Leveling up w/Fabiola Torres
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.
Fabi’s video representing her core beliefs about learning and the problems with grades
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.
