Thread by @EmPittsDonahoe

I revamped my pedagogy and tried #ungrading for the first time this semester. I have thoughts! A🧵:

Some context: this was for a general education course at Notre Dame, designed to fulfill the literature and writing requirements for nonmajors at a variety of levels. We read four canonical texts, focusing on lit analysis and public writing rather than academic essays.

Students submitted informal writing regularly, along with two major public writing projects. They could revise their projects based on my feedback as many times as they wanted, with the expectation that they would complete at least one revision for a final project.

I gave them feedback on everything they submitted and we met individually to talk about their goals and work at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester. In our last meeting, we collaboratively determined their final course grade.

One of my biggest takeaways is that implementing this grading system required significant changes to my pedagogy in order to work in the way it was designed. In particular, I had to build in more opportunities for student choice, revision, and metacognition.

Things my students liked: several reported that the course and the grading system helped ameliorate some of their negative feelings around English classes and dread about the writing intensive requirement. Big win.

They also liked that the course allowed them to take ownership over the material and their own work and that they could focus on developing their reading, writing, and analytical skills without the stress of receiving letter grades.

Flexibility, and being able to work/revise/improve at their own pace, was also key. This was especially important since the students came in at a wide variety of levels with so many different educational backgrounds. It was hard for me to teach them all at once.

Things I liked: I learned *so much* from students’ self-assessments. They were able to point out ways they had challenged themselves or improved their work that I wouldn’t ordinarily have noticed or considered.

I also had several great conversations about grades with students who were wondering how to assess themselves: in comparison to other students? based on their own improvement or effort? in line with an objective standard of some kind? These discussions were enlightening.

Some drawbacks: my first-year students did struggle to adjust to this system. Many of them eventually learned to navigate and even like it. But some felt that taking away the grades removed important benchmarks, even with the extensive feedback on their work.

I do worry that removing these benchmarks could contribute to equity gaps, as @RobertTalbert touches on here: insidehighered.com/advice/2022/04….

Additionally, I think the system encouraged students to ask me about their grades in indirect ways, which led to a lot of talking around each other that was not entirely productive.

I’ll probably make some adjustments to the system in the future, but overall I think it helped my students learn more effectively. It was time-consuming, but I also found the assessment process easier and more satisfying. Much less discomfort for me than traditional grading.

Last caveat: I was able to do all this because my class was small, I had a lot of time to devote to it, and I was teaching largely outside a departmental infrastructure. I also have certain privileges that give me more (unearned) credibility with students than some other folks.

I need to spend more time thinking about how I would implement these practices in less amenable contexts.

And also: how can we make those contexts more amenable? How can we advocate for conditions that allow every instructor to implement the kinds of grading and assessment practices that will best enhance learning for their students?