A first step towards ungrading

 

I’ve spoken with many educators curious about ungrading but unsure of how to begin. What follows is my best suggestion for how to begin, not based on how I started my own journey to Full Monty Ungrading, but based on what I think is a reasonable way to start given my experiences.

One of the most meaningful aspects of ungrading is the reflection students engage in. Before I ungraded my courses (i.e., for most of my career) I did not ask students to reflect on their learning, benefits, or process at all. That was a huge omission on my part. Plenty of SoTL research demonstrates the benefits of this type of metacognition. Those benefits accrue both to students and instructors. Students gain appreciation for how they’ve changed because of their engagement in a course and they can alter their process if they recognize its limitations. Instructors gain insights into students’ process and challenges. Reflection is a win for all.

In my courses students reflect on their progress and process when they propose their midterm and final grades. I suggest that students do more than just propose the letter grade that my university requires I submit. I suggest that they reflect on their progress towards the SLOs in the course, the strengths and limitations of their learning process, and discuss what outside (of the course) factors played a role in their engagement in our course. Sometimes I have them write this up as a small paper, other times I have students complete a form with a series of prompts. Whatever the format, these student submissions are always the most insightful and rewarding student work I read all year. Just a joy to read.

My proposal is that instructors could simply add the grade proposal as an additional activity for their course, keeping everything else the same as it was before. All the same activities, assignments, grades, points, scores, etc., just add the midterm and final grade reflection and grade proposal. Instructors could even inform students what grade they would receive based entirely on the traditional calculation of the points/scores, but giving students the option to propose a different grade based on their reflections. The instructor could retain the power to submit the proposed grade or the calculated grade.

This first step on the path to ungrading has the clear benefit of not requiring any changes to existing course design, activities, or grade calculation. This can also work in any type of class: STEM, lab, composition, skill-based, lecture, seminar, independent study, you name it. Yes, reading the grade proposals adds work for students and instructors. But reflecting helps students, helps instructors, and deepens the connections between students and instructors. Just do it.