Why I Don't Grade w/Jesse Stommel

This episode features an interview with Jesse Stommel, Executive Director of the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies at University of Mary Washington. 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