Recently, the Martin Center published an article that lamented “contract grading,” which is to say the idea that student grades should be based on whether or not the student did what he or she committed to do in the course. To the author, Professor Adam Ellwanger, it seemed another of those developments that is lowering educational standards.
In today’s article, however, another English professor, Douglas King, makes the case for “ungrading” in higher education.
He writes, “This past semester, for the first time in my 25-year university teaching career, I did not give grades for class assignments. Why? Those 25 years of experience, plus research into the effects of grades on students, revealed that if our pedagogical goals include instilling in our students a love of learning, typical grading is largely counterproductive. That conclusion became so obvious that this old dog had to try a new trick. I jettisoned the points-based grading system I’d always employed in favor of an ungraded one that—at the risk of sounding ‘touchy-feely’—I find both more humane and more conducive to learning.”
In King’s view, his students were just writing to “please the teacher” rather than actually learning to write well. He decided to act more as a mentor and less as omnipotent judge and jury.
He concludes, “I don’t deny that many who embrace the ungrading movement align with ‘diversity and equity’ ideologies and mean to employ such systems toward their social-engineering ends. But, if instituted with the orientation I have here offered, could ungrading actually help spur a renaissance of learning as an intrinsic value?”
Will his approach work in writing classes? I’m skeptical. Will it work in mathematics? I don’t think so.