The Grading Podcast

Due to technical difficulties we were unable to record a new episode this week. Therefore, please enjoy this timely replay.

Many institutions require instructors to provide "interim" or "midterm" grades. How does this work with an alternatively graded class? In this episode, co-hosts Sharona and Bosley are once again joined by nationally board certified English teacher Joe Zeccola to discuss the practice of providing middle-of-the-term grades to students and other stakeholders. In addition to interim grades, we also discuss how redesigning your grading practices can have a profound impact on teaching practices throughout a classroom.

Links

Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!

Specific links here.

Resources

The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.

Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:

• The Grading for Growth Blog
• The Grading Conference
• The Intentional Academia Blog

Recommended Books on Alternative Grading (Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!):

• Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
• Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
• Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel
• Grading for Equity, by Joe Feldman

The Grading Podcast publishes every week on Tuesday at 4 AM Pacific time, so be sure to subscribe and get notified of each new episode. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.

If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.

All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Music

Country Rock performed by Lite Saturation

Country Rock by Lite Saturation is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Today on the podcast Sharona and Bosley sit down with Erik Francis. An international author, educator, presenter and professional development provider, Erik has over 30 years of experience in education. He has written a number of books and blogs on Depth of Knowledge, Inquirying Questions, and other topics. In this conversation, we take a deeper look at Depth of Knowledge and how it might be used to allow us to better align our assessments with our Learning Outcomes.

Links

Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!

• www.MaverikEducation.com
• Deconstructing Depth of Knowledge: A Method and Model for Deeper Teaching and Learning, Erik Francis
• Now That's a Good Question!: How to Promote Cognitive Rigor Through Classroom Questioning, Erik Francis
• Inquiring Minds Want to Learn: Posing Good Questions to Promote Student Inquiry , Erik Francis
• Next Generation Science Standards
• Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America's Public Schools, Diane Ravitch
• The Report of the Committee of Ten, James Mackenzie
• A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform, by The National Commission on Excellence in Education, April 1983
• Cognitive Rigor & DOK Focus Area, Dr. Karin Hess

Resources

The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.

Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:

• The Grading for Growth Blog
• The Grading Conference
• The Intentional Academia Blog

Recommended Books on Alternative Grading (Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!):

• Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
• Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
• Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel
• Grading for Equity, by Joe Feldman

The Grading Podcast publishes every week on Tuesday at 4 AM Pacific time, so be sure to subscribe and get notified of each new episode. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.

If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.

All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Music

Country Rock performed by Lite Saturation

Country Rock by Lite Saturation is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

In this episode, Sharona and Bosley interview Dr. Chad Lang, the Assistant Superintendent of School Improvement at Glenwood Community School District in Iowa. Through our conversation we explore the various ways in which communication plays an important role in the impact grading reform can have on a community, a school, and a student population as well as how intentionally aligning hiring practices to your institutional values can support these efforts. We then explore the ROI of

Links

Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!

• Glenwood Community School District

Resources

The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.

Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:

• The Grading for Growth Blog
• The Grading Conference
• The Intentional Academia Blog

Recommended Books on Alternative Grading (Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!):

• Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
• Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
• Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel
• Grading for Equity, by Joe Feldman

The Grading Podcast publishes every week on Tuesday at 4 AM Pacific time, so be sure to subscribe and get notified of each new episode. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.

If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.

All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Music

Country Rock performed by Lite Saturation

Country Rock by Lite Saturation is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The introduction of easily accessible large language models has reverberated through academic at all levels. For practitioners of alternative grading this has impacted in two major areas:

1. Are the assessments we are asking students to do providing legitimately valid evidence of learning? (Or do they reflect students utilizing an LLM or other outside resource such as Chegg or Brainly)
2. We are seeing student engagement levels drop precipitously in both higher education and PK-12.

In this episode, Sharona and Bosley explore some of the research about how to make assessments that engage learners in both developing and demonstrating learning of key skills as well as providing instructors with valid evidence of learning.

Links

Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!

• Authentic Assessments: How to Assess Students in a Way That Actually Matters, podcast episode 103 of "It's Not Rocket Science"
• Assessing Student Learning - Northern Illinois University
• Course Based Assessment Handbook, Stassen Et. Al.
• Understanding by Design, Wiggins and McTighe
• Development of Authentic Assessments for the Middle School Classroom
• Performance Assessment Bank
• Mathematics Assessment Project
• Keeping Assessment in Social Studies Real

Research Literature

• Rethinking Authentic Assessment: Work, Well-being and Society, McArthur, Feb 2022
• From authentic assessment to authenticity in assessment: broadening perspectives, Ajjawi, Et. Al., Oct 2023
• Rethinking Student Assessment: Recognizing Authentic Evidence of Learning, January 2023

Resources

The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.

Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:

• The Grading for Growth Blog
• The Grading Conference
• The Intentional Academia Blog

Recommended Books on Alternative Grading (Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!):

• Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
• Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
• Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel
• Grading for Equity, by Joe Feldman

The Grading Podcast publishes every week on Tuesday at 4 AM Pacific time, so be sure to subscribe and get notified of each new episode. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.

