Adventures in Ungrading: Sharing Strategies and Experiences

Traditional grading has been found to perpetuate inequities, distract from actual learning, assume deficit thinking in students, and foster superficial engagement. Ungrading, a form of alternative assessment, prioritizes student self-reflection and metacognition, reduces instructor bias, enhances intrinsic motivation, reduces stress over grades, and encourages intellectual risk-taking. This paper analyzes an ungrading design and explores the impact ungrading had on students in two courses in a M.S. Educational Technology program. Responses to open-ended questions on an end-of-course survey (n=33) were analyzed using inductive coding and resulted in primarily positive evidence regarding learner engagement, performance, mental wellness, learning satisfaction, motivation, reflexivity, and collaboration. This paper offers recommendations based on our own ungrading design and collected data compared to current literature on ungrading in higher education.