Thanks for sharing this Emily. I appreciate this framing of teaching as the work of caring for students as whole persons, with all the attendant messiness of real life. While challenging, this work of care, even more than the skills that students learn in our courses is what has the most significant influence on them.
In a world where education is increasingly becoming focused on acquiring a certain set of skills or credentials, ungrading and the conversations that it fosters are likely to be a welcome balm for students wrestling with what it looks like to live a flourishing life.
I really do appreciate you being willing to share this journey, and the difficulties that come with it. I can imagine that fully moving to "ungrading" takes these kinds of tolls. You have mentioned in other posts about the positive sides of ungrading. I appreciate that too.
A small speculative comment: I teach at a small liberal arts institution, where I know my students relatively well (25-student classrooms is average), and the institution I work at is known to be fairly "high touch." Even without formally using Ungrading, I get a lot of the kind of sharing you mention. I think part of this is that I'm a woman, part that I'm approachable and have several un-grading-like practices in my class; and that the post-pandemic college student is much more likely to be the kind of student with challenging issues to share. I have a colleague in business who goes out of his way to be "avuncular" with his students; he reports similar kinds of sharing. I imagine it is more intensive with an Ungrading model, but I think we are going to have more of this kind of sharing either way. And your series is making clear the benefits of Ungrading in this context.
Thanks for sharing this Emily. I appreciate this framing of teaching as the work of caring for students as whole persons, with all the attendant messiness of real life. While challenging, this work of care, even more than the skills that students learn in our courses is what has the most significant influence on them.
In a world where education is increasingly becoming focused on acquiring a certain set of skills or credentials, ungrading and the conversations that it fosters are likely to be a welcome balm for students wrestling with what it looks like to live a flourishing life.
I really do appreciate you being willing to share this journey, and the difficulties that come with it. I can imagine that fully moving to "ungrading" takes these kinds of tolls. You have mentioned in other posts about the positive sides of ungrading. I appreciate that too.
A small speculative comment: I teach at a small liberal arts institution, where I know my students relatively well (25-student classrooms is average), and the institution I work at is known to be fairly "high touch." Even without formally using Ungrading, I get a lot of the kind of sharing you mention. I think part of this is that I'm a woman, part that I'm approachable and have several un-grading-like practices in my class; and that the post-pandemic college student is much more likely to be the kind of student with challenging issues to share. I have a colleague in business who goes out of his way to be "avuncular" with his students; he reports similar kinds of sharing. I imagine it is more intensive with an Ungrading model, but I think we are going to have more of this kind of sharing either way. And your series is making clear the benefits of Ungrading in this context.