At the start of the fall semester, academic technology support staff committed to surfacing ideas and strategies for supporting "teaching with flexibility" as University of Minnesota instructors and students continue to adapt to the disruption caused by the global pandemic. Here we will examine how “ungrading” could be used to support and extend a flexible and student-centered approach to teaching.
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Cristina L. Ortiz, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Minnesota, Morris |
We had a conversation with Cristina L. Ortiz, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, Morris, who has been actively exploring “ungrading” as a teaching strategy. In addition to Professor Ortiz, who prefers to go by Nina, joining us in the conversation was Clare Forstie, Ph.D. and Education Program Specialist at the Center for Educational Innovation, and Sara Schoen an Instructional Designer with Academic Technology Support Services (ATSS).
The Conversation
What is ungrading?
Ungrading can be described as “any pedagogical practice that moves a student’s focus away from grades and toward learning and growth.” [1]It's not like a binary: you're Ungrading or you're not Ungrading.
Clare Forstie explained components of ungrading that instructors can implement over time. She advised that instructors may already be using so-called ungrading strategies to shift the focus away from grades and toward learning, but aren't labeling them as such. Key characteristics of an ungrading approach include:
- Student choice/autonomy
- Intrinsic motivation
- Self-assessment
- Frequent feedback
- Emphasis on mastery with flexibility
How does an instructor start creating ungrading experiences?
Nina Ortiz shared her reflections about creating a learning environment in her Anthropology courses that support building academic skills, learning mastery, and life skills.I came in to [ungrading] very gradually and adopted practices before even knowing what ungrading was… Every time I taught or retaught a class, I would ask myself, is this [assessment] helping students? Is it building the skills I want them to master?
Nina recalled a specific time when her students performed poorly: everyone bombed the mid-term. She took the opportunity to refocus her students on core skills and course materials and gave them the opportunity to try again without a grade penalty. Students appreciated the flexibility. Nina discovered de-emphasizing the grade and focusing on metacognition, having students reflect on how they had grown, what they had learned, and how that mapped onto course-learning objectives got her closer to what she felt was essential.
How can “ungrading” inform teaching that relies on traditional forms of assessment and grading for competency?
Students have been taught to be transactional in their academic careers. An ungrading approach presents an opportunity and challenge to refocus students on their own learning.Clare emphasized clear and regular communication with students about
- expectations,
- modes of assessment, and
- how students demonstrate their learning.
Are there technology tools or strategies that support ungrading experiences?
To help shift the focus from grades to learning and growth, Sara Schoen shared tools that can facilitate ungraded assessments:- In order to give students multiple opportunities to demonstrate comprehension, instructors can edit Canvas assignment details to allow students multiple attempts.
- To de-emphasize grading, Canvas assignments can be marked as complete or incomplete. To quickly grade complete/incomplete assignments, at the end of the period in which students have been asked to submit / post:
- Review the assignment in the gradebook and identify the students that have NOT completed the assignment. Mark those with an “X”
- Hover over the title in the grading column, until you see the blue, downward-facing arrow; click that to get the pull-down menu
- Select “Set default grade”
- In the dialogue box that opens up, choose "Complete"
- Click the box at the bottom that reads “Set Default Grade”, to complete the process.
- Do NOT “Override existing grades” as this will override the “X” you added to unsubmitted assignments.
- To foster communication about what success looks like:
- use free-form comments within a rubric when assessing students. You have the option to select the check-box to ‘remove points from rubric’
- use the comment Library in Speedgrader (text guide) to save time with comments you find yourself using over and over to students. To learn more see the Comment Library (video 2 min).
- Google documents provide an excellent platform that allows students to provide feedback to their peers.
Conclusion
Nina emphasized competency as learning and growth, rather than make-or-break moments in the semester. She strives to create a learning environment that is inclusive as well as realistic about what it means to be part of an intellectual community.As scholars, most of us have hit those make-or-break moments. We have survived and thrived somehow, but I tend to see those moments as unnecessary. I'm trying to take it apart.Nina would like to see her students succeed in spite of bad moments. The practice of ungrading falls squarely within student-centered pedagogy: the ultimate goal is student success.
Acknowledgments
Co-authored by Lauren Marsh
Resources
- Ungrading Across the Disciplines: Reflections of a Professional Learning Community
- How to Ungrade by Jesse Stommel
- Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning by Susan D. Blum