If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.

All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Music

Country Rock performed by Lite Saturation

Country Rock by Lite Saturation is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

It's another first here on the pod - a LIVE recording! A group of us came together to discuss what we were seeing at Mathfest and what we think needs to happen to get to a tipping point with grading reform. Thank you to everyone who joined us!

Links

Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!

• Mathematical Association of America
• MathFest
• 10 – Artificial Scarcity and Doing Alt Grading “Right” or “Wrong”: An Interview With David Clark
• 26 – Active Learning and Alternative Grading: An Introduction to Team-Based Inquiry Learning with Dr. Drew Lewis and Dr. Steven Clontz
• 28 – Developing and Using Technology Tools to Author Assessments – with Steven Clontz
• PROSE Consortium
• 29 – The Current State and Future Wishes for SoTL in Alt Grading – with Dr. Drew Lewis
• 54 – Reflections on the 2024 Grading Conference with Ashleigh Fox and Drew Lewis
• Team Based Inquiry Learning
• 50 – How we quadrupled our pass rate: Lessons learned from Redesigning Precalculus, An Interview with Dr. Latrice Bowman
• CheckIt - problem generation

Resources

The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.

Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:

• The Grading for Growth Blog
• The Grading Conference
• The Intentional Academia Blog

Recommended Books on Alternative Grading (Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!):

• Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
• Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
• Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel
• Grading for Equity, by Joe Feldman

The Grading Podcast publishes every week on Tuesday at 4 AM Pacific time, so be sure to subscribe and get notified of each new episode. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.

If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.

All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Music

Country Rock performed by Lite Saturation

Country Rock by Lite Saturation is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

In part 2 of our interview with Dr. Jeff Anderson, we delve deeply into ideas about the connections between grades, behaviourism, and anti-democracy. This is a conversation that goes well beyond the "how-to" of alternative grading and explores the WHY of grades and how they connect to some of the biggest challenges we currently face in our world.

Links

Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!

• About Behaviorism, B.F. Skinner
• Beyond Freedom & Dignity, B. F. Skinner
• Punished By Rewards, 25th Anniversary Edition, Alfie Kohn
• Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Classroom (The Perspectives on Writing), Asao Inoue
• Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink
• Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, Anders Ericsson
• How Learning Works: Eight Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching, Susan Ambrose, et al
• Wealth Supremacy, Marjorie Kelly
• The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone's Mind, Jonah Berger
• Talking About Leaving Revisited (downloads PDF), edited by Elaine Seymour and Anne-Barrier Hunter
• No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age, Jane McAlevey
• 
  

Resources

Writings and Interviews by Jeff Anderson

• Jeff Anderson's How to Become a Strategic Deep Learner project
• Jeff Anderson's Essential Ungrading Reading List
• Jeff Anderson's Antiracist Reading List
• Jeff Anderson's Ungrading Project
• TPSE Math | Interview with Jeff Anderson (Foothill College) and Kate Stevenson (CSU Northridge)
• A Conversation about Alternative Assessment (Companion Blog post to the TPSE Math Interview)

Jeff Anderson's Hosted Resources

• Teaching Website
• YouTube Channel
• Learning Blog
• Teaching Blog

The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.

Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:

• The Grading for Growth Blog
• The Grading Conference
• The Intentional Academia Blog

Recommended Books on Alternative Grading (Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!):

• Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
• Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
• Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel
• Grading for Equity, by Joe Feldman

The Grading Podcast publishes every week on Tuesday at 4 AM Pacific time, so be sure to subscribe and get notified of each new episode. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.

If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.

All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Music

Country Rock performed by Lite Saturation

Country Rock by Lite Saturation is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

In this, our first two-part episode on The Grading Podcast, Sharona and Bosley speak with Dr. Jeff Anderson, a community college math professor who has been thinking and writing about alternative assessment practices since at least March 2021. This interview was so interesting and nuanced we just couldn't fit it into a single hour! Join us for a in-depth personal and professional journey about the impact grades had personally on Jeff and how he utilizes his lived experience to work towards a more just educational system and changes to our grading practices.

Links

Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!

• What is Good Mathematics? Terence Tao
• The Harmful Worldviews that Undergird the Letter Grading System, blog post by Dr. Jeff Anderson
• A Century of Grading Research: Meaning and Value in the Most Common Education Measure, Brookhart, et. al
• The Happiness Lab: Making the Grade, podcast episode
• Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram Kendi
• Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn
• The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market by Naomi Oreskes
• Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink

Resources

The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.

Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:

• The Grading for Growth Blog
• The Grading Conference
• The Intentional Academia Blog

Recommended Books on Alternative Grading (Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!):

• Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
• Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
• Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel
• Grading for Equity, by Joe Feldman

The Grading Podcast publishes every week on Tuesday at 4 AM Pacific time, so be sure to subscribe and get notified of each new episode. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.

