Ungrading, for me, means to minimize the harmful consequences of grades by shifting the focus to learning instead of performance, building in space for revision and improvement, and allowing students to set their own priorities while also enabling students to reflect on their own work.
I have been using alternatives methods of assessment for five years and have experience with contract grading, specifications grading (specs), and more literal ungrading where students do not receive any letter or numerical grade until the final grade of the class.
See the video of a presentation I have given at Wayne State’s Office for Teaching and Learning for more detail on how I do this in my own classes (the focus here is on specs).
For workshop requests, send me an email or use the contact form on this website.
Resources
See sample syllabi on the for students page.
My own practice is inspired by (among others):
Susan Blum’s edited volume Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead); she also desribes her own approaches in this Inside Higher Ed article.
Cate Denial’s approach of a pedagogy of kindness that also includes unessays and ungrading. See her blog for more.
Alfie Kohn’s Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise and Other Bribes; his website also has useful blog posts.
Linda Nilson’s Specifications Grading: Restoring Rigor, Motivating Students, and Saving Faculty Time.
Jesse Stommel’s blog posts, e.g. “Why I don’t grade” and “How to ungrade.”