Last summer, I started an informal “Learning and Teaching Club” for other Teaching Fellows in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at CUA. Over several months, we read and discussed Susan D. Blum, ed., Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead), Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, 2020). Reading this book, as problematic as it is, stimulated discussion and thought about our course and assessment designs.

We wrote a brief report—“Approaching Ungrading”—on our experience of reading and discussing the book. It was published in CTE Spotlight, a newsletter for the Center for Teaching Excellence at CUA.

Of the group, I probably have the most negative assessment of the book. I just can’t endorse it. Most chapters in the book rely on bogus assumptions, false dichotomies, and hidden agendas. But I can endorse the project of small-scale learning communities among teachers.