Ungrading
“I looked forward to this class because I knew I could speak my opinions freely and I could always count on a class discussion. Also, it was really nice to write a paper for the sake of writing it rather than [for] a grade.”
I require students to make music or otherwise think creatively in most of my courses, and in a risk-averse student population, the threat of a bad grade leads them inevitably to “safe,” pedestrian solutions. I have admonished students: “if you think I’m going to hate it, then you absolutely have to do it,” so many times that I should probably make it a course policy. As a result, I began experimenting with ungrading in 2020, in effect, grading formative work on a pass/fail basis. In this way, students are free to experiment and make mistakes without penalty. After a few years, I refined this approach to a 2-point scale, so that I could differentiate between focused and perfunctory work, and create a penalty for late submission. When the students are comfortable with the materials or have achieved mastery of the scaffolding pieces, summative work is graded on a 10-point scale.
This approach was not only effective in encouraging students to take risks, but also in increased motivation and raised the overall quality of student work. I reported this experience in a “Wild Card” talk to the European Honors Council in 2021, using informal data from the course evaluations for my honors courses, with a special focus on HNR 1103 Working Class Protest Cultures.
Slide deck for my “Wild Card” talk, “Building Skills with Ungrading.” World of Talent 2021: International Conference on Talent Development and Honors Education (Hanze University, Groningen, Netherlands - Online), 2021.
Current Ungrading Policy
Assessment in this course will focus on process rather than product
Skill-Building Assignments (formative) will be assessed through a dialogue between the student and instructor and graded 2 (pass), 1 (pass with comments), or 0 (fail)
Graded Work (summative) will be assessed on a 10-point scale, with a 7 required for passing. In general, no failing grade lower than 5 will be given.
Journals and Reflections will be required weekly with Journals graded as formative and Reflections graded as summative.
Mid-Term and Final Letter Grades will be determined by the student’s completion of skill-building assignments (40%), scores and trending scores on graded work (40%), and quality of responses to journals and reflections (20%).