Grow Beyond Grades

Episode 51 - Assessing Holistically w/Carissa McCray

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sat, 18 Nov 2023 13:54:33 GMT

Carissa McCray is a member of Research, Advocacy, Collaboration, and Empowerment Mentoring program, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and the American Educational Research Association. She has presented across the United States on topics ranging from implementing social-emotional strategies in the classroom to culturally responsive teaching techniques through the lens of critical race theory. Her ongoing scholarship and practitioner-based work are driven by creating equitable learning opportunities through the inclusion of multicultural literature, media, and curricula.

Topics include:

How an equitable, inclusive, culturally competent classroom is a departure from the status quo
Why an equitable, inclusive education is important in our global society
What role assessment plays in fostering an equitable learning environment
How we can use data to better serve our students
Why the “story” told by standardized testing data misses the mark
How deemphasizing grades can align with the goals of equitable instruction
Why we should assess students holistically, realizing that “everything is assessment”

Resources

Everything is Assessment⁠ (TG2 blog post)
⁠Equitable Instruction, Empowered Students: A Teacher’s Guide to Inclusive and Culturally Competent Classrooms⁠ (book by Dr. Carissa McCray)
⁠Mirrors and windows: Using the five senses and more to plan culturally responsive instruction⁠ (interview for the Yes and Know podcast)
⁠Five things we need to stop saying about our students⁠ (interview for the Leading Equity podcast)
⁠Multicultural Literature as Critical Literature: Redefine the Trajectory for Students of Color⁠ (chapter in the anthology Research Anthology on Racial Equity, Identity, and Privilege)

Episode 54 - Centering Student Strengths w/Dr. Kelsie Reed

Teachers Going Gradeless — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 21:22:25 GMT

Dr. Kelsie Reed is a nationally certified school psychologist serving elementary and middle schools in Prince George's County Public Schools, Maryland. She is the co-author of Hacking Deficit Thinking, a book that outlines eight practical reframes for fostering strength-based schools. As the founder of the Strength-Based Collective, Dr. Reed provides educators and parents with practical tools and resources to cultivate positive, strength-focused environments for all students. Her work centers on dismantling deficit-based narratives, particularly for students from historically marginalized communities. Dr. Reed is also a strong advocate for school discipline reform, neurodiversity-affirming special education practices, and addressing the unique needs of multiracial students. Resources Hacking Deficit Thinking by Byron McClure and Kelsie Reed: https://a.co/d/6B3xG5Q Strength-Based Collective website: https://www.strengthbasedcollective.com Instagram: /bestrengthbased Music licensed through podcastmusic.com Luminosity by Austin Filingo (Atomica Music)

Episode 44 - Taking Grades Off the Table w/Vanessa Ellis

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 23 Apr 2023 21:35:33 GMT

Vanessa Ellis is an 8th-grade social studies teacher at Veterans Memorial Middle School in Columbus, Georgia. In 2017, Vanessa was named a Georgia Economics Teacher of the Year, and in 2018, she was selected as a Harvard Fellow to study research-based practices in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2022, she was honored as Teacher of the Year for her school and for the Muscogee County School District. This year, she officially joined our team here at TG2 and is currently one of ten finalists for Georgia Teacher of the Year. She resides in Midland, Georgia, with her husband and three children.

Other resources

Blog posts on Teachers Going Gradeless:
Vanessa on the web:
- On Instagram: heymrsellis
- On Twitter: @heymrsellis
- On Linktree: @heymrsellis
- YouTube Channel

Episode 18 - Grading for Equity during COVID-19 with Joe Feldman

Teachers Going Gradeless — Fri, 24 Apr 2020 21:00:00 GMT

Joe Feldman is the author of Grading for Equity: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How It Can Transform Schools and Classrooms (Corwin). Joe has worked in education as a teacher, principal, district administrator, and is now founder of Crescendo Education Group, which since 2013 has supported schools in adopting assessment, grading, and reporting practices that improve equity outcomes in schools.

