Author Archives: Grace Handy

2022 TLH Summer Institute Recap

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On June 7th TLH held its Summer Institute with the 2022-2023 Faculty Fellows.

Grace Handy (TLH Research Assistant and Librarian) kicked off the institute by introducing TLH leadership with one fun fact about each. You can read more about TLH staff here. Faculty Co-Directors Shelly Eversley and Matt Brim then shared their pedagogical biographies—how and why they arrived here as teachers. This is a great warm up exercise for students, who can submit answers to the prompt “How and Why Did You Come to Be Here?” on a Padlet for all to see and read or in conversation with peers on the first day of class (see example from one of Matt’s class). In addition to sharing their stories about why they became teachers—Matt learning how to teach vis a vis Poor Queer Studies and Shelly embracing love in her classroom to teach with “radical openness”—and what it has been like to teach at CUNY during the pandemic, Shelly emphasized that to choose to love one’s students is a political act and fosters an environment of belonging, value, and care in which the best kind of learning can be made possible. 

Next, it was the Faculty Fellows’ turn to share in a low-stakes collaborative, community building exercise facilitated by Christina Katopodis (Associate Director of TLH) using Mentimeter. Shelly and Matt asked the fellows to share their visions inspired by the “ecstasy” and “teaching and learning without limits” bell hooks discusses in Teaching to Transgress (pp. 201-208). The prompt for the entry ticket was, “In your classes, what makes possibilities happen?” to which the fellows could respond up to 5 times each. Below is the word cloud of their responses. 

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Imagining a CUNY without Grades: A Podcast and Manifesto by and for CUNY Students

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One of the spring Fellows public knowledge projects was a podcast and manifesto, organized by Michael L. J. Greer (Brooklyn College), Gisele Regatao (Baruch College), Rebecca L. Salois, (Baruch College) and Casandra Silva Sibilin (York College). The Fellows were joined by twenty students in a conversational podcast on ungrading. The conversation revolved around the following key questions: How does/could/should grading work at CUNY? What does grading mean to students? How do they perceive the concept of ungrading? What do they think of the ungrading practices they have experienced so far? Eight of the students asked questions and engaged in the conversation verbally, and the remaining twelve students participated in the written manifesto after reflecting on the conversation that took place during the podcast recording. The result is an engaging recording where students and professors discuss their experiences of ungrading, and explore the function that grades have played in their own lives. Students think about the virtues and potential downsides of ungrading at CUNY, discussing their fears, hopes, joys, and frustrations. The professors weigh in on questions students have around the value of ungrading, and the podcast ends with a brainstorm on how students might participate in creating a CUNY without grades. The collective manifesto that accompanies the podcast declares a vision for what a CUNY without grades would look and feel like. The podcast, manifesto, and a list of resources on ungrading are compiled in the website Imagining a CUNY Without Grades.

Event Recap: Adventures in Ungrading: The Community College Experience

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During this interactive roundtable event, five TLH Faculty Fellows – Jennifer Corby (Kingsborough Community College), Nicole Kras (Guttman Community College), Grace Pai (Guttman Community College), Dusana Podlucka (LaGuardia Community College), and Midori Yamamura (Kingsborough Community College) – shared their experiences of implementing ungrading in their courses. They were joined by 10 of their students who discussed how ungrading has helped and/or hindered their learning process.  

The event, which was attended by 84 participants, began with an introduction to how ungrading is a student-driven approach that emphasizes feedback, assessment and reflection of the learning process over scores, mastery of skills, or standardized outcomes. The fellows collected student definitions, opinions and reflections of ungrading through a survey form taken by 52 students (see slides and booklet of student reflections). 

The five Fellows then shared examples of ungrading across various disciplines. Professor Corby shared how she gave options for “choose-your-own adventure” activities and had students complete self-assessments in her Introduction to U.S. Government & Politics course. Professor Yamamura’s Global Contemporary Art students attended 8 asynchronous events that were part of the UnHomeless NYC exhibition she organized; students worked on group reflections and held consultations with her to help them incorporate their reflection of ungrading in their final papers. For her Civic Engagement in a Global Society first year experience (FYE) course, Professor Pai implemented a system of self grading, peer grading, monthly learning journal entries, an end-of-semester individual grade conference, and most importantly – student-created rubrics on major assignments where students discussed what makes for a quality assignment submission before creating a rubric with definitions and points for weighted categories as a class. Students in Professor Kras’ Human Services Fieldwork and Integrative Seminar course ​​submitted weekly written, audio, video, or visual art reflections – alongside creating their own self-grading criteria connected to the purpose of the assignment. Finally, Professor Podlucka discussed how she focused more on providing student feedback on weekly reading responses, in addition to feedback on the process of writing a staged research paper for her Social Psychology course.

Ten student panelists (listed below) then shared their experiences and perceptions of being ungraded. Following are some examples of student responses.

