Practicing Ungrading: Why and How with Susan D. Blum

The CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy’s Transformative Learning in the Humanities (TLH) program will be hosting a one-hour virtual workshop with Dr. Susan D. Blum, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame and editor of the collection Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead)(West Virginia University Press, 2020). We would love to see you there—please see more event details below. RSVP here (opens in a new window).

Most of all, we would love to collect any questions you might have for Dr. Blum in advance. Given your expertise and on-the-ground knowledge of what faculty are facing right now at CUNY, we would greatly appreciate your submissions to our “questions box” for Dr. Blum: https://forms.gle/bkezX6JZ6zkyxK1p6.

What is “ungrading” and why is it having such an impact right now? Dr. Susan D. Blum, professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, is one of the nation’s leading experts and practitioners of the combination of evaluative practices loosely known as “ungrading.” In this interactive workshop, Dr. Blum will discuss the reasons why it is important to think about our grading practices—where they come from, how they do or do not promote or inhibit learning, and what better ways and models are available. Editor of the recent and influential Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead), Dr. Blum will be giving a virtual, interactive talk open to all of CUNY. In Ungrading, fifteen educators—from an array of fields that span the humanities, social sciences, and STEM, some from higher ed, some pioneers in K-12—write about their strategies for different ways to go gradeless and why. Having given talks across higher ed institutions around the country, Dr. Blum is both a champion of ungrading in her own classroom and also has had conversations with hundreds of educators about its challenges and rewards.

Susan D. Blum is a professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, currently fixated on education and pedagogical praxis, after a previous incarnation as a China anthropologist. She is the author of “I Love Learning; I Hate School”: An Anthropology of College (Cornell, 2016) and My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture (Cornell, 2009), and the editor of the recent volume Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) (West Virginia University Press, 2020).