Topics include:

How Joe came to see equity as the central issue in grading practice
Common grading practices are most susceptible to implicit bias and inequity
How grading policies for remote learning during COVID-19 can mitigate or exacerbate inequities
What we can take from the COVID-19 crisis that could lead to more equitable outcomes in the future

Resources:

gradingforequity.org
Grading for Equity: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How It Can Transform Schools and Classrooms
Grading for Equity Online Course
#TG2Chat: Grading for Equity During COVID-19 - April 26, 2020
Panel Discussion on Grading/Crediting Policies During COVID-19: Joe is joined by Denise Pope, Ph.D., Stanford Lecturer and Co-Founder of Challenge Success; Stacy Caldwell, M.A., M.B.A., Executive Director or Mastery Transcript Consortium; and Randall Booker, Superintendent of Piedmont Unified School District.
Open Letter to the College Board on Plan for Online Testing During COVID-19

Make sure to join Joe as he moderates #TG2Chat this Sunday, April 26, at 9 pm EDT/6 pm PDT!

Episode 50 - Leveling Up w/Fabiola Torres

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sat, 21 Oct 2023 23:28:20 GMT

Fabiola "Fabi" Torres is an online Ethnic Studies professor and Certified Faculty Developer at Glendale Community College. During the pandemic, she has led nationwide workshops and courses on applying equity-minded methods such as culturally responsive teaching in the online environment, humanizing online teaching and learning as well as ungrading practices.

With dual M.A. degrees in Chicana/o Studies and Learning Technology, Fabi was featured at InstructureCon 2019 for her work in humanizing online education. In 2020, she received the Online Learning Consortium Advocate Award for Diversity and Inclusion and the Distinguished Faculty Award at Glendale Community College. In the summer of 2023, Fabi was named one of the top 30 education technology influencers for EdTech Magazine.

Fabiola is a fur-mommy of Luke, Leia and Wookie.

Topics include

What inspired Fabiola to become a community college professor
How current events influenced Fabi to stop ‘policing’ her students by moving toward ungrading
How Fabi used the summer of 2020 to develop and design her own approach to ungrading
How ungrading caused Fabi’s curriculum and assignments to change
Why Fabi believes grades “detonate” in the souls of our students, and how her form of ungrading eliminates or at least buffers students from this experience
How Fabi’s students use her REDO process—Reflect, Edit, Discover and Observe—to articulate their own learning patterns and strategies, as well as identify obstacles
How technology supports—and, in some cases, impedes—teaching and learning
How AI is currently influencing teaching and learning in Fabi’s classes and where she thinks it’s all headed

Other resources

Discovering The Spark Of Teaching & Learning Through Equitable Grading (article for California Virtual Campus Online Network of Educators)
Grades Suck: Fabi’s video representing her core beliefs about learning and the problems with grades. The implementation of UnGrading will be provided in the Orientation Module is Canvas.
UnGrading In Ethnic Studies 121: Fabi’s webpage for explaining ungrading to her students.

Episode 39 - Hover-free Teaching w/Miriam Plotinsky

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 30 Oct 2022 12:50:29 GMT

Miriam Plotinsky is an author and instructional specialist who addresses challenges in both teaching and leading across schools with a wide range of differentiated needs. A strong advocate for student-centered learning, she provides coaching and professional development for teachers and administrators. She is the author of Teach More, Hover Less: How to Stop Micromanaging Your Secondary Classroom and Lead Like a Teacher: How to Elevate Expertise in Your School (Norton Books in Education, 2022 & 2023). Miriam is widely published in Education Week, Edutopia, ASCD Express, Middleweb, The Teaching Channel, EdSurge, K-12 Talk, and Education World. She is also a National Board-Certified Teacher with additional certification in administration and supervision.

Episode 45 - Toward Assessment Utopias w/Juuso Nieminen

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sat, 13 May 2023 09:59:21 GMT

Dr. Juuso Nieminen is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong and a Banting Fellow at Ontario Tech University, Canada. He studies the social, cultural, and political aspects of assessment. Why do we assess the way we do? Dr. Nieminen’s research focuses on the student perspective in assessment. He is particularly interested in how assessment shapes students’ identities in higher education and beyond. Dr Nieminen has also examined the matters of disability inclusion and accessibility in assessment.

Other resources:

Toward assessment utopias! A call for educational activism to address the issues of power in grading (blog post co-written with Chris Dite)
Assessment for Inclusion: rethinking inclusive assessment in higher education (Journal of Higher Education)
www.juusonieminen.com
On Twitter @JuusoNieminen

Episode 48 - The Mastery Transcript w/Mike Flanagan

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sat, 09 Sep 2023 13:25:13 GMT

Mike Flanagan is the CEO of the Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC), a growing group of high schools creating a digital high school transcript that opens up opportunity for each and every student—from all backgrounds, locations, and types of schools—to have their unique strengths, abilities, interests, and histories fostered, understood, and celebrated.

