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The argument is that social media provide avenues and opportunities to build connections in the ungrading community that would not have been possible or as efficient. There is a “Power in Numbers”: the ungrading movement would not be as successful without the collaboration and sharing of ideas online. The page provides examples of how social media helps to amplify the ungrading message.
Anchor Questions
Anchor Questions
What is it about each social media outlet that promotes the ungrading community in its unique way? (E.g. Facebook groups, Twitter Hashtags, Reddit subcommunity, Discord)
What limitations exist with each social media platform with respect to promoting ungrading?
What measurable successes have emerged from the social media ungrading communities?
Why/how are people finding success with joining the ungrading community?
Ungrading: A Definition
Ungrading: A Definition
According to Jesse Stommel's presentation in collaboration with the Big Questions Institute, his definition of 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."
In Jesse Stommel's FAQ section about how a teacher can start to employ an ungrading philosophy, he responds, "Ungrading works best when it's part of a more holistic pedagogical practice – when we also rethink due dates, policies, syllabi, and assignments – when we ask students to do work that has intrinsic value and authentic audiences. However, it starts with teachers just talking to students about grades."
For those interested in learning more about the foundations of ungrading, Jesse Stommel has curated a bibliography of texts, posts, interviews, workshops, and other resources.
Section 1
Section 1
Why is social media used to bring together those interested in ungrading?
Why is social media used to bring together those interested in ungrading?
Recent years have seen an increase in the use of social media as a platform for bringing together people interested in ungrading. Through its ability to connect people from diverse backgrounds and locations, social media has become an effective tool for fostering dialogue and collaboration between those interested in the topic. The ubiquity of social media and the variety of apps allows for users to customize their experience and find the communities that resonate best with them. With respect to ungrading, social media has allowed educators to share ideas, resources, and experiences, thereby facilitating the spread of valuable information.
Furthermore, social media has been used to organize events, workshops, and virtual conferences related to ungrading, which has resulted in further dialogue and collaboration between educators, administrators, and students. In Section 2, I offer an overview of some of these collective events and how social media leverages the power of community to bring people together. Apart from building community, social media has been used to raise awareness about ungrading and its philosophical implications on education, which has helped to mobilize people to take action and substantiate its validity. This website will provide an overview of how social media has been used to bring together those interested in a common topic.
Online communities bring safety in numbers . Because ungrading is a philosophy where very few teachers espouse and practice it fully, there are only a few members who have the flexibility and the support to implement ungrading in their systems. Educators who want to promote it must show an activism mentality, so social media can help to connect those few activists to provide support and encouragement. Hashtag activism, which not only brings educators together in community but also promotes their message for change (Li, 2020). Because of the difficulty for individual teachers to promote ungrading, this site supports the idea that teachers will feel safer, more confident, and more vocal in moving the movement forward in their in-person communities.
In 2008, the Wenchuan earthquake was a 7.9 magnitude tremor that injured over 370 000 people. Extensive damage to city infrastructure and community services disrupted ways of living and as a consequence, residents turned to social media to build community and support. Cao explored how residents developed social capital to contribute to the individual and collective health and well-being of different communities separated by physical distance (2013). Bonding and bridging are two types of social capital, where bridging helps to find community from a variety of backgrounds and where bonding helps to enhance ties among those within those communities. Likewise, these social capital concepts can be used to describe the development of relationships in the ungrading community. The bridging aspect can refer to those from a variety of educational domains (e.g. university professors, high school language teachers, elementary math teachers) to provide an inclusive network where roles are different, but the ungrading ideology is open and applicable to all. The bonding aspect can refer to those in the same community who seek trust and strong ties with each other (e.g. elementary teachers in the same school board who are facing similar pressure from administration). Because there is antagonistic pressure from administration, Ministry, and societal expectations regarding grades, those who are interested in ungrading find strength and understanding in each other's company.
The "safety in numbers" cliche catalyzes the congregation of members in online social presence. According to Hale (2022), members of a community gravitate toward the building effect of online communities through systematic processing (a congruence of attitudes) rather than the heuristic model (more people help to make a decision). Hale suggests that confirmation bias is stronger than majority thought, and this phenomenon is present in social media examples where echo chambers are created. Like-minded individuals follow, like, retweet, comment, and post on ideas that are congruent to their value and attitude systems.
“Considering the role of social identity in message processing, one possibility is that group membership functions as a heuristic (Hogg and Smith, 2007; Van Knippenberg et al., 1994), while another possibility is that group membership prompts systematic processing (Maitner et al., 2010; Van Knippenberg and Wilke, 1992; Wyer, 2010). The predominant interpretation is that social identification typically prompts systematic processing, as individuals seek congruence between their attitudes and attitudes held by relevant social groups. This interpretation makes sense considering the theoretical foundations of SIT, in which individuals self-categorize and identify with social groups to manage uncertainty (Hogg et al., 2008; Yzerbyt and Demoulin, 2010). If a person wants to understand what they should think for some topic (i.e. reduce uncertainty), they will often refer to the opinions and attitudes of other people within their social groups (Van Knippenberg and Wilke, 1992), prompting systematic processing of the message.”
