What matters to me is that a student learns more or raises their level of understanding. If a student doesn’t perform well on an assignment or test, it shouldn’t be the end all: rather, it’s a new starting place to improve upon. Students learn at different paces, and we all make mistakes that we can learn from. Providing extra credit to allow a student to fix mistakes and show a higher level of understanding (and get a better grade) can help motivate the student to learn.

Extra credit can be used as a way to further personalize learning, address students’ individual interests, and polish their multiple intelligences. It can also be used as a reward for creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

For students who go above and beyond the scope of a lesson or project criteria—absolutely. When standards-based grading is used to avoid teacher biases and ensure equity in grading practices…that is non-behavior grading and provided ALL students in the course have equal access to earn the “extra credit.” Generally, however, I do not offer extra credit as a means to make up missed assignments or as an alternative to completing the assignment, which has value.

It depends on the student who has been putting their best effort into performance, but sometimes unforeseen things suddenly happen. In these cases, the student should be able to get extra credit for makeup [work], otherwise, no one should get extra credit. Most of the time, a teacher’s reputation is based on liking and not. It’s my own experience that if you give extra credit, then you are known as a good teacher, whereas if you don’t, then you’re known as a tough and bad teacher. Once you get a reputation as good or bad, then students get away with their mistakes.

Extra credit does have its place [in] education; however, too often it is used to falsely elevate a student’s grade by giving them trivial work in order to improve a percentage in the class. However, if it is truly used as a tool for personalization and to allow students to dive more deeply into a subject, then, of course, it is another tool teachers can use.

Extra credit should be going above and beyond expectations, not an easy method for covering up poor choices for the rest of the grading period.

Why give extra credit? Instead, allow students to retake tests if they struggle. It is about learning the subject rather than just getting a grade for an extra assignment.

Basically, no. A grade should reflect what a student knows and can do. Often, extra credit is even an equity issue—the kids who have more time, privilege, resources, and help at home do the extra credit, and the rich get richer.