Mike oversaw the design and development of Mastery Transcript software products, connecting with members and advisors to manage the MTC product roadmap until May 2021. He is an experienced education technology executive, most recently having served as CEO of the Services Division at the National Association of Independent Schools, where he led a complete redesign and relaunch of their School and Student Services financial aid platforms.

Topics include

How Mike’s background in education and technology influenced his interest and involvement in the Mastery Transcript Consortium
The genesis and history of the Mastery Transcript, as well as some of the troubling statistics behind the traditional measures of grades, GPA, and test scores
What the Mastery Transcript is and what schools in the Mastery Transcript Consortium have in common
What mastery learning is and how it accelerates and enhances equity
How schools or districts might know if they are ready to work with MTC
What colleges, admissions offices, and admissions officers have to say about the Mastery Transcript

Other resources

What We Do: Key principles, features, and benefits of the Mastery Transcript
MTC Community Talkback: Competency-based Credentials: This topical, cross-sector discussion features insights from representatives of America Succeeds, CAPS Network, Education Reimagined, Envision Learning Partners and Jobs for the Future.
Mastery Transcript Tour: Susie Bell, Senior Director of Member School Engagement, explains Mastery Learning and how the Mastery Transcript facilitates and propels it.

Episode 47 - Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education w/Alex Shevrin Venet

Teachers Going Gradeless — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 01:17:16 GMT

Alex Shevrin Venet is an educator, author, and professional development facilitator based in Vermont. She teaches community college and graduate teacher education. Previously, she was a teacher and leader at an alternative therapeutic school. She is the co-founder of the Nurturing the Nurturers collective, a healing community for educators. Her first book, Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education, is a bestseller at W.W. Norton. She is also a long-time ungrader!

Topics include:

How Alex’s personal background and professional experiences led to her interest in trauma-informed education
How Alex defines trauma in the context of her work in schools
How centering four “proactive priorities” can help schools move toward more equitable and trauma-informed systems and decisions
How the proactive priorities can be used to make ungrading more equitable, inclusive, and trauma informed
How teachers can collectively work to make change at all levels of the system at the same time
Why grades can be a barrier to unconditional acceptance

Other resources:

Alex’s book: Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education
Alex’s website: unconditionallearning.org

Episode 22 - College Under COVID-19 - Part 1

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 21:00:00 GMT

In this episode, I sit down with three college educators known for their commitment to creating inclusive, humane educational spaces—both in the classroom and online. All three of them have experimented with different forms of going gradeless as part of this commitment. All three have given considerable thought about teaching under the current pandemic. You can check out Part 2 of this interview here.

Maha Bali is associate professor of practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at the American University in Cairo. She is also the co-founder and co-director of Virtually Connecting, a grassroots movement that organizes hybrid hallway conversations at conferences for virtual participants, and co-facilitator of Equity Unbound, an equity-focused intercultural curriculum for teaching digital literacies. You can find more of Maha’s writing at her blog Reflecting Allowed and follow her on Twitter at @Bali_Maha.

Asao B. Inoue is Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Equity, and Inclusion for the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts at Arizona State University. He is the 2019 Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication. He has published a co-edited collection, Writing Assessment, Social Justice, and The Advancement of Opportunity, and a book, Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom. You can find more of Asao’s writing at his blog Asao B. Inoue's Infrequent Words and follow him on Twitter at @AsaoBInoue.

Jesse Stommel is a Digital Learning Fellow and Senior Lecturer of Digital Studies at University of Mary Washington. He is co-founder of Digital Pedagogy Lab and Hybrid Pedagogy: the journal of critical digital pedagogy. He is co-author of An Urgency of Teachers: the Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy. Jesse is a documentary filmmaker and teaches courses about pedagogy, film, and new media. Jesse experiments relentlessly with learning interfaces, both digital and analog, and his research focuses on higher education pedagogy, critical digital pedagogy, and assessment. You can find more of Jesse’s writing at jessestommel.com and follow him on Twitter at @jessifer.

Episode 19 - "Do No Harm" with Monte Syrie, Dr. Manuel Rustin, and Ken O'Connor

Teachers Going Gradeless — Mon, 11 May 2020 21:00:00 GMT

This episode explores "Do No Harm" grading as a response to distance learning in the midst of COVID-19. Educators across the country are experiencing first hand how online distance learning exacerbates inequities in education. Students are struggling with more than access to proper technology and internet connectivity. There are inequities in supports, environments, and time constraints.

On April 22nd, Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Chris Reykdal, released a video announcing its Do No Harm grading policy. The State’s policy was written to ensure that students were not punished for a situation outside of their control that could impact future opportunities. The policy states that high schools will only give letter grades of A-D, no student can receive an F, and student grades cannot be negatively impacted—they can only improve.

This episode explores three perspectives on grading during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Monte Syrie

Monte is an English teacher in Chaney, Washington. He is a 2013 Washington State Teacher of the Year finalist, Adjunct professor at Eastern Washington University, and the author of the blog Project 180.

Let's Change Education Blog

Dr. Manuel Rustin

Dr. Manuel Rustin. Manuel is a high school history teacher in Pasadena California. He is the co-host of the show All of the Above, authors a blog on Medium, where he published his piece, Give them All A’s and the recipient of the Milken Educator Award in 2011.

Dr. Rustin's Blog on Medium

All of the Above Podcast

Ken O’Connor

Ken O’Connor is an education consultant, speaker, and author. Ken’s books include 15 Fixes for Broken Grades and How to Grade for Learning,

O'Connor Grading

Episode 6 - Motivation with Alfie Kohn

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 28 Jan 2018 20:00:00 GMT

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"

Episode 16 - School Leadership with Eric Saibel

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 20:00:00 GMT

Eric is a principal at Hall Middle School in Larkspur, CA. Eric is the co-founder of Global School Play Day which is dedicated to promoting the idea that kids learn more when they play.

In this episode of TG2Cast Chris and I discuss Progressive Education, what is it, and how teachers interested in Progressive Education can get started.

Topics include:

Eric’s philosophy of leadership
Concerns about teacher insularity
How to break the cycle of teacher insularity
How going gradeless impacted his school

Resources:

Episode 1 - Providing Feedback to Writers with Patty McGee

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sat, 11 Nov 2017 20:00:00 GMT

This episode features an interview with Patty McGee, author of the book Feedback That Moves Writers Forward.

Topics include:

How to use the "Power of Three" in feedback.
Strategies to help the stuck and reluctant writers
The importance of setting writing goals
How and when to introduce grammar
How feedback works at the middle, secondary, and college levels

Episode 56 - Where the Learning Happens w/Mike Rutherford

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sat, 11 Jan 2025 14:47:42 GMT

Mike Rutherford is the founder of gotLearning, an EdTech company that revolutionizes learning conversations between teachers and students while using generative AI and Natural Language Processing to analyze large amounts of student learning data. Mike’s passion for education and technology stems from a diverse career as a teacher, technology director, publishing executive, and entrepreneur. Mike's experience spans K-12 education, including international teaching in Bangkok. gotLearning's newest tool, LearningPulse, recently earned a National Science Foundation grant.

Mike also teaches one class of middle school English Language Arts three times a week, ensuring his work remains grounded in real-world classroom needs.

Resources

Introducing gotFeedback
What is Learning Evidence Analysis?
Capturing Student Learning As It Happens (blog post for GBG)

Episode 42 - Centering Joy in the Classroom w/Liz Norell

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 05 Feb 2023 15:06:01 GMT

Liz Norell is passionate about great teaching and student success. As a political scientist (well, really, a political psychologist), she's motivated to understand how/why we develop the political beliefs we do...and how to have more productive dialogue across differences. As a faculty member and mentor, she loves brainstorming ways to make classrooms more inclusive, engaging, exciting, relevant, and welcoming spaces for learning. She embraces pedagogies of equity and care, including the full spectrum of ungrading. She loves to talk with other teachers about teaching. You can follow her musings at her blog, www.liznorell.com, and on Twitter @liznorell.

Episode 7 - Playgrounds and Personalization with Mariana Morales Lobo

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 11 Feb 2018 20:00:00 GMT

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

Episode 46 - Telling the Whole Story w/Nate Bowling

Teachers Going Gradeless — Thu, 25 May 2023 12:20:52 GMT

Nate Bowling teaches Social Studies at a US Embassy School in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. He is a past Washington State Teacher of the Year and National Teacher of the Year Finalist. He and his wife blog about living and teaching overseas at BowlingsAbroad.com and he is the host of the Nerd Farmer Podcast on the Channel 253 Podcast Network. He writes a weekly newsletter called Takes & Typos on Substack and you can find him on Mastodon’s Scholar.Social as @natebowling.

Topics include:

Nate’s changing perspective, from urging equitable access to AP classes to calling for an end to schools’ partnership with the College Board
Why Nate thinks states and state universities can serve the same purposes of—and do a better job than—the College Board
How the pandemic changed some of Nate’s thoughts and practices around grading
How Nate’s narrative transcript from Evergreen State College in Washington informed his thinking about assessment and evaluation
The best and worst things that Disney has done with the Star Wars franchise

Other resources:

On Teachers Going Gradeless:
- We Don’t Need the College Board
- Taking Unneeded Anxiety Out of Assessment
- Testing, COVID-19, and the College Board (TG2Chat LIVE! Episode 17, April 20, 2020)
An open letter to the College Board about online, at-home AP tests (April 22, 2020)

Episode 8 - How to Grade for Learning with Ken O'Connor

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 18 Mar 2018 19:00:00 GMT

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

Episode 52 - Paul Emerich France

Teachers Going Gradeless — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 12:52:51 GMT

Paul Emerich France is a National Board Certified Teacher, instructional coach, keynote speaker, and adjunct professor with over a decade of experience in the classroom, teaching grades transitional kindergarten through fifth grade. He is the author of Reclaiming Personalized Learning: A Pedagogy for Restoring Equity and Humanity in Our Classrooms and Make Teaching Sustainable with ASCD. His work is featured in Edutopia, EdSurge, ASCD’s Educational Leadership, and Learning Forward’s The Learning Professional. Recently, Paul has partnered with SXSW EDU, Jefferson County Public Schools, ASCD, National Board, and Northwestern University.

Topics include:

Paul’s journey to discovering the imperative of making teaching more sustainable
The six shifts identified in Paul’s Sustainable Teaching Project, along with examples of how they can be implemented in classes
Why personalization is not the same as individualization
How “low-floor/high-ceiling” learning activities leverage universal design principles to embed pathways for learners of all abilities

Resources

Personalized Learning Should Be Sustainable (blog post)
The Sustainable Teaching Project (website, Instagram, Twitter)
Six Mindset Shifts to Make Teaching Sustainable (ASCD)

Episode 14 - Environmental Learning with Skylar Primm

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 23 Jun 2019 20:00:00 GMT

Skylar is a co-lead teacher and advisor at High Marq Environmental Charter School, the treasurer for Wisconsin Association for Environmental Education, and a fellow of the Greater Madison Writing Project. His teaching practice is grounded in Project-Based Learning that allows education to be used as a tool to connect youth with their community and become environmentally conscious citizens.

In this episode of TG2Cast Skylar and I discuss how Project Based and Environmental Learning create authentic learning experiences for students.

Topics include:

What is Environmental Education and how does it fit with Project Based Learning?
The philosophy behind Project Based and Environmental Learning.
How parents and students perceive Project Based Learning.
Why Project Based Learning and gradeless pedagogy go hand in hand.
How Project Based Learning and gradeless students perform beyond high school.

Resources:

Episode 5 - Grades and the Future of Schools with Benjamin Doxtdator

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 20:00:00 GMT

This episode features an interview with Benjamin Doxtdator, a middle school language arts teacher at an international school in Brussels, Belgium. Benjamin is probably best known for his essays on his blog Longview on Education at longviewoneducation.org.

Topics include:

How deemphasizing grades reflects Benjamin's commitments as a teacher
The potential pitfalls of a more gradeless future
The rhetoric of education reform, educational technology, and futurism
How tapping into and cultivating community can help us our voice as educators

Episode 24 - Pointless with Sarah M. Zerwin

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sat, 26 Sep 2020 21:00:00 GMT

Sarah M. Zerwin teaches Senior Language Arts and AP Lit at Fairview High School in Boulder, Colorado, and author of the book Point-Less: An English Teacher’s Guide to More. You can follow her blog The Paper Graders and on twitter at @SarahMZerwin

Topics include:

What led to the idea that points get in the way of learning.
How to identify learning targets and communicate them to students.
How to establish a culture of feedback and maintain it throughout the year.
How to report a final grade at the end of a term.