What I liked is how we get to speak about this with the professor during her office hours. It was such a good feedback experience. We could talk about our assignments.  We could talk about what we are doing right, which way is the right way, which way is the wrong way.  That was a new way of learning. The grading system, when you get a good grade, you don’t exactly know why.  When you don’t get a good grade, we still can’t ask why. We just know we didn’t do good and that’s it. In this, we literally had a step-by-step guide from the professor where we are going wrong and what we have to do.  It was less pressure for both the professor and the students. Learning was fun with this system.  

I would say it helped my learning process because it enabled me to reconsider power dynamics in the classroom.  Something to consider in grading is like why is the professor doing the grading, why doesn’t my input matter? I feel like ungrading tackled that and empowered me to seek out feedback, using it more effectively, prioritizing it so I can learn from it and improve. So that’s one of the biggest outcomes I’ve retained and I’m really thankful for it.

We’ve done projects before like based in math which isn’t my strong suit, but when it comes to ungrading, we actually made the rubric for it.  We could say my strong suit is this, may not be this but I need to put effort towards it.  It was a give and take relationship where we could say what we wanted to put effort in, what we thought was important. The might seem small in the eyes of a teacher but whatever you think is important, you can say I want this to reflect in my project.  You don’t really see that in my other classes.  It’s invigorating.  Maybe you spent hours on one small thing and you are finally getting recognition for it.

While students overwhelmingly expressed positive experiences with “ungrading,” there were also identified challenges and concerns noted from both faculty and students. One student shared, “I also don’t really like grading myself because I feel as though there’s always room for improvement.  I feel like who do you think you are?” Faculty and participants in the chat shared concerns with implementing this approach in larger courses, on how to communicate this novel way of thinking about grading to students and colleagues, and how to align this practice with university grading requirements.   

Student panelists

  • Nabeela Hashim, Kingsborough Community College
  • Elias Goldstein, Kingsborough Community College
  • Caroline Sorial, Kingsborough Community College
  • Holliday Senquiz, Guttman Community College
  • Deborah Bereket, Guttman Community College
  • Lishon Vesprey, Guttman Community College
  • Miyoko Wong, Guttman Community College
  • Brenda Quinio, LaGuardia Community College 
  • Jessica Carranza, LaGuardia Community College
  • Stephanie Tapia, LaGuardia Community College

Read the event transcript (PDF).

Event Recap: Liberation Literacies Pedagogy: At the Intersection of Language, Race, and Power with Dr. Jamila Lyiscott

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In her workshop on April 5th, Dr. Jamila Lyiscott, aka, Dr. J, began by thanking all those who made this event happen, as the quest towards justice cannot be taken for granted. We were then put into breakout rooms for a short activity, with the following instructions:

1. Choose a ‘whistle-blower’

2. Answer the question, “should multiple literacies be allowed in classrooms?”

3. You are only allowed to use two syllables or less for the duration of the conversation

4. If this rule is broken, the ‘whistle-blower’ should make an obnoxious sound

In the reflection afterwards participants discussed how the limitations robbed their motivation to speak, but not because they had nothing to say. Dr. J shared how this exercise helps to reveal how harmful education spaces can be: enforcement of “standard” language norms turns faculty into “whistle blowers” robbing students’ motivation, while also preventing enforcers from hearing students. To combat these linguistic constraints, Dr. J pointed to the liberatory capacity of languages and the cultural practices of people of color in particular. She noted how she includes a unit in all of her classes on the cipher, sharing a poem of her own, “The Art of the Cipher,” on bringing liberatory practices into the classroom, asking at one point, “how many students do we label illiterate by societal standards?”

Dr. J discussed code-switching as a continuation of colonial violence, requiring a certain language in order to be validated within the classroom and other institutions. She referenced the work of Dr. Geneva Smitherman and Dr. April Baker Bell who both highlight language as a site of cultural struggle, a marker of social mobility. 

Dr. J then played a clip from Glamour, “Uzo Aduba Never Liked Her Name,” where Uzo explains she asked her mother to call her Zoe because no one can say Uzoamaka, and her mother replied that if they can say other names (e.g.,Tchaikovsky, Michelangelo, Dostoyevsky), they can pronounce yours. Here Dr. J emphasized how our classrooms are not neutral spaces, and if we don’t intentionally work toward racial equity and healing, we are holding up social injustice.

Dr. J asked participants to reflect on the complicity they have in the institutional rewarding of Eurocentric knowledge and language practices. She outlined how liberation is different from inclusion in that it is about systemic change, breaking down oppressive logics, not reforming a broken system, not just having people of color doing the same work that upholds oppression. She discussed how the case of George Floyd and the media’s focus on underlying health conditions and intoxicants is another example of racist literacy practices; sharing literacies and language is not just about words — they contain cultures and histories.

