Thread by @katiemattaini

How I explain #ungrading and my reasoning on my #RWUCancerBio syllabus, a 🧵:

For this course, I am using a philosophy of assessment called “ungrading” where there are no marks (numbers or letters) on individual assignments.

However, I will give you specific feedback so that you know what’s going well and what could use improvement!

Why no grades? Here are some of my reasons:

•Grades create a perverse incentive. My goal in this course is for you to engaged in authentic learning driven by your own curiosity rather than by the desire for a certain grade.

•Grading penalizes mistakes, and mistakes are integral to the learning process. I want you to feel free to learn by taking risks and making mistakes, since all the best learning happens that way.

•Grades are not a good measure of learning. Grading is often inequitable and depends on variables besides student learning (i.e. race, income, teacher’s skill, disruptive life events, etc.). Regardless of what you’ve been told in the past, grades are not objective!

•Grading assumes that students can perform consistently. This is never realistic, and it’s especially unrealistic during a global pandemic and the associated trauma.

•Grades can foster competition between students instead of collaboration.

•Grades can do real harm to students by affecting their belief in their own ability to learn.

•Grades create a hierarchy wherein you are trying to please me, as the person who assigns your grade, rather than focusing on what we can learn through dialogue together. I am here to guide and assist your learning, not to dictate your learning.

My goals for this course are captured in the course learning objectives (p. 1), but I really have two big-picture goals. First, I would like you to learn enough basics of cancer biology to be able to independently research and answer your future questions about cancer.

Second, I will also support you as you strive to become a more nuanced reader of the primary literature, especially as it relates to cancer biology. When the goals are stated that way, it seems kind of silly to grade them with points, doesn’t it?