Krystal Nunes is a discipline-based education researcher with expertise in resilience-centred education. Her research aims to reimagine undergraduate science classrooms and assessments to allow students to productively engage with failure as part of their learning process.
In her graduate-level Environmental Assessment course, she did not provide any grades for individual assignments, but did provide detailed feedback. In order to submit end-of-term grades, Nunes designed three checkpoint grades which were submitted throughout the semester, after students completed a guided reflection. Students were also asked to complete self-evaluations to give themselves grades, with justification.
Nunes found that by using an ungrading approach, her graduate students focused on the feedback and learning process throughout the course, rather than focusing on letter grades.