Empire State University is no longer the gradeless institution it was at its founding in the 70s. But as teacher education professor, Karis Jones discovered, the infrastructure for gradelessness was still there. Despite encountering some resistance, Jones shares way she has built on these infrastructures to apply ungrading practices in thoughtful ways that address tensions that the school had experienced in the past.

As a biology professor who has gone gradeless in favor of a labor-based approach, Greg Pask has moved away from exams entirely. Whether at the introductory or 300 level, he has found that tests don’t support the goals for his classroom. Greg describes the three major problems with closed-note timed exams, and explores alternative approaches that address these specific shortcomings.

On the first day of class, your introduction to the gradeless classroom doesn’t go as expected. As you field students’ questions and concerns, you feel hurt and frustrated. Going gradeless is supposed to relieve anxiety, not cause it! What’s going on?

A week ago, we reached out to our community about their questions about labor-based grading as developed by Professor Asao B. Inoue of Arizona State University. In this post, he answers our questions!

Writers understand that writing requires revision, tinkering, and mistakes. Lots and lots of it. Most student writers, however, don’t welcome failure and mistakes so easily. Why?

Arthur Chiaravalli interviews Arizona State University professor, Asao B. Inoue, author of the book, Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom.