The Grading Podcast

Grading reform has been a decades-long effort—but in this episode, Sharona and Boz argue that it’s now urgent. They explore what’s changed: post-pandemic student disengagement and distrust that grades reflect real learning, the way AI has shifted the conversation from “cheating” to “purpose,” and growing institutional pressure to demonstrate educational value. They frame grading as the linchpin that can either support or sabotage other reforms, then name what’s standing in the way—misconceptions about reform (“no deadlines,” “lower standards”), backlash from top-down policies without training, and the uncomfortable truth that traditional grading can let systems avoid accountability for actual learning. The episode closes with a call for listeners to help crowdsource next steps by emailing ideas to info at centerforgradingreform dot org

.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!

1. 119 – When Flexibility Isn’t Enough: Alternative Grading and Neurodivergent Students – A Conversation with Emily Pitts Donahoe and Sarah Silverman

Resources

The Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.

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

Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:

1. The Grading for Growth Blog
2. The Grading Conference
3. The Intentional Academia Blog

Recommended Books on Alternative Grading:

1. Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
2. Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
3. Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel

Follow us on Bluesky, 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, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

In this episode, Sharona and Boz discuss the recent grading controversy at the University of Oklahoma and use it as a launching point to focus on why rubrics matter so much to grading integrity, consistency and student learning. They reflect on how loosely defined criteria invite subjectivity, create wildly different grading outcomes for the same work, and leave students guessing about what “counts” as quality.

Rather than debating the specific incident, they dissect the difference between scoring guides and true rubrics, the importance of clearly defined performance levels, and how rubric design shapes whether grades function as feedback or as punishment. The conversation emphasizes rubrics as communication tools—meant to make expectations visible, learning improvable, and grading decisions defensible.

Ultimately, strong rubrics are not about compliance or point allocation, but about aligning assessment with learning goals, supporting revision and growth, and reducing the hidden curriculum that traditional grading too often creates.

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!

1. University of Oklahoma student claims religious discrimination over failed essay: What we know
2. OU Essay Controversy: What Happened in the Samantha Fulnecky Case
3. How to Design Effective Rubrics
4. Rubrics in higher education: an exploration of undergraduate students’ understanding and perspectives
5. Steps to Designing a Rubric (Video)
6. Rubric for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Concert (A. Ransom)

Resources

The Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.

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

Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:

1. The Grading for Growth Blog
2. The Grading Conference
3. The Intentional Academia Blog

Recommended Books on Alternative Grading:

1. Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
2. Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
3. Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel

Follow us on Bluesky, 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, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Happy New Year! We are taking a small break this week from releasing new episodes, so please enjoy our most popular episode from 2025. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode!

In this episode, Sharona and Bosley share some of the top line results of a direct comparison between traditional grading and alternative grading. In a tightly coordinated course with many instructors, sections and students, half of the sections used traditional grading and half used alternative grading. This is a fascinating dive into what does "traditional" grading mean, and how do those impacts show up in the classroom.

Resources

The Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.

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

Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:

1. The Grading for Growth Blog
2. The Grading Conference
3. The Intentional Academia Blog

Recommended Books on Alternative Grading:

1. Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
2. Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
3. Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel

Follow us on Bluesky, 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, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Happy Holidays! We're taking the week off from recording, so enjoy this replay about visionary leadership!!

In this episode, Sharona and Boz interview Doug Wilson, principal of Avondale High School in Michigan, about his advice on implementing building-wide grading reform. This discussion touches on ways of being a visionary leader, how to move towards culture change around grades, and advice to administrators (and teachers!) on how to question our practices with an eye towards improving kids' learning. Join us for this fascinating conversation to move forward with grading reform.

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!

1. Materials from Doug Wilson supporting Grading Reform (Google Folder Link)
2. Building Thinking Classrooms, by Peter Liljedahl

Resources

The Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.

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

Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:

1. The Grading for Growth Blog
2. The Grading Conference
3. The Intentional Academia Blog

Recommended Books on Alternative Grading:

1. Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
2. Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
3. Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel

Follow us on Bluesky, 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, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Dr. Stephanie Valentine (University of Nebraska–Lincoln) joins Sharona and Boz to tell the origin story behind TeachFront—a grading-and-feedback platform she and her students built after getting buried in spreadsheets trying to make standards-based / ungrading-style systems work at scale.

They dig into what shifted when grades stopped being “points to litigate” and became feedback for growth, what went wrong (and what finally worked) in those early semesters, and why most LMS gradebooks still force instructors to “hack” systems designed for averages. Stephanie explains how TeachFront supports iterative feedback, reassessments, flexible mastery scales (including specs-style checkboxes), and clearer student-facing progress visuals—without putting points front-and-center.

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!

• TeachFront.com
• Youtube Webinar on Using TeachFront
• Episode 120 - Learning Takes Time with Wendy Smith

Resources

The Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.

