Redefining Assessment: Exploring the “Ungrading” Movement through Multi-Modal e-Portfolios in Teacher Education

TILT Program: TILT SoTL Project

Principal investigator: Pooja Dharamshi, associate professor, Faculty of Education

Project team: Amrit Cojocaru, Doctoral Candidate, limited-term lecturer, and research assistant, Faculty of Education; Shaghayegh Bahrami, TILT research assistant; Nerlap Sidhu, research assistant, Faculty of Education

Timeframe: September 2023 to June 2025

TILT Support: Up to 120 TILT research assistant hours and $250 for participant incentives

Course addressed: EDUC 400 - Introduction to Teacher Education

Final report: View Pooja Dharamshi's final report (PDF)

Description: This project explored how multimodal e-portfolios inform student teacher learning in an ungraded introductory semester of teacher education. Recognizing the potential for holistic assessment approaches to transform learning experiences, the research team investigated how removing traditional grading constraints affects student teachers' knowledge development in social justice-oriented education contexts.

The study involved 62 student teachers across two professional learning community cohorts and used mixed methods including post-pre surveys with Likert scale and short answer questions, plus eight in-depth semi-structured interviews. Analysis used Goodwin and Darity's framework examining five knowledge domains for teacher educators: personal, contextual, social, sociological, and pedagogical dimensions.

Findings revealed transformative learning experiences when student teachers worked outside traditional assessment constraints. Participants gained clarity on social justice concepts, shifted from initial uncertainty to liberation and risk-taking in their learning, and engaged in sustained critical self-reflection. The ungraded context enabled authentic exploration of challenging topics like colonialism's effects on schooling and issues of race and class in education. Students demonstrated teacher agency through creative meaning-making, using multi-modal approaches to develop deeper understanding of their positionality and future teaching commitments. The portfolio process facilitated integration across three key knowledge domains: personal knowledge through awareness of positionality, sociological knowledge through stance development on social justice issues, and pedagogical knowledge through bridging personal experiences with teaching practice. While some students initially struggled with the departure from traditional coursework structure, the majority found the experience liberating and transformative for their professional development. 

Questions addressed:

• In what ways do multimodal e-portfolios inform student teachers' learning in an ungraded introductory semester? 
• How do ungraded assessment practices affect student teachers' attitudes toward learning? 
• What knowledge domains are most relevant in student teachers' experiences with e-portfolios? 
• How do portfolios facilitate integration of personal, sociological, and pedagogical knowledge? 

Knowledge sharing: Findings have been shared informally with EDUC 400 instructor teams and will be presented at WestCAST, AERA, and CSSE conferences. A gallery walk at WestCAST will showcase student teachers' artistic inquiries. The project has continued to Phase 2 with SSHRC funding. Results are informing more intentional guidance approaches for future portfolio implementations.

Keywords: ungrading, multimodal portfolios, teacher education, social justice education, alternative assessment, student agency, critical self-reflection, knowledge integration, transformative learning, teacher professional development