Moving Toward Ungrading in an Undergraduate Microbiology Laboratory Course

Hey everyone, my name is Morgan, and I’ll be walking you through my poster, Moving Toward Ungrading in an Undergrad Microbio Lab Course. In traditional grading systems, students often focus more on marks than on feedback, which undermines the learning process. What I wanted to explore was whether alternative grading practices, specifically rubric-driven formative feedback, could help shift that emphasis back toward learning. The EMRN rubric is a four-level rubric for evaluating student work. The EMRN rubric prioritizes clear criteria and actionable feedback while de-emphasizing numeric grades. My approach was to design assessments where students received detailed formative feedback using this rubric. On the bottom right, I am showing a sample rubric for a formal figure assignment, in which students drafted a figure and legend depicting data from a western blot experiment that we performed in lab. Importantly, marks were not displayed on this rubric. As you can see in the Evidence of Learning section, one student applied the feedback provided via the rubric to significantly improve upon their work. You can see the pre-feedback figures have unclear legends and limited interpretation, and the post-feedback work is significantly improved in terms of clarity, accuracy, and experimental context. The student received a grade on the assessment at the end of the learning process. Overall, this suggests that encouraging students to engage deeply with feedback helps them do the hard work of learning.Thank you, and I look forward to engaging with your questions and discussion at the conference.