Case Study Analysis of "Ungrading" within an Atmospheric Dynamics Course

Grading is a point of stress for both students and faculty within college and university courses. Students often focus more on strategies for earning the highest grade possible within a course rather than that of learning course material for the sake of understanding. Faculty often stress about the impacts of grades on their class average GPA with respect to course evaluations and tenure and promotion considerations. While nearly all faculty are expected to assign a final course grade at their respective institution, the path that faculty take in determining students’ final grades may be worth reconsideration given the above stressors.

In an effort to reduce course anxiety surrounding grades and to strive for a learning environment more directly focused on “learning” rather than grades, an “ungrading” scheme is pilot-tested within a first-semester atmospheric dynamics course during the Fall 2023 semester. Rather than assign numerical and letter grades to course assignments and assessments, the instructor provides qualitative feedback with opportunities for revision with no letter grade provided on any assignment. Students assign themselves a course grade during the first and second mid-terms of the class as well as at the end of the course, using evidence from course assignment feedback and a provided rubric to defend their grade within a one-on-one instructor meeting. With the instructor keeping track of grades using a more traditional quantitative grading scheme confidential to the students, this presentation will discuss the distribution of final course grades within the “ungrading” scheme vs. that of traditional grading, including reflection on student perception of “ungrading.”

The ungrading scheme adopted in this study was originally utilized within an atmospheric dynamics course instructed by Dr. Janel Hanrahan at Northern Vermont University. This study was also approved by Georgia Institute of Technology IRB (protocol H23272).