Ungrading in new courses

Experiences removing grades from two new courses

Photo by Sandro Schuh on Unsplash

Today we bring you a post from Kyle Evans, who is an Instructor at Rivier University. In the fall, he will be a Visiting Assistant Professor at Assumption University.

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During my time as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Trinity College (Hartford, CT), I created two courses - Mathematics and Redistricting (started in Fall 2019) and Intro to Sports Analytics (started in Spring 2022). The first two times I taught the Redistricting course, I had a traditional grading system, with different categories of assignments being worth a certain percentage of the final grade (there were never quizzes or exams).

But really, this class was not about grades at all. The whole point and motivation for creating the class was to spark interest and promote true learning through an authentic interdisciplinary context. So after reading more and more people on Twitter talking about ungrading, this seemed like a natural fit for this particular course (and later, the Sports Analytics course as well).

My take on ungrading involved eliminating all numerical grades from individual assignments and having students propose final grades, although as you’ll see, I modified some of those elements based on my experience.

Mathematics and Redistricting (Fall 2021)

This course was cross-listed under Mathematics and Political Science and counted towards the institution’s general education math requirement and towards the Political Science major. The course content reflected this, as the regular assignments included quantitative homework, qualitative homework, weekly learning journals, a final mapping portfolio, and community engagement work (we had a partnership with the League of Women Voters). In transitioning from traditional grading to ungrading, the content and assignments remained largely the same, but the assessment of them and the determination of final grades changed significantly.

The quantitative homework included mathematical problem sets and open-ended questions to give the math meaning in context. The qualitative homework included article responses and legal case studies and often had a mix of individual and small group components. The weekly learning journals had general content questions to assess overall understanding and provided opportunities for regular reflection.

To facilitate feedback, I moved everything to Microsoft Teams (instead of the LMS) which allows you to assign pages as individually shared documents and then submit feedback on these assignments along with an option to request a revision/resubmission. Within each assignment, I gave overall feedback and specific feedback to make any corrections and requested a resubmission if I felt that there were substantial corrections to be made. I also noted if the submission was “excellent” — above and beyond the work necessary. The mapping portfolio at the end of the semester involved using an online mapping platform to create a series of congressional district maps. Each map had specific criteria that needed to be addressed (based on the course objectives) along with a corresponding justification and reflection. 

At the end of the semester, students were asked to determine their own course grade and provide a justification. I provided them with four categories to address: their overall understanding of course content, completion of assignments and addressing feedback, engagement and participation both individually and in group work, and the application of course concepts to the final mapping portfolio. I told students that “A-level” would need to satisfy and justify each of the categories based on my regular feedback and their self-evaluation. Many students also opted to have an individual conversation with me to discuss their overall grade and guide their reflections. 

When I think back on this semester, my memories are of the bonds and relationships we formed in the classes (keep in mind the added importance of this with Covid restrictions in Fall 2021) and all that we accomplished by taking part in the political process of redistricting in Connecticut, participating in a national mapping competition, and forming a working relationship with the League of Women Voters. The feedback from students about experiencing ungrading was fantastic and for my first time using the approach, it was satisfying to get this student reflection:

With this class, I was able to learn the content and invest in it, without worrying that any mistakes would result in a lower grade. … Having the freedom to know how hard I was working without having to prove it to someone else in the way that they wanted it to be demonstrated was so relieving. This class took all the bad parts out of classes and kept all the fun parts of learning in.

A handful of students fell behind on assignments and despite my best attempts through feedback, some students did not have an accurate grasp on the quality of their work. At times, students would either misunderstand or miss key details of a concept which I would do my best to address in comments, but doesn’t necessarily translate to a student’s view of their own understanding. With 40 students over 2 sections, it was difficult to follow details of understanding over time. In addition, I thought there was too much focus on simply the number of times I asked them to resubmit something rather than the nature of the specific feedback (whether it was for a resubmission or not).

Mathematics and Redistricting (Spring 2022)

To address the last concern, I decided to add custom rubrics based on the EMRN structure to the assignment submissions on Teams the following semester. In fact, I had three different rubrics for the three types of regular assignments (quantitative, qualitative, and weekly journals) each with two categories.

