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Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) by Susan D. Blum
lauraborkpower's review against another edition
3.0
pipn_t's review
5.0
rbreade's review against another edition
5.0
This collection of essays by educators in almost every sort of classroom--high school, community college, university--is a must-read for anyone whose responsibility it is to educate students. The bibliographies will lead one to the mountain of evidence, accruing since 1912 (very close to the disastrous debut of the A-F grade scale) showing that not only do grades not do what they claim--accurately gauge a student's learning--they are in addition harmful to students, causing anxiety, stress, cheating, a buffet of damage. The educator looking to defend grading as a fair and beneficial practice is in the same boat as the person looking for specious "studies" by crank climatologists "proving" that global warming isn't real. In a word, embarrassing, and, second word, dishonest.
All the contributors share their experience with going gradeless in an environment that requires a final grade be given to students, and the passion and creativity and effort is inspiring. They discuss exactly how they carried out their approach to ungrading, the challenges they faced, what worked, what could be changed. Any review that claims these writers were vague or self-indulgent is a review that isn't being fair about the specificity of detail included in each essay. And the approach does scale: there's at least one essay that describes an approach that worked for eighty-plus students at once. As someone who has gradually chipped away at the importance of grades in his classroom, minimizing their damage where possible, I can't wait to go full gradeless with the guidance provided here.
marchemvee's review against another edition
5.0
klemily's review against another edition
4.25
michaelwaustin's review against another edition
4.0