If Hale's philosophy is correct, the ungrading community, therefore, may inherently focus less on sharing a widespread vision, but rather find comfort in amplifying similar voices that resonate with their own. This paradoxical approach may stymie the penetration of ungrading in the school system where grassroots activism requires participants to challenge and inspire others. How can the ungrading movement break through that echo chamber reality? It would a visionary community of stakeholders (teachers, administrators, district leaders) that would support the dismantling many of the structural, institutional, and implicit barriers that grades create.
Section 2
Section 2
How is each social medium amplifying the ungrading message, what are some limitations of each medium, and what can continue to emerge from this movement?
How is each social medium amplifying the ungrading message, what are some limitations of each medium, and what can continue to emerge from this movement?
Facebook group: "Teachers Throwing Out Grades", founded by Mark Barnes, is a global group of people dedicated to eliminating traditional grades and making learning a conversation that involves education's most important shareholders: students. TTOG is moderated by Mark Barnes, Starr Sackstein, and Gwen Duralek
Facebook allows for the creation of posts for participants to share ideas, links, and questions. Many of the users are teachers or professors who already have a vested interest in ungrading.
Some of the benefits of this platform allows the participant to create a post as long as they want, share multiple links, and attach documents for others. In addition, participants in this Facebook group tend to show their face and have less anonymity.
Another comment to note is the privacy of the group, where participation requires approval. This security step limits the number of fake accounts; however, it also may limit the breadth of exposure for the group. On a positive note, the moderators have been able to keep an active page for the twelve thousand participants.
There is also a difficulty in organizing and searching through previous posts to find relevant information. The Discord Hub allows for subfolders for those kinds of conversations and resources.
This Slack group has over 1700 members where community members can share their perspectives and experiences with Alternative Grading.
This Slack workspace supports channels where the ungrading community can connect. There is no limit to the conversation, and participants can share links with each other.
Because this workspace is private; however, the opportunity to connect requires an invitation. There are multiple channels that help organize the conversation.
Another drawback is accessibility to this medium. Slack does not have a high social media penetration among K-12 educators, so the community would be specific to those who have downloaded it.
Mastodon
Mastodon
Mastodon users can comment and offer ideas about ungrading using the #ungrading hashtag. Using the qoto.org server, the conversation can be found here
One of the newer platforms, Mastodon, allows users on different servers to use the hashtag to find timely posts that participants have shared. The open platform allows for widespread sharing across the world.
The major drawback is that a search gives only the most recent posts. Many of those posts may approach ungrading from a variety of perspectives and might not be as focused as desired.
David Buck, Professor of English at Howard Community College, hosts Ungrading office hours for educators to ask questions about alternative grading and the ungrading philosophy.
Twitter can be considered one of the most popular opportunities for ungrading participants to share and connect with each other.
Some of the major benefits is the open access to the community through the ungrading hashtag. There is no invitation necessary, and all participants have the opportunity to voice their opinion.
Some of the drawbacks include the Tweet length limit; many posts require for participants to link out to other resources. This limit promotes short, punchy bites of information; however, it can prevent an elaboration of thoughts and would require a participant to create a thread of tweets instead. Another drawback is the anonymity of replies that may offer an uncomfortable conversation without the presence of accountability
One of the benefits of Twitter as a social media platform is the use of TwitterSpaces, where a host can open up a conversation for others to listen and participate in. The host can invite speakers to present and can also open up the microphone to the public to participate. Because participants generally follow accounts of people whom they value, having access to a space where participants can interact and listen to those they follow provides for an intimate space for sharing. David Buck has hosted several TwitterSpaces that provided a platform for speakers such as Dr. Susan Blum, Joshua Eyler, and Jesse Stommel.
The Discord Ungrading Hub has over 500 members who can connect with each other, share resources, and promote events.
Discord, similar to Slack, offers a private community hub of members. Invitations are required to join in, so the community is limited to those who have downloaded and request to be a part of the group. David Buck is the host of the "Ungrading HUB" group, and a direct message to him (on Twitter) will provide you access to the Discord group.
One of the benefits are the organized channels that allow participants to engage in different conversations. The channels include:
Ungrading resources
Edcamp activities
Equity and antiracism
Ungrading research
Book chat
Being a private community, the extent and reach to a wider community is limited to those who have requested participation. Many K-12 educators do not have a Discord account, so the majority of participants are from higher education or those who are proficient with social media already.
Section 3
Section 3
How does an online ungrading community affect how people behave, associate, and teach?
