Learn about one instructor’s participation in a Faculty Learning Community and how it led to a positive experience with ungrading in their classroom.<\/p>\n
As an educator, I have long struggled with the notion of letter grades and even percentages in the classroom. In this blog, I reflect on my grading practices and student feedback after implementing \u201cungrading\u201d policies in my course.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n I find grades to more often be demoralizing rather than encouraging, especially in math classes where students need to make mistakes to better their understanding of concepts. I have never been able to rectify the dissonance I feel when preaching growth mindset yet taking points from students when they make a mistake.<\/p>\n In the past, I made myself (and my students) feel a little better about this by offering assignment corrections and exam retakes, which allowed students to demonstrate their most recent understanding of the material. Still, I felt uneasy about putting a point value to students\u2019 understanding or letter grade that falsely reported their learning when there are so many other factors at play.<\/p>\n Participation in the Equitable Grading Practices in Higher Education Faculty Learning Community<\/a> at Ball State University offered me the resources and opportunity to critically reflect on this dissonance. This Faculty Learning Community (FLC) was a journey of reflection \u2013 on my pedagogical practices, my interactions with students, and my personal perspectives on education and learning\u2014and implementation as I incorporated elements of \u201cungrading\u201d with my MATH 360 students.<\/p>\n Participation in the FLC provided me the opportunity to pose the questions I had been struggling with for years. These questions include: What is a point? What does it mean to weight our tasks and then assign partial credit? How do we extract student understanding and place a value to it? Over time I was able to decide that points were not the way to measure student learning, and I looked forward to shifting my classroom practices to better measure the growth my students displayed in their learning.<\/p>\n At the end of the semester, my Math 360 students expressed their appreciation for the grading scheme \u2013 or lack thereof \u2013 that I had established in this course. They explained how they felt they were able to focus more on learning the concepts because they were not worried about earning points or making a certain letter grade on each assignment, which led to an overall lowered sense of anxiety about the class.<\/p>\n Discussions with my FLC colleagues caused me to reflect on my interactions with students. Did my actions match my mantra? Did I truly put students\u2019 needs above all else? For the most part, I found that yes, my care for my students\u2019 mental and physical health and their learning really was apparent in my actions. I frequently encourage students to reach out with questions. I build time into most lessons for students to work with their peers and ask questions if they need to. I work to provide ample feedback on assignments and exams. I approach students with respect and collegiality, and the comments and scores on my course evaluations indicate that my students also felt this to be true.<\/p>\n I strive to increase my efforts to connect with students in meaningful ways. When I leave feedback on their work, I try to write it in supportive ways, using \u201cI\/we\u201d language instead of \u201cyou\u201d language<\/a>. I have tried to increase the time students speak in class and decrease the time I speak. If it is something a student can say, I try to let them.<\/a> Based on the responses I continue to get from students, either directly or via other faculty members, I believe my students feel respected and supported in my classes, and I will strive to continue creating this positive atmosphere through my interactions with students.<\/p>\nA Critical Reflection of My Grading Practices\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Pedagogy\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Student Interactions\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n