Quantitative:
(Category 1) Mathematical reasoning and understanding
(Category 2) Evidence of reasoning

Qualitative:
(Category 1) Depth and accuracy of information
(Category 2) Presentation and communication (if applicable)

Weekly Journals:
(Category 1) Demonstrating understanding of learning objectives
(Category 2) Nature of reflection (critical/dialogic/descriptive/none)

The rubrics may not have captured the nuances of each unique assignment, but did provide a more concrete way to communicate the quality of their work without having it tied to any final grade impact. One possible drawback is that some students focused more on the rubric letter rather than the specific feedback, but I think the structure was worth the tradeoff. Once again, the final mapping portfolio project had criteria that needed to be met for each map and given the end of semester timeline, it is challenging to provide feedback that may influence their own final reflections.

I provided the same prompt as the previous semester for students to determine their own final grade in the course, and the addition of the rubrics provided students with data points to support their arguments. I saw comments such as “I had a handful of resubmissions (which I addressed) and that corresponds to a B+” and “I had x number of E’s, therefore I’ve earned an A+¹” despite not having a system that quantifies and translates rubric letters into final grades. The B+ comment could counteract what I would preach about learning being a continuous process and not a race and that the whole point of resubmissions is to (eventually) learn the content without penalty. On the high end, I like what striving for an A+ did for student motivation. Knowing that an A+ was achievable through exceptional work truly pushed many students to consistently deliver outstanding engagement and assignments. This is a massive benefit for me and the students’ intellectual curiosity and reflections on their learning really showed. 

This feedback was also satisfying for me to receive and speaks to the motivation and how the ungrading structure humanizes education:

I genuinely loved this class. I did not expect to like it so much, and, frequently, it challenged me. … While my other classes this semester were more traditional to my interests (other humanities classes), I felt like this class actually pushed me. … I never felt stressed in this class, which I think also massively contributed to my understanding.

Overall, the grading system (or lack thereof) wasn’t perfect, but I am generally satisfied with how it worked and aligned with this course, but different courses often demand a different approach.

Intro to Sports Analytics (Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023)

The second course I created came from the desire to improve Excel skills, present data in an engaging way, and my own personal interest in sports and experience working in basketball analytics.

In teaching the course for the first time, my primary focus was on building the content (guided Excel workbooks). The course assignments included completing Excel workbooks, writing article responses to provide context of methods in practice, and completing a group project collecting, analyzing, and presenting data on our institution’s sports teams. Many of the Excel questions were right or wrong based on the formulas used and I provided feedback (no rubrics) through the LMS, but without a resubmission option simply because it took a significant amount of my time with 35 students in the class. 

The group project (5-6 students in a group) involved working with one of our school’s sports teams. Groups manually gathered data by watching film through the team’s video platform and tracking various statistics (varies by sport). They then analyzed and synthesized their data sets to find patterns and make conclusions. The final product was a research poster that was presented to coaches and open to all in the school community. I provided feedback for the components of the project to the entire group. Individual reflections allowed students to separate the work done by group members.

The final grade prompt included categories to address (course content through Excel work, growth in Excel skills, and engagement individually and in the project group), but was open-ended in that students defined what it meant to “meet” these categories. Teaching this course for the first time was challenging in that different pedagogical strategies are needed for a hands-on Excel course compared to a traditional math course.

In teaching the course for the second time, my first improvement was a logistical one in making the Excel workbooks more user-friendly and consistent (one assignment each week up to the final project). While this led to a smoother delivery of course content, this was the first semester where I really noticed the class not being prioritized by students, and for obvious reasons. First, I wasn’t even prioritizing the feedback as I should have, which I attribute to having three preps and having over 30 students in the class. And from the students’ perspective, it is completely understandable and a reasonable academic strategy to prioritize classes that have traditional deadlines and late penalties over a course that lacks these. This has been the primary issue with my lack of structure in my ungrading approach in each semester that I have described, and I have always been aware of it, but this semester it seemed more glaring than in the past. Nonetheless, I felt the course was an improvement from the first time due to the workbooks and stronger final products, and I know students still appreciated focus on learning rather than grades:

You changed the way I understand learning and I will be forever grateful for this. I always paid attention to your Excel explanations, but I never felt that I was being burdened and pressured by you. You cared for us and allowed us to work at our own pace, and I can truly say that I loved the course.