She continued with suggestions on how to put liberation literacies into practice, including challenging paradigm principles, divesting from racist logics, and demanding participatory action and institutional alteration. It means pushing back against impulses to demand students of color perform whiteness to gain success: “Standard language is the language of people in power, it is not the language of power.” 

Dr. J read the poem “(Untitled)” by Brian Yoo, written in response to Texan lawmakers suggesting Asian people adopt easier names. The event then moved to a lively Q & A portion, with discussions on how to best support students so they can develop their voices and identities while being honest about how the world and the university institution operates, while working collectively to dismantle it.

Join us for two upcoming public TLH events organized by the Spring Faculty Fellows!

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Adventures in Ungrading: The Community College Experience

Wednesday, April 27th, 2022 @ 4-5PM EST

RSVP and speaker bios here

What are your students actually learning from your course? Are your students intrinsically motivated to deepen their learning and content knowledge, or extrinsically motivated to play the game of getting a good score and grade? “Ungrading” is a growing movement in higher education that critically questions the conventional grading system and traditional forms of assessment. Ungrading focuses on supporting and deepening individual student learning by challenging commonly used practices like learning outcomes, rubrics, grading on a curve, and participation grades. Join us at this interactive roundtable event to learn how five CUNY Mellon Transformative Learning in the Humanities Faculty Fellows are implementing ungrading across a range of disciplines in their community college courses. The Fellows will illustrate how practicing ungrading promotes the collaborative nature of teaching and learning, students’ active role in learning process, and making learning accessible, meaningful and relevant to all students. You will also hear from a student panel sharing their perceptions and experiences of being ungraded.

Accessibility: We will have ASL interpreters and live CART captioning for the event.

“Light Bulb” Moments in the Humanities Classroom

Wednesday, May 11th, 2022 @ 1-2:15 PM EST

RSVP and speaker bios here

What does a transformative moment in the classroom look or sound like? In this event, five Mellon TLH Faculty Fellows from different CUNY campuses will each present examples of active learning from their courses, sharing the work of their students and engaging student voices in this interactive workshop. Through the disciplines of German, Geography, Music, Spanish, and Fashion, we will demonstrate how collaborative pedagogy helps us build a sense of community in the classroom and beyond. 

Accessibility: We will have ASL interpreters and live CART captioning for the event.

Event Recap: Jesse Stommel’s Ungrading and Alternative Assessment Workshop

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In his workshop on March 21st, Dr. Jesse Stommel educated participants about the history of grading and the practice of ungrading. Kaz Elpharin, a current student at LaGuardia Community College, began the event by introducing Dr. Stommel. 

Dr. Stommel emphasized that ungrading is not a static concept but an ongoing conversation and practice that should include students. He brought up the compassionate grading policies introduced during the pandemic, asking why they haven’t always been present and if they could be maintained. He brought in open questions such as why we grade, who it’s for, and what if we didn’t, while acknowledging the precarity of many professors and administrative constraints.

Dr. Stommel also gave background on bias in grading and how inclusive practices means designing classes for the least privileged. He shared how past negative experiences with grading and teachers often impact the relationship students have with their professors, and how discussing such realities and making assessments flexible and responsive can be reparative. He shared information on intrinsic versus extrinsic motivations, and how we can best support all students in learning instead of engaging in policing behavior, defining grading as a relatively recent technology. Dr. Stommel discussed the importance of context, that he doesn’t want all professors to simply use his forms of assessment in their classes, but instead open up a reflective dialogue on grading with their students. He ended the lecture portion insisting that effective education requires some necessary conditions, including equitable labor practices and meeting the basic needs of students, such as food and housing. 

Dr. Stommel then moved into a writing exercise, asking participants:

“Who do you teach? What do you know about your students? How are they changing? What do they want from their education? What barriers do they face?”

After participants shared their responses in a brief discussion, he gave another prompt, asking everyone to draft a “Dear Students,” message for the top of their syllabi, thinking about:

“What work do you value from your students? What will you contribute (as the teacher)? What does success look like in your class? How (as the teacher) will you know when you’ve seen it? What is the students’ collective role in constructing the course? How will you show care for your students? How will you show care for yourself?”

He shared a resources on basic needs syllabus statements and included an example of his own basic needs statement.

This led into another discussion and question and answer portion, so engaging that it continued after the event in an “Afterparty” conversation in a Google Doc created by Pedagogy Co-Leaders Javiela Evangelista and Jason Hendrickson.

Dr. Stommel was very generous in encouraging participants to share his ideas at future workshops. He shared his slides:

and included OCR enabled slides.

He also shared his workshop notes, which include an overview of the session and additional resources.

We’d also like to share the generative conversation that took place at the Q&A Afterparty.

If you’re interested in more events on ungrading and alternative assessment, the Spring 2022 Mellon TLH Faculty Fellows have organized an interactive workshop with their students on “Adventures in Ungrading” for April 27, 2022, at 4-5pm ET. RSVP here.