Resources:

Sarah’s book Point-Less: An English Teacher’s Guide to More.
Sarah’s blog The Paper Graders

Episode 3 - Shift This! with Joy Kirr

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 20:00:00 GMT

This episode features an interview with Joy Kirr, author of the book Shift This! How to Implement Gradual Changes for MASSIVE Impact in Your Classroom.

Topics include:

Why Joy decided to write the book
How to create a positive classroom culture
Dilemmas of grading and reporting learning
How to implement Genius Hour
Other shifts Joy is making after publishing the book

Episode 40 - There's No One Right Way to Ungrade!

Teachers Going Gradeless — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 12:46:42 GMT

Because ungrading is essentially an emancipatory practice, it cannot be held to one formula or singular standard. Instead, ungrading relies on a robust community of educators to circulate, celebrate, and elevate the practice in its various forms. Lisa Wennerth, welcomes four trailblazing educators—Liz Leininger, Rita Shah, Firas Moosvi, and Taylor Vivanco—whose article “Why There Isn’t One ‘Right Way’ to Practice Ungrading” posits ungrading as a fundamentally open, welcoming, and responsive practice for all—not just the elite few. This podcast originates from an earlier Special Community Gathering, where Lisa first facilitated a discussion with our guests and then opened the floor to questions from participants.

Episode 10 - How to Go Gradeless with Andrew Burnett

Teachers Going Gradeless — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 19:00:00 GMT

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

Episode 49 - Undoing the Grade w/Jesse Stommel

Teachers Going Gradeless — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 16:30:54 GMT

Jesse Stommel is a faculty member in the Writing Program at University of Denver. He is also co-founder of Hybrid Pedagogy: the journal of critical digital pedagogy and Digital Pedagogy Lab. He has a PhD from University of Colorado Boulder. He is co-author of An Urgency of Teachers: the Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy.

Jesse is a documentary filmmaker and teaches courses about pedagogy, film, digital studies, and composition. Jesse experiments relentlessly with learning interfaces, both digital and analog, and his research focuses on higher education pedagogy, critical digital pedagogy, and assessment. He’s got a rascal pup, Emily, a clever cat, Loki, and a badass daughter, Hazel.

Originally aired as a live Community Gathering, where Vanessa Ellis interviewed Jesse on his book, Undoing the Grade: Why We Grade, and How to Stop, and then opened the floor to questions for participants.

Topics include

Do we need the word 'ungrading'? Why can this term be problematic?

What ungrading has looked like throughout Jesse’s career

How the work of scholars like bell hooks, Kevin Gannon, and Paulo Freire have influenced Jesse’s ungrading philosophy

Why ungrading is not ideologically neutral work

How ungrading can empower students and support their agency

Why ungrading is less about shifting policies and more about building community

The "necessary practices" educators must implement to make teaching and learning more equitable

Other resources

Blog posts included in Jesse’s book:

An Introduction to Ungrading

Toward a Cointentional Approach to Assessment

Ungrading for Equity

Episode 11 - School Culture with Bennett Jester

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 16 Sep 2018 20:00:00 GMT

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

Episode 20 - Grading in the New Normal with Jay Percell

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 24 May 2020 21:00:00 GMT

As the school year draws to a close and final grades are calculated, it is becoming clear that traditional grading is inequitable. Some students are able to remain engaged while others, for various reasons, cannot. Schools need to provide some form of summative reporting. The question is, “How can we move forward?”

Jay Percell, Ed.D. is an Assistant Professor of Teaching and Learning at Illinois State University, an author of several academic essays, and a TEDx presenter. In this episode, Jay discusses the problems with traditional grades and how the pandemic can help push us toward practices that are more accurate, equitable, and humane.

Resources:

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

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 27 Jan 2019 21:00:00 GMT

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)

Episode 13 - The Impact of Grades with Jeff Frieden

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 24 Feb 2019 21:00:00 GMT

Jeff is an English Language Arts teacher at Hillcrest High School in Riverside, California. Over his 14 years in teaching, he has taught at 3 high schools, chaired two departments, and served on several different committees. Recently, Jeff decided to use summative conferencing in his class and learned a lot about his students.

