ETE Conf 2025 | Keynote address: Undoing the Grade: Why We Grade, and How to Stop

Presented by: Jesse Stommel "Ungrading" means raising an eyebrow at grades as a systemic practice, distinct from simply not grading. The word is a present participle, an ongoing process, not a static set of practices. Too many of our approaches to grades treat students like they’re interchangeable and fail to recognize their complexity. Can we imagine flexible approaches to assessment, pedagogies which center intrinsic more than extrinsic motivation, encouraging and supporting learning, rather than policing behavior? We have to design for the least privileged, most marginalized students, the ones more likely to have felt isolated even before the pandemic: disabled students, chronically-ill students, Black students, international students, queer students, those facing housing and food-insecurity, etc. We need to write policies, imagine new ways forward, for students already struggling, already facing exclusion.