I’m just catching up now after seeing it in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. I’m pondering how the self assessment goes—I have students who have been pretty stubborn about acknowledging their engagement.
I love this and the whole concept of un-grading. I come from an unconventional homeschooling background in which we also discussed and negotiated what grade belonged on the transcript and why. You mentioned in your blog that you have very low-enrollments in your first year writing course which enables you to give substantial feedback on almost every assignment. Any suggestions for instructors like myself who are teaching in colleges who cap the enrollments for FYW courses at 30?
Thanks for this! I hadn't thought of homeschooling as a primary site for ungrading. I'm not an expert on what to do with larger classes, though I know some folks do make it work. (Courtney Sobers has done ungrading with large lecture STEM courses, for example.)
If I was teaching more students in a writing classroom, my instinct would probably be to lean more heavily on self- and peer-assessment. But as I'll discuss later on the blog, I found that my students tended to struggle with self-assessment. Another option might be to give a lot of whole-class feedback for each round of drafts/assignments, so you could spend less time on individual feedback.
I'll keep thinking on this--please let me know if you find some strategies that work well! Folks are always asking me about alternative grading in larger classes, and I have only a handful of go-to strategies to share.
I’m just catching up now after seeing it in the Chronicle of Higher Ed. I’m pondering how the self assessment goes—I have students who have been pretty stubborn about acknowledging their engagement.
Thanks, the self-assessment piece was one thing I feel I really struggled with last semester. This week's post will explain part of why!
I love this and the whole concept of un-grading. I come from an unconventional homeschooling background in which we also discussed and negotiated what grade belonged on the transcript and why. You mentioned in your blog that you have very low-enrollments in your first year writing course which enables you to give substantial feedback on almost every assignment. Any suggestions for instructors like myself who are teaching in colleges who cap the enrollments for FYW courses at 30?
Thanks for this! I hadn't thought of homeschooling as a primary site for ungrading. I'm not an expert on what to do with larger classes, though I know some folks do make it work. (Courtney Sobers has done ungrading with large lecture STEM courses, for example.)
If I was teaching more students in a writing classroom, my instinct would probably be to lean more heavily on self- and peer-assessment. But as I'll discuss later on the blog, I found that my students tended to struggle with self-assessment. Another option might be to give a lot of whole-class feedback for each round of drafts/assignments, so you could spend less time on individual feedback.
I'll keep thinking on this--please let me know if you find some strategies that work well! Folks are always asking me about alternative grading in larger classes, and I have only a handful of go-to strategies to share.