In this episode of TG2Cast Jeff and I discuss the impact of grades from the perspective of one of his students.

Topics include:

How students see themselves through the lens of grades.
How grades impact the student/teacher relationship.
How grades shape the identity of a student.
Why teachers need to take the time to talk to students in order to understand their perspective.

Resources:

Episode 2 - Why I Don't Grade with Jesse Stommel

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 26 Nov 2017 20:00:00 GMT

This episode features an interview with Jesse Stommel, Executive Director of the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies at University of Mary Washington. He is Co-founder of Digital Pedagogy Lab and Hybrid Pedagogy: a digital journal of learning, teaching, and technology. In addition to his focus on digital and critical pedagogy, Jesse has been a gradeless educator for his entire career, as he recounts in his blog post "Why I Don't Grade."

Topics include:

Why grades are "the biggest and most insidious obstacle to education”
How de-emphasizing grades coincides with a pedagogy of equity and social justice
Why a gradeless space will not automatically be an equitable one
How seemingly neutral platforms can flatten differences and influence pedagogies
How we need to think about going gradeless in order it to be liberatory, transformative, an act of resistance

Episode 55 - Multimodal Composition w/Angela Stockman

Teachers Going Gradeless — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 22:42:56 GMT

Angela Stockman is an instructor in the Department of Education at Daemen University in Amherst, New York. The author of several books on multiliteracy instruction, she is regularly invited to lead curriculum and assessment design work in K-12 schools, where she has also facilitated the shift to standards based grading and reporting. A former public school teacher, Angela spent fifteen years in the classroom before becoming an independent professional learning facilitator.

Resources

angelastockman.com

Episode 38 - Go Out on the Branch! w/Jay Percell

Teachers Going Gradeless — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 22:10:43 GMT

Jay Percell, Ed.D. is an Associate Professor of Teaching and Learning at Illinois State University, an author of several academic essays, and a TEDx presenter. Michelle Cottrell-Williams hosts as Jay shares his reasons for moving away from traditional grades and toward a classroom where learning, improvement, and growth is the focus. Resources: Jay's TEDx Talk: "Make Grading Point-less: Eliminating Points to Foster Student Motivation" Essentially Point-Less: The Influence Of Alternative, Non PointsBased Grading On Teachers' Instructional Practices (Article)

Episode 9 - Social Justice Education with Dan Scratch

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 25 Mar 2018 19:00:00 GMT

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

Episode 17 - Testing, COVID-19, and the College Board with Nate Bowling

Teachers Going Gradeless — Mon, 20 Apr 2020 20:00:00 GMT

Nate Bowling an AP social studies teacher and emigrant to the United Arab Emirates. In his teaching, writing, and advocacy, Nate challenges the politics and policies that impact his students, his classroom, and society at large.

Topics include:

What prompted Nate to leave Tacoma and take up teaching in the UAE
Why the job of teaching and learning in a low-income schools in the United States as currently constructed is unsustainable
Why the College Board’s plan to test during the COVID-19 crisis is inequitable and flawed
Whether the College Board’s reductive focus effectively prevents teachers from being responsive in the way this political moment demands
Why Nate is not entirely opposed to standardization and testing
How Nate really feels about the Star Wars prequel and sequel trilogies

Resources:

Episode 21 - Leading Equity with Dr. Sheldon Eakins

Teachers Going Gradeless — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 21:00:00 GMT

Sheldon L. Eakins, Ph.D. is the founder of the Leading Equity Center and host of the Leading Equity Podcast. With over 11 years in education, he has served as a teacher, principal, and Director of Special Education. Dr. Eakins has a passion for helping educators accomplish equitable practices in their schools. You can follow him on Twitter at @sheldoneakins.

Topics include:

What is equity and how we make sure it maintains that urgency and doesn’t become another buzzword or checklist
What elements of equity have been most endangered under COVID-19
How to examine distance learning practices from the standpoint of equity
How COVID-19 may have removed certain barriers to equity
How grades undermine efforts toward more equitable, culturally sustaining practices
How educators should respond to ongoing racial injustice and violence

Episode 4 - Experts in the Classroom with Starr Sackstein

Teachers Going Gradeless — Mon, 01 Jan 2018 20:00:00 GMT

This episode features an interview with Starr Sackstein, author of the book Peer Feedback in the Classroom and Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School.

