Abstract
Ungrading is a pedagogical approach in which no grades are given on any assignments. Instead, students are provided with many opportunities to submit work and gain feedback. The goal is to shift student focus from achieving a grade to growth as a learner and a person. As instructors, our ungrading approach utilized personalized learning plans, checkpoint reflections, and student-professor learning conferences to put agency in the hands of our students. We employed this method in upper-level biology and computer science courses and provide critical reflections here regarding our experiences and the connections between this approach and feminist STEM pedagogy tenets. We were impressed with students’ self-reported feelings of engagement with the material, enthusiasm for risk-taking, and reduced stress. Feminist themes of reducing the classroom power gap, active student participation, and addressing and disrupting systems of oppression are met through student ownership of their learning and challenging of traditional power dynamics between the student and professor.
Recommended Citation
Eggleston, Erin M. and Kimmel, Shelby
(2023)
"Ungrading: Reflections Through a Feminist Pedagogical Lens,"
Feminist Pedagogy: Vol. 4:
Iss.
2, Article 7.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/feministpedagogy/vol4/iss2/7