A primary goal of science education is transfer. The ability to use prior learning to creatively solve new problems is especially important in the face of so-called “wicked problems” —complex issues such as climate change that will require interdisciplinary teams of innovative thinkers to resolve. Science education today must equip students to use their learning to tackle broad, intractable problems such as those laid out in the Millennium Project. However, achieving transfer is difficult for a number of reasons. Even once students are successfully instructed in ways that promote transfer, assessing that knowledge can prove difficult.

The criteria in this document distinguish between criteria for grades as a product and criteria for grading as a process. Grades are the result of the grading process and in order to have an equitable system, both the process of grading and the grades that are the result of that process must change.