Thread by @gathwaegl

I've been #ungrading this semester and we are at midterms. My students were asked to reflect and give themselves a grade on their work in the course so far.

This is organic chemistry lecture btw. Reading their reflections and assessments has been awesome; they took it seriously

But a question I got a while ago was: what if a student gives themselves a higher grade than what I would agree on?

These scenarios are infrequent, but I still want to talk candidly about how we work through it in my class--because it happens.

This semester, two students self-assigned an 'inflated' midterm grade.

So what did I do? I planned for it.

That's the best advice I can give if you are looking to let your students self-assign their grade.

I didn't plan because I was distrustful of students; I planned so that I wouldn't be caught off-guard and scramble to figure out what to do/say. I tend to get overwhelmed and shut down in tense situations. I needed to have a plan to ensure I could still be a good mentor.

Design your course so those students aren't doomed to fail. Give them a way to submit good work after this point.

Not only that, design your course so that if/when this happens, you can partner with your students to reach their goals, and your goals.

My design:

My students build a portfolio of their work in our ungraded course; it's the crucial evidence to support claims of growth in our learning outcomes.

All their work goes in.
All feedback from me on their work goes in. All their revisions from feedback goes in.

When we meet, the portfolio allows me to change the conversation from being about their grade (their identity/worth), to discussing what can we add to fill out their portfolio to make a more convincing statement and support the grade they ultimately want to earn.

My students who are too hard on themselves, don't supply a lot of evidence from their portfolio in their reflection and so they feel like they haven't done 'enough.' Even though the evidence is there, they just didn't consider it in their reflection and sold themselves short.

My students who have given a 'higher' grade don't have any evidence in their portfolio. Most assignments are missing. Reflections are left empty. No revisions were made.

Their grade isn't inflated, it's unsubstantiated.

Grade inflation is about being 'right or wrong.' That's not a useful dialogue to have about someone's experience/growth in a difficult class.

If the problem is 'I can't make any reasonable judgement,' that's something we can easily fix and with explanation, students will buy in.

After students submit their reflections, we have a one-on-one to talk about it. For unsubstantiated grades, we can talk about the portfolio, what components it needs and why.

Students are reasonable; students are logical. Sitting down to talk with them helped it make sense.

I tell them: Without the portfolio (evidence) to support their grade (claim)--this is one of our learning outcomes--it's impossible for me to make *any* judgement of their learning and growth. I want to help them get the grade, but we just need evidence of their growth.

We then come up with a reasonable plan to fill in missing pieces so that come finals, we have the evidence needed to make their claim for their grade.

After we discuss what we need to do. Then we can consider what might hinder us from doing this and what has been hindering us.

Most of them had legit reasons that they didn't finish or couldn't finish each assignment. They wanted to, but they just couldn't.

Tackling this depends on their reason but for the most part, we've all decided to lean more on our class's revisions system.

In our revisions system students can submit work wherever they're at--complete or incomplete. After they get feedback, they can use the key to revise their work, and submit a written reflection discussing what they learned while revising their work.

That goes into their portfolio and with a robust reflection, students can accurately describe their growth in a lot of useful ways. And use that reflection as a tool when they look back at their notes.

I just wanted to share this because it was fresh on my mind after meeting with my students all week.

Hopefully if you were looking to try this type of ungrading, my experiences might help as you design your courses.