Ungrading

ungrading

What is Ungrading?

Ungrading, also referred to as “degrading,” “going gradeless,” and “decentered grading,” involves “leaving out grades, but it is not a method in which teachers stop evaluating students; instead, they are constantly evaluating their students’ progress by giving feedback or tips to help them improve” (Ungrading, 2022).

Ungrading also can be “an umbrella term for any assessment that decenters the action of an instructor assigning a summary grade to student work” (Lafayette College, 2022). Instructors can use ungrading with different levels of assessment including formative, summative, and student self-evaluations.

Principles of Ungrading

Lafayette College’s Center for the Integration of Teaching, Learning and Scholarship presents the following four principles of ungrading (2022):

  • Course Goals: clarifying what you want students to achieve by the end of the course
  • Communication: explaining to students (perhaps multiple times) the what and why of ungrading
  • Metacognition: engaging students in reflection about their learning processes and growth
  • Trust: creating an environment of mutual trust that promotes academic honesty

Common Ungrading Strategies

If you are new to ungrading, perhaps you are wondering what it looks like in practice. Here are two common examples:

  • Specs Grading: Students choosing and justifying the grade they believe they have earned on an assignment based on pre-defined criteria (Carter, 2022).
  • Learning Contract: An agreement between student and teacher. The student outlines what s/he plans to do and to what extent to receive a passing or chosen grade (How to increase learning motivation: Learning contracts, d.).

Why Consider Ungrading?

Ungrading can be a tool to empower students to become active and engaged in the learning process. The practice has the potential to:

  • move the focus away from extrinsic motivation (e.g., grades) and invites students to have conversations about what they learn, how they learn, and how they can improve.
  • encourage students to persist by learning from their mistakes (instead of feeling doomed by them) and focusing on improvement and growth.

A Few Challenges to Ungrading

Despite the many reasons to consider ungrading, some might find the practice challenging, particularly when teaching an accelerated course. Beware of the potential challenges below when considering ungrading:

  • Getting students acclimated to the concept when they are used to receiving grades
  • Allowing students to revise for improvement can be time-consuming for both student and instructor
  • How to manage student self-evaluations, especially if they do not seem to align with the students’ performance

How to Get Started with Ungrading

In Ungrading: An Introduction (2021), Jesse Stommel encourages instructors to reflect on assessment practices by asking the following questions:

  • Who is assessment for? How does this question force us to rethink how institutions structure their systems for evaluation?
  • What’s the difference between grading and feedback? To what extent should teachers be readers of student work (as opposed to evaluators)?
  • Why do we grade? How does it feel to be graded? What do we want grading to do (or not do) in our classes (for students or teachers)?
  • What would happen if we didn’t grade? What would be the benefits? What issues would this raise for students and/or teachers?

In the “Small things you can do tomorrow to start ungrading” section of the introduction, Stommel recommends the following steps:

  • Change how you talk about assessment: Ungrading works best as part of a holistic pedagogical practice. Use words like “ask” or “invite,” rather than “submit” or “required.” Ask students about their expectations for their work, rather than centering yours.
  • Invite students to a conversation about grades: Ask students how being graded makes them feel, and how it affects their motivation. As a group, read and discuss a piece like Alfie Kohn’s “The Case against Grades.”
  • Grade less stuff, grade less often, grade more simply: Create space in your course for discovery and experimentation. Use a grading scale that feels less arbitrary and communicates more clearly to students. Ask students to do work that you don’t “collect.”
  • Ask students to reflect on their own learning: Even if you change nothing else about how you grade, ask students when and how they learn. Ask what barriers they face. Listen. Believe the answers.

Additional Resources:

Before tackling the practice of ungrading, instructors can learn from the work of others who have implemented the practice. The following list contains a variety of resources to support professional development on the topic.

 

References

Carter, S. (2022, June 6). What the heck is specs grading? University of Florida Center for Information Technology and Training. https://citt.ufl.edu/articles/what-the-heck-is-specs-grading.html.

How to increase learning motivation: Learning contracts. (n.d.). Intervention Central. https://www.interventioncentral.org/behavioral-interventions/motivation/how-increase-motivation-learning-contracts.

Principles of ungrading practice. (2022). Lafayette College Center for the Integration of Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship. https://citls.lafayette.edu/principles-of-ungrading-practice/.

Stommel, J. (2021, June 11). Ungrading: An introduction. https://www.jessestommel.com/ungrading-an-introduction/.

Ungrading: An open community resource about ungrading. (2022). Blog. https://ungrading.net/.

What is ungrading. (2022). Lafayette College Center for the Integration of Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship. https://citls.lafayette.edu/what-is-ungrading/.

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