How does an online ungrading community affect how people behave, associate, and teach?
There are many factors that may influence how the online ungrading community would affect people's behavior, and it would likely vary depending on the specific community in question. In general, however, an online ungrading community can provide a space for people to connect with others who share similar interests and goals, and this can lead to a sense of community and camaraderie. The educational experience found within the Community of Inquiry lies in the intersection of social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence. All three components (working with people to explore classroom practice founded in research and theory) provide the necessary conditions for educational communities to thrive. When the ungrading community members find social engagement with others who are focused on making changes regarding assessment/evaluation through a research-based lens, the community can thrive and establish direction.
In terms of how people associate, the online ungrading community uses social media as platforms for people to connect with others who prefer the same medium's affordances, which promotes bridging and bonding (Cao, 2013). Additionally, despite the distance, the ability to collaborate and work together on ungrading examples can help to foster a sense of teamwork and cooperation. Kelly (2022) suggests that online communities where members are anonymous exhibit different behavioural and attitudinal experiences. As noted in Section 1, confirmation bias and "echo chamber" behaviours allow for anonymous users to report stronger well-being and positive affect from associating with others of the same mindset and ideas. Perhaps the lack of accountability to the person's identity also supports how freedom from association can lead to freedom of speech.
As for how people teach, an online ungrading community can provide a space for people to share their knowledge and expertise with others who are looking to learn. This can be especially beneficial for people who are looking for help with a specific subject or skill, as they can connect with others who have experience in that area and can offer valuable guidance and support. Cao postulates that an online community focused on bridging and bonding has significant impacts on information quality, but perhaps not on information quantity.
One possible drawback of an online community is where members may rely on a “quick answer” mentality. Many teachers may turn to online communities for a quick fix that may instead require more intensive conversations about pedagogy. Some examples in current practice include Facebook groups where teachers share lesson plans and activities without understanding the needs of a classroom; Twitter hashtags show students in a variety of learning modes without the detail of how students developed to that standard of practice; Pinterest and Instagram show manicured versions of lesson plans and classrooms where students have not had the iterations of productive struggle through learning goals and descriptive feedback.
"The results suggest that managers of professional development need to consider how to facilitate participation in order to focus on pedagogically motivated use of information technology, for system developers to consider how to assist recruitment of members and sustain their activity, and for all stakeholders to acknowledge that a peer-organised online professional development community requires significant effort. Furthermore, we suggest that instead of addressing large groups like these as communities, scholars and practitioners should instead see them as personal learning networks and think about how to establish smaller and more manageable groups as communities." (Nellimarkka, 2021)
The ungrading community, therefore, must be careful not to fall into modality where a tweet, toot, or post is the panacea for all teachers' assessment woes. As Stommel indicates, ungrading is more than a tool, but is a mindset shift and requires intentional practice and moves to dismantle years of oppressive systems that influence our perception of success through the arbitrary ranking of children.
Despite the gains that the ungrading community has made with respect to mobilizing communities through social media, the punctuated evolution towards a new perspective of assessment and evaluation requires collections of stakeholders to decide to move forward in that direction. Teachers, administrators, school board resource staff, trustees, and the media must play a concerted role in promoting ungrading. Unfortunately in Ontario, these rare but siloed ungrading communities may have an impact in local school settings (ungrading in one classroom or one grade level), but continue to maintain a status quo when facing the uphill battle against traditional ways of grading, assessing, and ranking our students.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Athabasca University. (n.d.). CoI Framework. Coi. Retrieved December 13, 2022, from https://coi.athabascau.ca/
Cao, Q., Lu, Y., Dong, D., Tang, Z., & Li, Y. (2013). The roles of bridging and bonding in social media communities. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 64(8), 1671–1681. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.22866
Hale, B. J. (2022). Examining the effect of identification with a social media community on persuasive message processing and Attitude Change. New Media & Society, 146144482211240. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221124085
Kelly, D., Liu, Y., Mayhew, A., Chen, Y., Cornwel, S. E., Delellis, N. S., & Rubin, V. L. (2022). Supporting prosocial behaviour in online communities through social media affordances. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 59(1), 723–725. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.703
Li, M., Turki, N., Izaguirre, C. R., DeMahy, C., Thibodeaux, B. L., & Gage, T. (2020). Twitter as a tool for Social Movement: An analysis of feminist activism on social media communities. Journal of Community Psychology, 49(3), 854–868. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.22324
Nelimarkka, M., Leinonen, T., Durall, E., & Dean, P. (2021). Facebook is not a silver bullet for teachers’ professional development: Anatomy of an eight-year-old social-media community. Computers & Education, 173, 104269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2021.104269
Stommel, J. (2021, June 11). Ungrading: A bibliography. Jesse Stommel. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.jessestommel.com/ungrading-a-bibliography/
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