This week, we are digging into the WHY of ungrading. In part 1 of this 2 part series, we are talking about our observations around assessment and evaluation as well as why we think ungrading is a conversation that needs to happen in education.
If you like what you hear, we would love it if you could share this episode with a colleague or friend. And make sure you subscribe so that you don’t miss out on any new content! And consider supporting the show by buying us a coffee or two!
We would love to hear from you – leave a comment on our website OR check out our FLIPGRID!
Featured Content
**For detailed show notes, please visit our website at https://edugals.com/70**
Our Big Why:
- Grades close down conversations and feedback - feels too final
- Shifting the focus away from grades towards learning
- Emotion is tied to grades
- Grades are not good feedback, they are just a single number and doesn’t reflect the entire learning process
- Grades encourage competitiveness over collaboration
- Can negatively affect your classroom community
- Looking at previous grades can change your perspective and builds in bias
- Previous grades can be affected by so many extenuating circumstances
- Previous grades can make you highly suspicious of your students
- Get to know your students first, don’t look at previous grades
- Ungrading helps students to be more open to feedback and improving
- Consider a feedback first approach with reflection via Google Forms BEFORE releasing grades
- Grades provide finality. Without grades, the learning continues
- Language matters - how are you talking about your students?
- Students who learn how to play the game of school well are rewarded with good grades but are they actually learning?
- Self-paced, mastery-based grading approaches work well with ungrading by minimizing the grading scale
- Needs to begin with a shift in mindset - you want your students to succeed and get good grades
- What is the purpose of a unit test? What does it achieve?
- Start by trusting your students
- Talk to your admin to make sure they are onboard
- Promotes student metacognition - more reflective about their own learning
- Podcasting is great for reflection and learning!
- How equitable are grades and grading policies?
- Learning skills in Ontario are Eurocentric - how equitable are they for all of our students?
- Learning skills are a good place for self-assessment (Google Forms is helpful here)
- Learning skills leak into grades - are you grading compliance or learning?
- Start by learning, reading and sharing about ungrading
Resources Mentioned:
Support the show
Connect with EduGals:
