Ungrading

Sep­a­rat­ing grades (val­ues, num­bers, per­cent­ages, lev­els, let­ters) from feed­back (ver­bal or writ­ten com­ments, direc­tions on where to improve, out­lin­ing strengths, sug­ges­tions for next steps) is the first step in ‘ungrad­ing’ your course.

Ungrad­ing mean­ing rethink­ing the way we are putting val­ues on stu­dent learn­ing and crit­i­cal­ly reflect­ing on what grades are doing to stu­dent learn­ing — are they help­ing? are they fos­ter­ing the right con­text and cul­ture of growth and devel­op­ment?

Once you see this sep­a­ra­tion and under­stand how grades (putting a val­ue on learn­ing) does­n’t aid in the learn­ing process, ungrad­ing prac­tices and ped­a­go­gies will become more clear.

Ungrad­ing: Sep­a­rat­ing Grades from Feed­back — PDF Hand­out
This hand­out pro­vides ideas on how to sep­a­rate grades from feed­back and build more stu­dent reflec­tion, metacog­ni­tion and ongo­ing feed­back into the stu­dent learn­ing expe­ri­ence.

An Alter­na­tive Grad­ing Glos­sary — Link

The fol­low­ing is a curat­ed col­lec­tion of read­ings, blogs, books, research arti­cles and oth­er writ­ings that explore what ungrad­ing means from var­i­ous view­points and dis­ci­plines and how it can be applied in the post-sec­ondary class­room (and still give a let­ter or num­ber for stu­dent tran­scripts!)

Here are some instruc­tors who have writ­ten a num­ber of entries about their expe­ri­ences with alter­na­tive and ungrad­ing approach­es to stu­dent eval­u­a­tion.

Maha Bali

Maha is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at the Cen­tre for Learn­ing & Teach­ing at the Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty in Cairo, Egypt. She is a full-time fac­ul­ty devel­op­er and edu­ca­tor teach­ing dig­i­tal lit­era­cies and inter­cul­tur­al learn­ing.

  • Bali, M. et. al. (Jan­u­ary 5, 2021) Alter­na­tive Approach­es to Grad­ing | Video
  • Bali, M. (March 23, 2019). Reflec­tions on Ungrad­ing for the Fourth Time | Blog post
  • Bali, M. (March 20, 2018). Ungrad­ing My Class — Reflec­tions on a Sec­ond Iter­a­tion | Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion Arti­cle

Susan Blum

Susan is a pro­fes­sor of anthro­pol­o­gy at Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame. She’s been teach­ing col­lege stu­dents for over 30 years and for much of that time she was a con­ven­tion­al grad­er. Since around 2106 she has giv­en up grad­ing except for hand­ing in grades at the end of term.

  • Blum. S. (Decem­ber, 2020). Ed. Ungrad­ing: Why Rat­ing Stu­dents Under­mines Learn­ing (and What to do Instead)?| For­ward by Alfie Kohn | Book from West Vir­ginia Press
  • Blum sto­ry with­in arti­cle by Supi­ano, B. ( July 19, 2019). Grades Can Hin­der Learn­ing. What Should Pro­fes­sors Use Instead? | Web Page
  • Blum, S. (Novem­ber 14, 2017). Ungrad­ing: The sig­nif­i­cant learn­ing ben­e­fits of get­ting rid of grades. Inside High­er Ed. | Web Page
  • Blum, S. (Decem­ber 20, 2016). Liv­ing and Learn­ing with Risk: Against Rubrics and Grades. How “Ungrad­ing” Allowed my Stu­dents to Try Some New Things | Blog post

Cate Denial

Cate Denial is the Bright Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Amer­i­can His­to­ry, Chair of the His­to­ry depart­ment, and Direc­tor of the Bright Insti­tute at Knox Col­lege in Gales­burg, Illi­nois.

  • Denial, C. (Novem­ber 9, 2020). Ungrad­ing in a Pan­dem­ic | Blog Post
  • Denial, C. (Decem­ber 11, 2019). More Thoughts About Grades | Blog Post
  • Denial, C. (Octo­ber 16, 2017). Mak­ing the Grade | Blog Post

Lau­ra Gibbs 

Lau­ra is an instruc­tor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Okla­homa where she joined in 1999. She’s been teach­ing ful­ly online cours­es since 2002. She teach­es gen­er­al edu­ca­tion cours­es in the human­i­ties.

  • Gibbs, L. (2020). Get­ting Rid of Grades | Book chap­ter in “Ungrad­ing Why Rat­ing Stu­dents Under­mines Learn­ing (and What to Do Instead)”  | Blog Post
  • Gibbs, L. (2016). (Un) Grad­ing: It can be done in col­lege | Guest post on Edu­ca­tion Week Teacher | Blog Post
  • Gibbs, L. (2016). Teach­ing: Ungrad­ing for More Feed­back. Per­son­al Blog Post found on site Anato­my of an Online Course | Blog Post

Claris­sa Sorensen-Unruh

Since 2002, Claris­sa has been a full-time chem­istry instruc­tor at Cen­tral New Mex­i­co Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege. In her class­es she uses ungrad­ing, blogs and encour­ages open and engaged ped­a­go­gies. The sto­ry of all of her ungrad­ing expe­ri­ences are found on her main blog web­site at: https://clarissasorensenunruh.com/ungrading/

  • Sorensen-Unruh, C. (Jan­u­ary 14, 2020). Ungrad­ing: What is it and why should we use it | Blog post on ChemEd XChange
  • Sorensen-Unruh, C. (Jan­u­ary 3, 2020). Ungrad­ing: Pro­to­type II (Gen­er­al Chem­istry II) | Blog Post
  • Sorensen-Unruh, C. (Febu­rary 10, 2019). Ungrad­ing: A Series (Part 1) | Blog Post

Jesse Stom­mel

Jesse Stom­mel has writ­ten some sem­i­nal blog posts on this top­ic over the past few years and has ungrad­ed his Eng­lish, dig­i­tal human­i­ties, film and com­mu­ni­ca­tions cours­es for decades. He is co-founder of Dig­i­tal Ped­a­gogy Lab and Hybrid Ped­a­gogy. Jesse has been an edu­ca­tor since 1999 and cur­rent­ly teach­es at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Den­ver.

  • Stom­mel, J. (2023). Ungrad­ing for Equi­ty | Blog Post
  • Stom­mel, J. (2023). Undo­ing the Grade: Why We Grade, and How to Stop. Hybrid Ped­a­gogy Inc., Den­ver, CO. Overview Post and Open Ver­sion
  • Stom­mel, J. (May 9, 2022). Ungrad­ing and Alter­na­tive Assess­ment | YouTube video of Pre­sen­ta­tion
  • Stom­mel, J. (Jan­u­ary 3, 2022). Com­pas­sion­ate Grad­ing Poli­cies | Blog Post
  • Stom­mel, J. (June 11, 2021). Ungrad­ing: An Intro­duc­tion | Blog Post
  • Stom­mel, J. (June 2, 2021). Grades are Dehu­man­iz­ing: Ungrad­ing is no Sim­ple Solu­tion | Blog Post
  • Stom­mel, J.  (March 3, 2020). What if We Did­n’t Grade? A Bib­li­og­ra­phy.  | Blog Post
  • Stom­mel, J. (Feb­ru­ary 6, 2020). Ungrad­ing: an FAQ.  | Blog Post
  • Stom­mel, J. (March 11, 2018). How to Ungrade | Blog Post
  • Stom­mel, J. (Octo­ber 26, 2017). Why I Don’t Grade | Blog Post