Our Pedagogy Interest Group (PIG)’s first workshop, “Alternative Grading in the Music and Humanities Classroom” took place on October 22, 2024. We welcomed a number of presenters who shared their experiences with implementing Ungrading practices in their classrooms.

First, Jenna Queenan, a PhD Candidate in Urban Education, gave a presentation titled “Critical Approaches to Grading.” My biggest takeaways from her presentation were the following:

• Research on grading shows when students are graded, they avoid taking risks, they think less deeply/creatively, and they lose interest in learning itself.
• Ungrading challenges the deficit model- it becomes not about punishing the students but working together to learn together (building intrinsic motivation).
• A series of practices to shift to Ungrading include:
  • Consider why you are assessing students and work to change how you talk about assessment
  • Invite your students into a conversation about grading and ask students to reflect on their own learning (what barriers they face/how they learn).
  • Have students develop an individual learning plan and encourage self-evaluation throughout.
  • Implement labor-based, contract-based grading where students work toward the grade they want to receive.

See Jenna’s slides, here

See Jenna’s Bibliography, here

The second presentation was “Playful Creatures: Ungrading and Undisciplining the Humanities” by Austin Bailey, PhD in English. He opened his presentation by stating the following: “My pedagogy is simple, start by trusting students.” Other takeaways include:

• Failure should be welcomed, if not actively sought out, signaling as it does both the presence of creative, risky thinking and an opportunity to explore a new direction.
• Metacognitive self-evaluation prompts students to reflect on learning goals, invites students to be active learners, establishes affective dynamics of trust, affirmation, flexibility, and care, and encourages teachers to be aware of practicing what bell hooks calls “embodied pedagogy.”
• Ask your student the following Learning Narratives:
  • Who are you as a student?
  • How does this class fit into that story?
  • What do you value about your education? How might this class play some role in achieving it?
  • Based on these reflections, what course grade do you think you have earned this moment in the semester?

See Austin’s slides, here

See Austin’s article, “Ungrading the Composition Classroom: Affect, Metacognition, and Qualitative Learning, here

The final presenter, Nicholas Tran, gave us a peek into how they implemented Ungrading in the Music Theory Classroom. They shared the following tidbits with the group:

• They found that students are addicted to grades and want scales to assess themselves
• Likewise, their students enjoyed multiple choice as they don’t typically know how to talk about their own learning
• Building a set of skills around revision is important as is teaching students how to assess themselves, articulating what they’ve learned and why.

See Nicholas’ analysis project that utilizes Ungrading practices, here

See Nicholas’ syllabus that utilizes Ungrading practices, here

Madison Schindele is a PhD candidate in musicology at the Graduate Center where she is also pursuing a certificate in Women and Gender Studies. Her research centers on disability in opera, specifically, representations of infertility in German operas of the early 20th century. Madison is an adjunct lecturer at Queens College, teaching non-major introduction to music coursework. Contact her at [email protected].