In Fall 2021, I took my first steps into the world of ungrading. Inspired by Susan D. Blum’s Ungrading, I went fully gradeless in my upper-level Euclidean Geometry class.
It seems that some of the links in this post are no longer available:
You can find more details of the class setup in my midterm reflection about this ungrading experiment, including the complete portfolio instructions and grade criteria.
The final grade criteria also looked a lot like grades, in a Specifications sort of way:
Thanks for letting me know! I've updated both of those. The complete instructions are now updated to the newest version, which has changed somewhat from what I was doing in this post. I linked to an earlier post which has the full list of final grade criteria as it was in 2021.
Really interesting, thanks David! I think the board games analogy is accurate too. Important to remember that specs grading etc are still "games" to the students, albeit better "games" than traditional grading.
Interesting post! I'd be interested to hear more on your thoughts about the gaming analogy. I found a recent Ezra Klein podcast with C. Thi Nguyen to be an excellent source for thinking about games and (partially explicitly from the podcast) their relevance to grades: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-c-thi-nguyen.html?
Hi Daniel -- I just saw your comment! I haven't listened to the podcast yet. But I can say that the gaming analogy, for me, has one main point: It's a reminder that even the most extreme assessment systems (such as full-out ungrading) still are assessment systems. We can't pretend that students don't know that. I'm not saying that all assessment systems are the same, and definitely many systems are much better than traditional points. But our students have a lifetime's worth of experience "playing the game," and they will definitely see the game here.
It seems that some of the links in this post are no longer available:
You can find more details of the class setup in my midterm reflection about this ungrading experiment, including the complete portfolio instructions and grade criteria.
The final grade criteria also looked a lot like grades, in a Specifications sort of way:
Thanks for letting me know! I've updated both of those. The complete instructions are now updated to the newest version, which has changed somewhat from what I was doing in this post. I linked to an earlier post which has the full list of final grade criteria as it was in 2021.
Really interesting, thanks David! I think the board games analogy is accurate too. Important to remember that specs grading etc are still "games" to the students, albeit better "games" than traditional grading.
Interesting post! I'd be interested to hear more on your thoughts about the gaming analogy. I found a recent Ezra Klein podcast with C. Thi Nguyen to be an excellent source for thinking about games and (partially explicitly from the podcast) their relevance to grades: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-c-thi-nguyen.html?
Hi Daniel -- I just saw your comment! I haven't listened to the podcast yet. But I can say that the gaming analogy, for me, has one main point: It's a reminder that even the most extreme assessment systems (such as full-out ungrading) still are assessment systems. We can't pretend that students don't know that. I'm not saying that all assessment systems are the same, and definitely many systems are much better than traditional points. But our students have a lifetime's worth of experience "playing the game," and they will definitely see the game here.