🎓Ungrading: Self-Reflection and Self-Evaluation

This course uses an ungrading approach that prioritizes student self-reflection, self-evaluation, and support for learning from making mistakes. Students receive regular feedback on their work, and the project-based nature of the course means students are well-motivated to learn the material necessary to make their project work.

At the beginning of the term, they reflect on their current understandings of the course goals, and set their own goal. At the midpoint, they reflect on their learning thus far and assign a grade; the instructor then responds if they think the grade should be different, with an explanation of why and how (if necessary) the student can course-correct for the second half of term. At the end, the student reflects on their learning, their project work, their strengths and weaknesses across the term, and assigns themselves a grade. There are templates for these reflection activities included in the site.

All students need to demonstrate some kind of growth or change in the learning goals for the course; all students are welcome in the course, regardless of background. Students with years of programming experience and students with no computing experience should both be able to find value from this course, though the complexity of their project work will almost certainly be quite different.

Ungrading sets up an atmosphere where students can prioritize learning over meeting strict grading requirements, and is inherently flexible for both the student and the instructor.