Grow Beyond Grades

Grow Beyond Grades

By Grow Beyond GradesEducation
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Grow Beyond Grades episodes

  • Episode 12 - Education, Grades, and Liberation with Julia E. Torres

    As a teacher/activist, Julia Torres's work is grounded in empowering students to use the Language Arts to fuel resistance and positive social transformation. Ms. Torres facilitates workshops and professional conversations about anti-racist education, social justice, and culturally sustaining pedagogies. She writes about these and other topics at at juliaetorres.blog.

    Topics include:

    • How Julia uses side-by-side teaching, expert groups, and culturally relevant texts to shift traditional power dynamics in her classroom
    • How grades foster attitudes of competition, compliance, and insecurity in students of color, dividing them and pitting them against one another
    • How Julia helps students "unlearn" disempowering attitudes from past experiences
    • Why implementing progressive practices like going gradeless can be extremely difficult in urban school settings
    • Why teachers from non-urban settings should visit and learn from teachers in urban settings

      • Resources mentioned:

      • Julia's Twitter thread on grades
      • Going Gradeless in Urban Ed (Teachers Going Gradeless)
      • On Reading...and Grading (juliaetorres.blog)
      • Building Bridges (juliaetorres.blog)
        • 23 min
      • Episode 11 - School Culture with Bennett Jester

        This episode features an interview with high school student, Bennette Jester, founder of #mygradingstory and author of the website My Grading Story, and advocate of student voice in learning.

        Topics include:

        • #MyGradingStory
        • Montessori Education
        • Student voice in learning
        • How to motivate students
          • 17 min
        • Episode 10 - How to Go Gradeless with Andrew Burnett

          This episode features an interview with Andrew Burnett, middle school math teacher, author of the website BurnettMath, and advocate of The Thinking Classroom.

          Topics include:

          • Choosing learning targets
          • Providing feedback
          • Reporting learning to parents without grades
          • Building student metacognition


            • 25 min
          • Episode 9 - Social Justice Education with Dan Scratch

            This episode features an interview with Dan Scratch, high school social studies teacher, author of the website Teaching for Equity and Social Justice, and advocate of teaching for social justice.

            Topics include:

            • Why it is important for students to engage in social justice
            • Building relationships as a foundation for social justice
            • How social justice impacts classroom management
            • Applying social justice education in STEM disciplines
              • 28 min
            • Episode 8 - How to Grade for Learning with Ken O'Connor

              Countless educators, including many in Teachers Going Gradeless, consider Ken O'Connor one of the first to introduce them to the idea that traditional grades are “broken” and that a better approach is possible. Ken is an independent consultant and author of the book A Repair Kit for Grading: 15 Fixes for Broken Grades. Just recently, Ken published the fourth edition of his seminal book How to Grade for Learning. I believe I speak for many of us in expressing gratitude to Ken for the profound impact he has had on so many of our teaching practices.

              Topics include:

              • How Ken's experiences as teacher, curriculum coordinator, and field hockey coach informed his ideas around assessment and grading
              • Why we should shift our grading practices
              • Reasons for optimism regarding shifting grading practices in schools
              • Why going gradeless and standards-based learning are "in the same chapter if not on the same page"
              • Highlights from the new edition of How to Grade for Learning
                • 23 min
              • Episode 7 - Playgrounds and Personalization with Mariana Morales Lobo
                This episode, I interview Mariana Morales Lobo, who taught high school in Madrid and Barcelona for 15 years, and who now works as a consultant in education, training teachers and helping school leaders implement innovation. One of her main areas of interest is “reinventing playground” spaces, considering the ways these supposedly neutral spaces can be made more equitable. Her writing can be found on the international platform of Práctica Reflexiva.
                0 min
              • Episode 7 - Playgrounds and Personalization with Mariana Morales Lobo

                This episode, I interview Mariana Morales Lobo, who taught high school in Madrid and Barcelona for 15 years, and who now works as a consultant in education, training teachers and helping school leaders implement innovation. One of her main areas of interest is “reinventing playground” spaces, considering the ways these supposedly neutral spaces can be made more equitable. Her writing can be found on the international platform of Práctica Reflexiva.

                Topics include:

                • The landscape of grading and testing in Spain
                • Personalization vs. humanization in schools
                • What teachers going gradeless can learn from playground reform
                • Why playgrounds are not automatically neutral or equitable spaces
                • How schools can create more equitable spaces and involve the voices of children
                  • 25 min
                • Episode 6 - Motivation with Alfie Kohn

                  This episode features an interview with Alfie Kohn, author of the books Punished by Rewards, The Schools Our Children Deserve, The Homework Myth, and his latest, Schooling Beyond Measure.

                  Topics include:

                  • The difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
                  • How teachers can leverage extrinsic motivation
                  • Rethinking reluctant learners
                  • "Doing with" rather than "doing to"
                    • 27 min

                  About Grow Beyond Grades

                  From the publisher's feed

                  This is the podcast of Grow Beyond Grades. Each episode we speak to educators who are transforming teaching and learning by grading less. Tune in and learn with us!