Topics include:

What are peer experts?
Why use peer experts?
How to implement peer experts in the classroom
How to maximize the effectiveness of peer experts

Episode 41 - Capturing Student Learning as It Happens w/Mike Rutherford

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 01 Jan 2023 14:23:02 GMT

Mike Rutherford is a lifelong teacher and learner. Eight years ago, he returned to the classroom as a middle school English and Social Studies teacher after many years in the education private sector with Blackboard and Just ASK Publications & Professional Development. Prior to his time in the private sector, Mike was a middle school teacher and technology training specialist in Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia, and an EdTech Director for the City of Manassas Public Schools. Mike created gotLearning as a classroom teacher to manage the constant barrage of student learning data coming from so many different sources. Mike lives in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania with his educator wife, Elizabeth, and two dogs, Luna and Bella, who are two of gotLearning's four official office dogs.

Episode 53 - Does Testing Miss the Mark? w/Akil Bello

Teachers Going Gradeless — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 12:06:24 GMT

Our guest on the Grow Beyond Grades podcast is Akil Bello, an expert in educational access with over 30 years of experience. Akil began his career as a test proctor in 1990 and has since held roles from CEO to consultant, working to improve outcomes for underserved students.

As the founding partner of Bell Curves, Akil focused on helping underrepresented students succeed in high-stakes testing. After selling his company, he became Director of Equity and Access at a major test prep firm, helping schools and organizations navigate standardized testing challenges.

Currently, Akil is the Senior Director of Advocacy and Advancement at FairTest, where he advocates for more equitable and responsible testing practices.

Resources

Akil’s website: akilbello.com
Articles by Akil Bello:

Episode 43 - 'Imagining Otherwise' about Assessment w/Jan McArthur

Teachers Going Gradeless — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 22:45:59 GMT

TG2 team member, Michelle Cottrell-Williams, interviews Jan McArthur, Senior Lecturer in Education and Social Justice in the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, UK. Jan’s research focuses on the nature and purposes of higher education and how these relate to practices of teaching, learning, and assessment. Jan McArthur coauthored the piece, A Womanist Approach to Care-Full Feedback, with Ameena L. Payne, which received an overwhelmingly positive reception.

Professor McArthur has a particular interest in critical theory and in her published work explores the ideas of Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Axel Honneth, applying these to higher education. Her book, Rethinking Knowledge in Higher Education, explores how Adorno’s critical theory can inform our understanding of, and engagement with, knowledge in higher education for the purposes of greater social justice. Her second book, Assessment for Social Justice, uses Honneth's conceptualization of mutual recognition to rethink the nature of assessment in higher education.

Episode 15 - Progressive Education with Chris McNutt

Teachers Going Gradeless — Sun, 28 Jul 2019 20:00:00 GMT

Chris is a Social Studies teacher at Global Impact Stem Academy in Springfield, Ohio. Chris is the founder of The Human Restoration Project which is dedicated to promoting Progressive Education.

In this episode of TG2Cast Chris and I discuss Progressive Education, what is it, and how teachers interested in Progressive Education can get started.

Topics include:

The Human Restoration Project.
What is Grassroots Activism and its role in education.
What is Progressive Education.
How to implement Progressive Education.
Why teachers should consider Progressive Education.

Resources:

Episode 23 - College Under COVID-19 - Part 2

Teachers Going Gradeless — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 21:00:00 GMT

This episode is the continuation of my conversation with college educators Maha Bali, Jesse Stommel, and Asao B. Inoue (you can listen to the first half here). As college institutions struggle with the implications of COVID-19, it’s important for them to place equity and access at the center of considerations about ways in which college can resume. As Professor Inoue pointed out, however, we also have an opportunity to fundamentally revolutionize the academy and the way we identify and support student success.

Topics include:

How we can co-create intentionally equitable, hospitable spaces in our institutions
What troubling practices emerged as institutions pivoted to remote education
What does “access” mean, and what is being accessed when we say we are providing more access
How the pandemic has problematized the practice of grading
How institutions must empower and give agency to faculty as they reimagine education within the pandemic