Growth Mindset... and Ungrading

I mentioned in the instructions for this assignment that it seems to me impossible to really promote growth mindset in school if you are using traditional grading where students are punished for mistakes (you get a low grade on an assignment, you lost points, etc.). As you are probably starting to figure out in this class, I've done everything I can to remove the negative side of grading even though I do have to turn in a grade to the university at the end of the semester... but that grade is totally up to you. Yes, I set the cutoffs for the ABC grades, and I did that so long ago that I honestly don't even remember why I picked the numbers I did; it's arbitrary... as all grading is arbitrary. Why is 90% considered an A? I don't know. Why is 410 an A in this class? I don't know. It just is. So you set your goal, do the work, and then you let me know at the end of the semester that you are done and what grade you got. That's what I turn in via the university grade system.

In other words: you do the grading. Not me. My job is just to give you feedback, and I promise to do a good job with that. I never liked giving grades (and I have not put grades on student work since the year 2000)... but I really do like giving feedback. Feedback feels useful; grades... just the opposite.

So, what I want to write about in this post is ungrading. This is an educational movement where college faculty and K-12 teachers are trying to find different ways to escape from the negative side of grading in order to focus on learning instead. Some people use a system like what I am using here (it's often called "contract grading" because the idea is you get your grade based on an agreement we have here at the start of the semester for how much work each grade requires), while other people don't use points at all and instead just have students grade themselves without a specific grading scale in mind (it's often called "conference grading" because the idea is that the student and teacher sit down and talk about the final grade at the end of the semester). Those are just two common types of ungrading; there are other kinds of approaches too.

And here is the exciting thing: this year, sometime in 2020, a book is coming out from West Virginia University Press ALL ABOUT UNGRADING, and I got to contribute a chapter to that book! Here is what I wrote if you are curious. It feels like the most important thing I have ever done as an educator, getting to contribute my experiences and ideas to this book, which is the first book to focus on ungrading in college (the real pioneers of ungrading have been K-12 teachers rather than college faculty). The editor of the book is a professor at Notre Dame, Susan Debra Blum, someone whom I really admire... and the preface is written by Alfie Kohn, who is a personal hero of mine; he wrote an amazing book about the downside of grading: Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes (the 25th anniversary edition came out in 2018).

For me, the ideas of growth mindset and ungrading go hand in hand. The growth mindset cats do not want a grade. Instead, they just want to get feedback and have fun... and climb higher!

Feedback tells you that you can go higher.

I don't know when we'll get to see the cover art for the book, but if that happens this semester, I will update this blog post with the cover art for sure. :-)