Question: Are ungraded classes better?

Are Ungraded Classes Better?

We talked to Lewis and Clark teachers and students about their thoughts and experiences with ungraded classes to try and get a sense of whether or not they’re better. A liberal arts education values having a dynamic and interdisciplinary approach to learning. This is an idea that often coincides with the ungraded structure because of the emphasis of ownership over a students own learning process. To answer this question, we interviewed students who have taken ungraded classes and then professors who have taught ungraded classes to discover if ungraded classes truly are better!

What do students have to say about ungrading?

Student 1:

Question: What was the structure of your ungraded class? Explain your experience.

Answer:

“In my intro to data science class, the course was fully ungraded, we had weekly assignments you could do which we graded ourselves on a scale out of three based on how you feel you did. We had ungraded quizzes. We did end up getting a grade on the quiz because the answers were right or wrong.. But they weren’t recorded. They were mainly for you to see and for the teachers to see. We had a lot of self assessments. For the final grade that you received, you had an argument for what you thought your grade should be. She [the professor] would ultimately have the say in what she thought your grade should be.”

Question: Did you feel that ungraded made your experience better?

Answer:

“Let me think. I thought, in this case, that the ungraded course actually helped a lot because we were learning a new coding language/ it was clear to you and the teacher if you were actually understanding. There were a lot of resources and the ability to ask questions. I feel like you could tell where you were going in the course, so you didn’t even really need the grade. I also think that some things she said at the end of class, she agrees with the students self grade, and in many cases will give the student a higher grade then what they felt they deserved because she thought they were too harsh on themselves. Ultimately, I thought the ungraded class did a good job of helping us learn the material in a way that allowed us to focus on actually learning the content rather than getting the grade.”

Student 2:

Question: What classes have you had that have been ungraded and what was your overall experience with them?

Answer:

“I took intro to data science which was ungraded and now I’m in algorithms for Peter Drake. I’m less far into that class, I haven’t experienced the full ungraded-ness of it all. I would say for my experience in intro to data science, which is the first class that I’d taken that was ungraded, I really liked it, especially at the beginning when she [the professor] announced it, I was like, “Score!”. Part of me was like, “I don’t have to try as hard in this class.” But then also part of me thought that it helps me to not rush and gives me more time to figure out stuff on my own rather than stress about the deadline and turning things in on time and ask questions and get help as well before things are due. And similarly to my algorithms class, which is different because it’s not an intro class. I feel like intro classes are different, in a more advanced class I take it more seriously even though I know it’s ungraded. It doesn’t feel the same.

Question: So far in your classes do you think your stress levels were less because you didn’t have to focus on a grade?

Answer:

“I feel like it is less stressful, also because part of algorithms ungrading is that we have a week-long grace period. […] I feel like the grace period has been helpful because I have a busier schedule this year compared to my other semester because I’m working, so it gives me more time to figure out the content and not feel like my grade is going to be damaged by not being busy in general.

Question: A big part of the ungrading is self assessment, so would you say that it is easy to articulate the grade you think you deserve, why you deserve it, and whether your professors agree?

Answer:

“I haven’t heard of anyone not getting the grade that they put or anything. But it does make you think about the grade differently and think of the class differently. It’s more like, “I’m taking this class not to get the grades, but to learn the material.” It has a positive impact in that way. In other classes when you do the full work you get the points, versus [in ungraded classes] “I’m actually understanding this and that’s more what the class is about”.

Question: Another side of ungrading is, ideally, your motivation for the class should be the material. Would you say because of the ungraded nature, are you more motivated to be at class, go to office hours, and learn the material?

Answer:

“I don’t know because I would still say, especially in terms of algorithms, that I am still stressed about that grade even though that grading system is in that class. But, I always go to class because that’s how I learn best and I don’t know if the ungrading system has affected that for me.

Question: Do you think that Lewis and Clark would benefit from more classes being ungraded?

Answer:

“I think so. I feel like an ungrading system would be beneficial to humanities classes in particular because it is more flexible versus that there is a lot of rigidity in STEM in terms of being “right” or “wrong”. So it’s interesting to me that it’s been implemented more in the STEM part of it. But yeah I think LC could benefit from a shift because it is easy to fall into the thought process of, “I’m just here to get the grades” versus, “I’m supposed to be learning this.” But also I do feel like compared to CS2, maybe that would have been a class that would have benefited from ungrading because it was all group work for the whole thing. It is harder to track progress because I’m turning in everything on time, but how much of this is what I learned and how much of this is what my partner learned. You could learn half the content and still pass the class. But maybe that’s just a problem with CS2.”

Question: Do you think that ungrading only really works at a small college like Lewis and Clark? Or could it work at larger schools too?

Answer:

“I don’t know, part of me wants to say that I don’t think it would work at a bigger school. It seems easier to get lost, and also at big schools its a bigger deal to weed out classes because it is more limited in programs and you have to do good [in order to succeed in the program]. At Lewis and Clark you are able to stay in your program no matter what. I’m thinking about my brother [who goes to a large school] and how he never went to Psych 101, and just did the projects and got a 4.0 in the class. If that was ungraded, it would encourage that behavior more and then you’re missing all the good things that come from going to class. “

Question: Would you say, are you feeling more confident in your major because of ungraded courses you’ve taken? Has having ungraded classes helped you learn the material more?

Answer:

“It’s made me more aware of my progress. I feel like it goes both ways, when I’m doing well I notice it and when I’m doing poorly I notice it more.”