If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.

All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Music

Country Rock performed by Lite Saturation

Country Rock by Lite Saturation is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Now that we are a few weeks out from the 2024 Grading Conference, Sharona sits down with two of the organizers (and repeat guests on the pod) Dr. Ashleigh Fox and Dr. Drew Lewis. Hear about some of the highlights of the conference for each of them, as well as what they hope to achieve with next year's conference.

Resources

The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.

Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:

• The Grading for Growth Blog
• The Grading Conference
• The Intentional Academia Blog

Recommended Books on Alternative Grading (Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!):

• Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
• Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
• Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel
• Grading for Equity, by Joe Feldman

The Grading Podcast publishes every week on Tuesday at 4 AM Pacific time, so be sure to subscribe and get notified of each new episode. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.

If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.

All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Music

Country Rock performed by Lite Saturation

Country Rock by Lite Saturation is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

In this episode Sharona and Bosley reflect on one year of The Grading Podcast. From memorable moments and guests to

Links

Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!

Grading Podcast Episodes mentioned in this episode (in the order they are mentioned):

• 6 – The Anatomy of a Learning Outcome: An Interview with Joe Zeccola
• 13 – Interim Grades: What do we do when we have to report “grades” in the middle of a term? With Joe Zeccola
• 39 – Systemic Change – A Look at how Los Angeles Unified School District developed their new grading policy, based on Equitable Grading practices. With Joe Zeccola
• 33 – An Interview with Dr. Thomas Guskey: A Journey through the History of Grading Reform Efforts
• 4 – Grading for Growth: An Interview with Robert Talbert
• 38 – Twenty+ Small Steps to Get Started with Alt Grading (Inspired by the recent blog post at Grading for Growth)
• 18 – The Sportscaster of Alternative Grading: An Interview with Matt Townsley
• 46 – Extinguishing the Fires within Assessment and Grading Reform: Welcoming Back Dr. Matt Townsley
• 42 – Metacognition, Power Structures in the Classroom, what is reasonable to expect of students? An Interview with Dr. Theresa Gaines.
• 36 – Teaching More by Grading Less (or Differently) – an Interview with Jeff Schinske, 10 years later
• 32 – Active Learning and Alternative Grading: When Intentional Pedagogy and Intentional Assessment Truly Align
• 31 -The Role of “Effort” or “Work” in an Alternative Grading Architecture and the Relationship with Due Dates
• 44 – Artificial Intelligence And Alt Grading: Challenges and Opportunities

Resources

The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.

Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:

• The Grading for Growth Blog
• The Grading Conference
• The Intentional Academia Blog

Recommended Books on Alternative Grading (Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!):

• Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
• Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
• Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel
• Grading for Equity, by Joe Feldman

The Grading Podcast publishes every week on Tuesday at 4 AM Pacific time, so be sure to subscribe and get notified of each new episode. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.

If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.

All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Music

Country Rock performed by Lite Saturation

Country Rock by Lite Saturation is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

A common pushback that practitioners of alternative grading get is that students "don't know how they are doing". In this episode, Sharona and Bosley take a hard look at progress tracking and communicating progress to students. We include a variety of examples of progress trackers provided by several different alternative graders and talk about the ways in which progress tracking is important, regardless of the grading system in use.

Links

Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!

Progress Trackers

• Tracking Mastery Worksheet Math 1090
• Example of MTH 210 Grade Record sheet W23
• Example of 85-310 grades checklist - spring 2024, by Abigail Noyce
• EGI Grade Check_Zeccola AP Lang, by Joe Zeccola and Robert Bosley
• Example CS 120 Learner progress tracker, by Dave Largent
• Sample Grade Sheet - by Abby Noble

Other Resources Mentioned in the Episode

• TED Talk: The Beauty of Data Visualization, David McCandless
• Getting Started Part 5: How to Determine When a Student has Completed a Learning Outcome and How to Roll it All Up Into a Final Grade
• Episode 48 – Implementation Challenges and Opportunities: A Conversation with Becky Peppler and Don Smith on Working with K-12 School Districts to implement Alternative Grading
• How to make and use grade trackers, Grading for Growth Blog, by David Clark

Resources

The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.

Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:

• The Grading for Growth Blog
• The Grading Conference
• The Intentional Academia Blog

Recommended Books on Alternative Grading (Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support!):

• Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
• Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
• Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel
• Grading for Equity, by Joe Feldman

The Grading Podcast publishes every week on Tuesday at 4 AM Pacific time, so be sure to subscribe and get notified of each new episode. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram - @thegradingpod. To leave us a comment, please go to our website: www.thegradingpod.com and leave a comment on this episode's page.

If you would like to be considered to be a guest on this show, please reach out using the Contact Us form on our website, www.thegradingpod.com.

All content of this podcast and website are solely the opinions of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent the views of California State University Los Angeles or the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Music

Country Rock performed by Lite Saturation

Country Rock by Lite Saturation is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.