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A Final Installment on “Ungrading”

 

November 19, 2021

When Grading Less Is More

This week I conclude my discussion on “ungrading”, at least in MTI Teach Tips.  Jennifer Neuwald, Biology has indicated an interest in applying ungrading strategies in a new Honors section of a course. Let me know if you are, as well. For this week I provide more details from Susan Blum’s blog (March 11, 2018).

Ungrading

From her research on learning and education, she learned:

  • Grading requires uniformity. It assumes uniform input, uniform process and uniform output. I stopped believing that was a useful way to approach student learning. Students don’t start out the same. They don’t have the same life experiences — or even academic experiences — during our semester together. They don’t go to the same places afterward. They have different goals.
  • Grades don’t provide adequate information. If the purpose of grades is to convey a student’s accomplishment, adequacy, excellence, compliance, effort and/or gain in learning, then they fail. Is a student who enters already knowing a lot and continues to demonstrate knowledge at a high level, but then misses an assignment because of a roommate’s attempted suicide and ends up with a B-plus, the same as someone who begins knowing nothing, works really hard, follows all the rules, does quite well and ends up with a B-plus? What information is conveyed? What about someone who loves biology and excels in those classes, but who loathes history, bombs in history classes and ends up with a 3.0 GPA? Compared to someone who muddles through every class and a similar GPA, yet with no passion, excellence or highs or lows? What do we learn from the GPA? What does a course grade mean?
  • Grades don’t truly motivate students. Experts distinguish different types of motivation: 1) intrinsic, or doing things for their own sake and 2) extrinsic, or doing things for external benefits not inherently part of the activities themselves. I would also add fear and avoidance as big motivators, or doing something to avoid negative consequences.
  • Extrinsic motivation leads to the minimax principle. If the only thing you care about is something beyond the activity itself — an extrinsic reward such as the grade — it is sensible to do as little as possible to procure the highest possible reward (grade), which Arie Kruglanski, Chana Stein and Aviah Riter dubbed in 1977 the “minimax strategy” in instrumental behavior. Cheating, shortcuts, cramming … all those make sense if the only goal is points or winning.
  • Students treat college as a game. Games are fun, but if the goal is amassing points and winning at any price, then game is the wrong model for college — at least if learning, not just winning, is the goal. Of course, games can also be absorbing and done for their own sake — playing Words With Friends or Grand Theft Auto— so those types of games are fine. Maybe the problem is when it is seen only as a survival course.
  • Students see the rules as arbitrary and inconsistent. Different professors have different scoring — participation, homework, teamwork or no teams, tests, showing your work, partial credit — all of which appear to be plucked out of thin air and make no sense, as I found in my research on plagiarism. Citation? Sharing? Page length? Number of quotes? Consult notes or closed book? Students just have to figure out in each case what the professor wants. It all seems arbitrary, and therefore unconnected with anything meaningful or real.
  • Students are taught to focus on schooling rather than learning. Is the goal of school, including college, primarily achievement, success, accomplishment? Is the focus on learning the actual skills people will need or want outside college? Whoever asks them, “What are you learning?” instead of “How are you doing?” Or “What’d you get?”. In fact, people are consumed with curiosity and joy when they learn new things. Sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it’s needed (as for a workplace that changes), but learning happens all around us all the time — TED talks, podcasts, Nova, adult ed, learning from WikiHow, lectures at libraries, church study groups, knitting circles, work challenges.
  • Grades encourage a fear of risk taking. Grades seem so consequential that students believe they can’t take a chance on anything unproven. In most college classes, a mistake is punished by a lower grade, which is then averaged into the other grades, even if the student completely gets it forever after that initial try. Yet mistakes are information and contribute to learning. In tasks like riding a bicycle or submitting an article for publication, feedback about shortcomings is information. This helps with improving.

Solutions

Some of the tactics she has used in her own classes include the following:

  • Decenter grading. We don’t talk about the point breakdown because I don’t have one in my classes anymore. We talk about what the goals are for everything we do: for reading, writing, discussion, research and projects.
  • Emphasize the entire portfolio. A semester is a nice, long, luxurious time for a lot of activities, reflection, conversation, writing and wondering. At the end, we can assess the entire experience, rather than students worrying about how an early misstep is going to mean lack of success.
  • Have students develop an individual plan. I developed this myself on the model of an individualized education program (usually used in special education). I have since discovered two similar models: Universal Design for Learning and Individual Development Plan. The idea is to have students figure out how a class fits with their own lives, course of study and interests. Even if it is required, I want them to articulate some value for themselves. I try to meet with every student early in the semester and again midway through to talk about how prepared they are, what they are eager to learn or do, and what causes apprehension or even dread.
  • Encourage self-evaluation. If the genuine goal of college is to prepare students for life, then it’s vital that they develop their own standards. So rather than ask students to submit work with the hope that I’ll think it’s excellent, I encourage them to develop honest standards and self-scrutiny. Every assignment is accompanied by students’ written self-assessment of their work. What were they trying to get out of the assignment? What did they learn? What was successful? What was less successful? Why? What might they do differently? What would they like help with? That should serve them better in life than hoping that mediocrity will be seen as fabulous. Sometimes things aren’t perfect — and that’s OK. But it is useful for them to understand and even articulate the reasons. (I didn’t give myself enough time. I started too late. I didn’t understand this. I couldn’t really get into this subject.) Throughout our lives beyond college, we won’t excel at and plunge enthusiastically into every single thing we do all day.
  • Conduct portfolio conferences. I begin the semester with a discussion with each student about their own individual plan. I try to meet with everyone at the middle of the semester and the end of it in a portfolio conference. I give them a document to complete prior to our meeting and instruct them to look back through all their work. The goal is to show them their learning, by comparing their early and later understanding, and to help them feel pride at their body of work. It also forces them to review the material, which research shows fosters retention. Students suggest their grade, which I can accept or not. No, not every student suggests an A.

Comments to Skeptics

I know this seems idealistic and, for many classes and many professors, impossible. Here are her thoughts on that:

  • Going gradeless can be done in a class of any size and of any type, though students may find it alarming and unfamiliar. Some faculty use something called “contract grading,” which still uses a traditional scale but puts some of the control in students’ hands.
  • You can provide opportunities for students to make choices, which allows them to find at least a tiny bit of intrinsic motivation even in the most conventional of courses.
  • Some assignments — maybe small ones — can still be risk-free and contribute to intrinsic motivation, by being utterly fascinating, completely useful or fun.
  • You can always offer low-stakes exercises that are perceived as enjoyable and not trivial, in any course.

This has certainly given me food for thought. I am seriously considering a foray into (un)grading in my biochemistry course this spring 2022 semester.  As with all new approaches and changes, I will start with small changes and see how it goes over several semesters.  While reading through Susan Blum’s description of ungrading, I think I already do some.  On the other hand, some of her suggestions and practices are not applicable to a STEM course with 140 students rather than a writing course with 25 students.

Enjoy your break!  I will do my best to actually take one.  BTW, the ESB is looking good.

Cheers, Paul

Paul Laybourn (he/him/his)
Professor, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Director, W2R S-STEM Program
Director, NoCo B2B Program
Director, REU Site in Molecular Biosciences
paul.laybourn@colostate.edu
970-491-5100