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:

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

Follow us on Bluesky, 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, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

What happens to grading when AI can do so much of what we’ve traditionally asked students to do by hand? In this episode, Boz and Sharona talk with educator, author, and podcaster Derek Bruff about his three-stage journey into mastery-based assessment, from early test corrections to coordinated mastery quizzes to rebuilding exams in a cryptography seminar—then zoom out to the upcoming Alternative Grading Institute at UVA, where faculty will redesign courses around specs, standards-based, and collaborative grading in response to pandemic-era lessons, public skepticism about higher ed, and the rise of generative AI.

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!

• Agile Learning - Derek Bruff's Blog on Teaching and Learning
• Intentional Teaching Podcast Interview with Robert Talbert and David Clark
• Intentional Teaching Podcast Interview with Eden Tanner
• The Norton Guide to AI-Aware Teaching (forthcoming)
• The UVA Teaching Hub
• Cheating Lessons, by James Lang

Resources

The Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.

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:

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

Follow us on Bluesky, 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, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

In this episode, Boz and Sharona take on a big question: What should we be doing to our courses, right now, in an AI-saturated world—without losing the human relationships that actually keep students in school?

Sharona shares her own urgency as she prepares to return to teaching precalculus for the first time in a decade, while hearing college students (including her own kids) question whether higher ed is “worth it” when AI can do so much of the procedural work. Together, she and Boz lay out five concrete steps instructors can use to rethink their courses immediately.

Along the way, they connect AI, course purpose, practice standards, assessment design, and in-class activities back to what the research keeps telling us: students stay when at least one adult clearly cares that they’re there.

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 Future of Math Class: How AI Could Transform Instruction
• NCTM position statement on AI and Math Teaching
• How AI is Reshaping Higher Education
• How artificial intelligence in education is transforming classrooms
• Episode 66 of The Grading Podcast - Perseverance as a Critical Skill for Student Success in Alt Grading
• Why AI may kill career advancement for many young workers
• The Course Redesign Cycle

Resources

The Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.

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:

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

Follow us on Bluesky, 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, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Happy Thanksgiving! We're on a break this week so enjoy this replay of episode 46!

On this episode we welcome back the "sportscaster" of Alternative Grading, Dr. Matt Townsley, to talk about his new book Extinguishing the Fires within Assessment and Grading Reform. As Alternative Grading practices grow and take shape throughout the United States, efforts to resist these reforms are also growing. This incredible new book offers practical guidance to navigating the complexities of transitioning to alternative grading architectures and how to address the seemingly inevitable pushback that many of us are now experiencing. Based on the lived experiences of the authors, this book is a MUST READ for anyone concerned about advocating for grading reform.

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!

• Extinguishing the Fires Within Assessment and Grading Reform, Garth Larson, Becky Peppler, Don Smith, Matt Townsley.

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 Boz dive into a concept new to many educators — Teacher Assessment Identity — and explore how teachers’ beliefs, experiences, and professional contexts shape the way they design, interpret, and use assessments.

Sharona introduces the idea after hearing about new research connecting assessment practices to teacher identity, and then leads Boz through a live, on-air reflective interview designed to help him uncover his own “assessment identity.” Together, they model how teachers can ask deep reflective questions about the why behind their assessment choices — revealing that grading and assessment reform are inseparable parts of the same professional journey.

What follows is part self-assessment, part coaching session, and part exploration of how personal, disciplinary, and institutional identities influence assessment ethics, feedback, and student 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!

• How does assessment shape student identities? An integrative review
• Assess That Podcast - Episode 20
• Evidence of teacher assessment work and its relationship to their assessment identity
• Challenging Assumptions: AI and Teacher Assessment Identity Formation
• Beyond the gradebook: embracing the potentials of teacher assessment identity (TAI) in (re)shaping English language professors’ professional development and success in higher education
• Teacher assessment literacy in practice: A reconceptualization
• Reconceptualising the role of teachers as assessors: teacher assessment identity

Resources

The Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.

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:

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

Follow us on Bluesky, 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, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

In this episode, Sharona and Boz follow up on episode 121 and sit down with Dr. Sharon Stranford, Professor of Biology at Pomona College, to explore her journey from traditional grading toward ungrading and collaborative grading in STEM. Sharon shares how her experiences as a first-generation college student, a long-time practitioner of just-in-time teaching, and a pandemic-era educator led her to reimagine how feedback, mastery, and motivation intersect in the science classroom.

She explains how she replaced numbers and letters with meaningful dialogue, feedback, and self-assessment, helping students shift from “What’s my grade?” to “What have I learned?” Along the way, she describes how personal goals, SMART reflections, and one-on-one mastery conversations help students develop agency and persistence—while also transforming the teacher–student relationship.

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!

• Just-In-Time Teaching: Blending Active Learning with Web Technology, Novak, G. Et Al
• Enhancing and Undermining Intrinsic Motivation: The Effects of Task-Involving and Ego-Involving Evaluation on Interest and Performance.British Journal of Educational Psychology. Butler, R, Et Al

Resources

The Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.

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:

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

Follow us on Bluesky, 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, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.