows us to hold students accountable but keep the emphasis on contributing instead of whether it is right or wrong. Another advantage is that students are responsible for keeping track of their own points. Teachers do not have to record scores for each small assignment, just the total at the end of the grading period. Also, if students are absent and miss an activity that can't easily be made up, you can give them other ways of earning the points (see "Make Up Options" document for examples).