“In this Class I Feel Like I was Truly Learning: Ungrading the MA Classroom”

Perhaps one of the most frustrating aspects of being an educator is having to grade student work. The ungrading movement attempts to address this frustration by deemphasizing grades to help prioritize conceptual understanding(s) and enhance analytical thinking, as well as recenter knowledge attainment, skill development, and progress in the course. Much of the discussion around ungrading tends to focus on the K-12 and undergraduate levels. In this article, I explain why I began with ungrading a master's level course and how I did so. My goal is to share with others why we should be ungrading/deemphasizing grades at all levels of academia, including those designed to prepare students to join academia itself.