The Grading Podcast

On the podcast this week we speak with Dr. Eden Tanner, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The University of Mississippi. Listen to hear about using alternative grading in the context of a 170 person general chemistry course. Eden has a fascinating take on approaching alternative grading from a research mindset, and how that led her to adopt the principles of alternative grading.

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!

• The Tanner Lab
• The University of Mississippi - Dr. Eden Tanner

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.

Coming to you from the California Mathematics Council - South annual conference, Sharona and Bosley sit down for a wonderful conversation with Dr. Sean Nank. Sean is an adjunct professor at California State University San Marcos, a full professor at the American College of Education, as well as a high school math teacher in the Oceanside Unified School District. Sean is also a recipient of the Persidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.

In this incredible conversation, we talk with Sean about the human impact of assessments on our students and the important conversations that can be had once we really start to examine the impact of our grading systems.

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!

• seannank.com
• How to Grade for Learning: Linking Grades to Standards, Ken O'Connor

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.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! This is the first holiday we have taken since launching the podcast, so on this episode we're doing things a little differently!

Our first segment is a response segment to some thoughtful, effective feedback that we were given from a listener. We really appreciated the time they took to write to us and we learned a lot thinking about the feedback! Also, to give us all time to take a breath and do some catch up, we are re-running our episode about the problems with traditional grading. This is a good time to re-listen to this episode and evaluate in preparation for next semester, are we avoiding/repairing as many of the problems with traditional grading as we can, given our own time, resources, and institutional contexts!

So - have a wonderful holiday, we'll be back with new episodes next week!

-------------------

From Episode 2 - The Problems with Traditional Grading: Before we can explore how to change our grading to be more effective, more humane, more inclusive and to better support student learning, we need to begin by examining more closely what is wrong with what we currently do. In this episode, Sharona and Bosley take a deep dive into the problems with the traditional points-and-percentages grading system. During the episode we explore:

• What do we mean by "traditional grading"?
• What is the purpose of a grade in a class?
• The lack of consistency and clarity in points-and-percentages grading
• The misuse of mathematical averages
• The inequitable nature of category weights
• Does traditional points-and-percentages grading do what we think it does?

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!

• When is a number not a number? by Robert Talbert
• A Century of Grading Research: Meaning and Value in the Most Common Educational Measure
• Iowa ASCD 15: How to Grade for Learning with Ken O’Conner | Resource - Full
• The Case Against Percentage Grades
• The Case Against the Zero
• Grading is a Scam (and motivation is a myth) - Youtube

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.

Dr. Matt Townsley is an assistant professor of educational leadership at the University of Northern Iowa and a former district adminstrator and high school math teacher. In addition to being an accomplished faculty coach and author of many books about Alternative Grading, Matt also has the distinction of having presented the highest energy presentation ever done at The Grading Conference, earning him the distinctive moniker of "The Sportscaster of Alternative Grading". Join Matt, Sharona and Bosley on this energetic, wonderfully inspirational voyage through Matt's writings, research, and experience working with educators, students and parents across the spectrum on rethinking grading.

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!

• Matt Townsley
• A Parent's Guide to Grading and Learning (Townsley)
• Using Grading to Support Student Learning (Townsley)
• Punished by Rewards (Alfie Kohn)
• Fair Isn't Always Equal (Rick Wormeli)
• The New Art and Science of Teaching (A Competency Based Education Framework) Bob Marzano
• Making Grades Matter - Standards-Based Grading in a Secondary PLC at Work (Townsley)
• Grading From the Inside Out (Schimmer)
• Leadership Change (Cotter)
• Starting the Conversation About Grading (Brookhart - pdf download)

Upcoming Conference in Iowa:

Standards Based Grading Conference: A Collaborative Assessment Conference for Iowa Schools

Comprehensive List of Resources:

All Things Standards Based Grading

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 we welcome to the pod the Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering. A public residential magnet high school in Alabama, this school was built from the ground up around the principles of alternative grading. In this episode, Sharona speaks with the President of ASCTE, Matt Massey, and the lead English Language Arts teacher Jessy Bryan. Join us as we discuss many of the experiences they had in launching this school, how they do alternative grading, and what recommendations they have for schools and/or districts wanting to work towards adopting alternative grading methods themselves.

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!

• Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering
• Matt Massey on LinkedIn

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.

Alternative grading is getting more and more press coverage. Some of it good, some of it not so good. In this episode, Sharona and Bosley look carefully at a couple of recent articles about alternative grading and discuss whether the critiques contained in them are valid or questionable.

Links to the articles discussed, and some others:

• No Zeros Grading is Sold as an Equity Shortcut. It's Not.
• Your Kids Aren't Learning: Mastery-Based Learning + Equitable Grading = Fraud
• Debunking Myths of Standards-Based Grading
• Schools are adopting mastery-based grading. How does it work? (includes citations from Sharona Krinsky)

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.

On this episode we welcome Ashleigh Fox. Ashleigh is a writing professor at Community College of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, and is doing her dissertation on best practices in Alternative Grading in Higher Education. In this conversation, we discuss successes and "not yet" successes in her courses, her dissertation research into Alternative Grading, as well as her experience attending the (mostly STEM focused) Grading Conference in June 2023.

Links

Ashleigh Fox on Linked In and at Community College of Allegheny County

Asao Inoue, Arizona State University

• Blog
• Grading Writing is a Racist Practice In Statement Magazine

Ungrading, edited by Susan D. Blum (Amazon Associates link)

Resources

The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education and 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. Clicking on them and 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.

On this episode, Bosley and Sharona speak with Dr. Jesse Stommel about his new book Undoing the Grade and about all the conversations about grades that we should be having. We touch on everything from 1000 point grading systems and the impact of Learning Management Systems to ChatGPT and seeing students as human beings. We question the very foundations of the system we call grades.

Links

Books mentioned in the episode:

• Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel
• How Children Fail, by John Holt

Contact Jesse Stommel

• www.jessestommel.com
• @Jessifer on Twitter, @Jessifer.bsky.social on Bluesky

Resources

The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education and 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:

• Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
• Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
• 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.

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.

Resources

The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education and 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. Clicking on them and 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
• 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, Bosley and Sharona discuss "Buy-In" - what it is, what exactly we are trying to get people to buy into, who we need to get buy-in from, some ideas about how and when to get buy-in, etc. Continuing the exploration into our unexamined grading practices and the similarities and differences between the K-12 and higher education worlds, we invite you to join the conversation!

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!

• Whatever it Takes by Richard DuFour
• The SAFE approach to Building Buy-In by Robert Talbert
• Building Trust by David Clark

Resources

The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education and 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. Clicking on them and 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
• 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.