With a third opportunity to teach the course, I knew the focus would be on increasing student motivation to prioritize the class, and a bit more consistent structure in assignments and the group projects, which could serve the motivation aspect as well.

I’m proud to say that a lot of things seemed to come together the third time around. A few students fell behind, but a lot more were consistently on top of their work, and I have a few hypotheses. First, I made the weekly (up to the group project) Excel assignments more varied to maintain motivation. Second, about a third of the students had taken classes with me before, so we were already comfortable with each other. In addition, one standout student had such a high level of engagement and enthusiasm, both in class and in office hours, which I believe had a positive impact on the rest of the class.

Per the suggestion of a colleague, I added a reflection where students assigned themselves a midterm grade. This was something I had done in the Redistricting course and is a useful opportunity to communicate about their progress. For the group projects, I was much more intentional about creating tracking templates for all groups and creating an equitable workload between groups (students had autonomy within groups) in terms of how many games/matches were watched and how much time was spent on data collection. I also worked more closely with groups on data analysis and in facilitating the creation of the research posters.

I am proud of the final products and the engagement with coaches and other students was quite high in our final poster session. There was also an added layer of accountability as students graded their group members on a 1-5 scale based on their contributions to the processes of data collection, analysis, and reporting. At no point did I give numerical grades to students, but I reserved the right to lower (or increase) their own final grade if their self-evaluation of the group project did not align with the feedback from their group members.²

I believe that the final reflections and feedback were even kinder than normal due to it being my last semester at the institution, and again I appreciate student attitudes towards the course:

I am a student who is excited to contribute to classes where I know my work will be valued by my professors, peers, and coaches. … I want to work hard and push myself in classes where I know the knowledge I gain will be impactful beyond the termination of the course. … In high school, I dealt with some mental health struggles because I was so caught up on the letter grade on my transcript. If the power was stripped from letter grades back then, I wonder if I would have dealt with the same issues.

Personal Reflection

So after five semesters with two different courses, how do I feel about ungrading?

I like it! …For certain classes, and with more accountability built in. For the two classes I created with the emphasis truly on learning through authentic connections, removing grades makes perfect sense to me.

Here are three main takeaways from my experiences:

• Maximize clarity of criteria. This applies on the course level and the assignment level. Initially I associated ungrading with open-endedness. At one point, I attempted to co-create criteria with students at the beginning of a semester, but if students don’t know the structure of the course, the resulting criteria may be too vague. Increasing clarity can also lead to increased objectivity of self-evaluations. Students have different ideas of what an “A” is, and (very) different perspectives about their own work and understanding. The ability to self-evaluate is a practice that some students struggle with, and could benefit from scaffolding throughout a semester.

• Increase accountability. As mentioned before, when the rest of a student’s schedule is filled with traditional grading systems with strict deadlines and little leniency, it can lead to an ungraded class not being a priority. I find this to be a difficult balancing act because imposing criteria that directly impact a final grade (whether self-assigned or not) seems to counteract the ungrading philosophy of de-centering grades. At the same time, personal accountability is a valuable life skill, and can go hand-in-hand with clear criteria.

• Care. Honestly, if you want ungrading (or any approach) to work well, you must care about the students as people first and be confident in your own values and approach to education. Your reasons for employing the approach should be genuine and reinforced through your words and your actions. In the words of a student’s final reflection, if you can “create an environment that is welcoming where everyone feels free to learn in whatever way works best for them” and ungrading is a part of that environment, then you’ve done something right.

1. The institution does have A+ as an option and that is another conversation.

2. Personal feelings can influence some peer evaluations, so be careful.