Question: Are there any moments in ungrading where it’s been unhelpful and hasn’t worked the way it should have?

Answer:

“For intro classes, ungrading has a different impact because learning R in data science, it was the first time I’d learned it. I’d learned other coding languages before, and a lot of it seemed somewhat intuitive. Because of that it did lead me to deprioritize that class even more because I thought, “oh well I can figure this out, and it’s not even for a grade so therefore this is on the bottom of my list.” but I would say that’s not something that is unique to an ungraded course, sometimes things fall to the bottom [of the priority list] because things are less measured. I didn’t put as much effort as I could have into the final project because I knew that I was probably still going to get a good grade. But, again, I think that was also paired with the fact that it was an intro course, and Algorithms isn’t going to be that way.

We interviewed professors at Lewis & Clark college to determine whether ungraded classes are better or not, here’s what they had to say.

Professor Response Commonalities

Two professor interviews were conducted. One with professor of political science (and other data and computing courses) Ellen Seljan, and the other with professor of computer Science Peter Drake. There were a few key points that both professors seemed to emphasize. The first was that ungraded classes are less stressful for students. Seljan discussed her philosophy surrounding this idea and stated, “ The thing I like it for the most, however, is really not having to worry about penalizing people for extensions. I don’t like having to judge whether people’s life situation or crises warrants not getting a grade deduction. I do think that people know their own lives better than that and I want to, again, trust them.” Drake added to this by saying that from what he’s seen, students just generally seem to like it more. Each professor talked about their feelings of wanting to create trusting environments and relationships between students and professors. Ungrading is a really great way to do that. Another featured discussion point shared between both interviewees was the idea that this grading system (or lack thereof) really only works in a small school setting. Because professors actually know their students, they are able to develop relationships in general and because class sizes are small, those relationships can be trusting ones. Seljan states,

“I don’t think it works everywhere. There’s a lot of behavior economics research and political science research that has shown that people are motivated a lot by, you know, concrete incentives, and there’s a lot of times, like I’ve had students – well intentioned students take my classes, but audit them without a grade. And when their other classes have grades, and there’s not really a lot of incentive to stay in the class, they stop. They stop showing up to class and they stop doing the assignments. So like kind of a full scale, wider thing, I would be worried that students would stop paying attention if there’s not really the ‘hammer’ of grades.”

Another point shared between both Drake and Seljan is the idea that ungrading works because students almost always self-grade reasonably. It’s more common for people to grade themselves harshly than for them to grade themselves with a better grade than they “deserve”, or even give themselves higher grades then they should get. Seljan discusses this point in detail with an emphasis on why the types of classes that she teaches work particularly well with this model. She says,

“Yeah well the other thing about that class in particular I was like, it is fairly objective and observable for the students how they’re doing. They’re either getting a ton of error messages and really struggling, or their code’s not working and they’re getting the wrong answers. So ungrading works because there are a ton of built in checks like, “are you doing the homeworks? Did you get the answers right? They do the midterm, and the final assessments, where students can grade themselves in a way. And, I mean I tell them, which ones are the right answers and which ones are the wrong answers, but then kind of having that information allows them to, you know, reflect and then kind of add the miscellaneous stuff like there are things that I don’t know when I get the homeworks. I don’t necessarily know whether they were working together, or using Chat GPT, and whether people did things at the last minute. Or if they were working really hard and putting everything they’ve got into it. And even though there is that sort of objectivity in a lot of the assignments, the ungraded approach is also able to distill into the grades things that I can’t see, so in that way I think people’s self reflections can be more accurate than my grading of their work.”

The final point that overlapped in both discussions was that ungrading helps motivate students to care more about the material and less about the grades. When you are learning information like coding and computer science, these are not conceptual. They are skill-based. Grading is less necessary in these cases because you can either do it, or you can’t. That understanding is evident in your work and as a result, grades do nothing but punish you for something that you are still in the process of learning and shouldn’t be an expert in. Seljan discussed her interest in applying ungrading models to the greater LC curriculum, “ I think that communities where there’s lots of trust, and there’s trust between the faculty and the students that is a good thing and ungrading helps build that trust. Also I want students to just feel really invested in the course and know that they’re responsible for their education. I’m there to help guide them, but ultimately they’re responsible for their learning so it makes sense that they are responsible for their grading as long as they’re getting that feedback.”

Our Consensus:

Based on the interviews conducted, the general consensus seems to be that ungraded classes work really well in certain settings. Depending on your major, this style of grading could be beneficial to your learning experience. However, for essay heavy classes, this style is less helpful. This is because students don’t, generally, have expertise in the fields they are taking classes in. Self-grading, or having no feedback, on essay type assignments may not be beneficial as you are not getting necessary feedback that can further advance your learning. Generally this model seems to work best for reading responses, for computer/programming subjects, and for any assignments that don’t require editing because you simply don’t know enough to be able to do that.

Aside from its implementation in classes, among students, ungraded classes are popular because they reduce stress, and there is a learning environment more centered around learning the material as opposed to chasing a grade.

Professors Interviewed:

Ellen Seljan is a current professor of political science and data science at Lewis and Clark college. On top of her academic and professional success, she is also a co-author of the book Understanding Political Science Statistics using Stata which explores, and teaches, the use of Stata for political research analysis.

 

Peter Drake is a professor of Computer Science at Lewis and Clark with specialties in machine learning and data science. Drake’s research into machine learning algorithms built for Go, the board game, was cited in the 2016 Nature article on the AlphaGo program, which was the first computer program to beat humans.