Blog Barry Fishman Blog Barry Fishman

Grading is a Game. Let’s Improve the Rules!

Gameful learning is designing for learning. Barry Fishman asks us to consider how games might inspire our thinking about learning, reminding us that good games don’t work because they are fun; they work because they are challenging and engaging.

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Blog Vanessa Ellis Blog Vanessa Ellis

Different Is Not Deficient

We may not be responsible for the inequities our students have faced before they met us, but they are in our care now—and we have agency over the state of equity in our classrooms. This systemic inequity is reason to not only question the status quo, but undo the harm associated with traditional assessment and teaching methods.

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Blog Liz Norell Blog Liz Norell

How Identities Impact Our Pedagogical Practices

Progressive pedagogical practices come at the greatest risk for those who would have most benefit from empowering educational structures. Liz Norell, explains why those with more privileged identities must leverage their identity, positionality, and privilege in creating more inclusive learning environments.

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Interviews Michelle Cottrell-Williams Interviews Michelle Cottrell-Williams

Centering Joy in the Classroom w/Liz Norell

How can we make classrooms more inclusive, engaging, exciting, relevant, and welcoming spaces for learning? Political science professor, Liz Norell, shows how, by embracing pedagogies of equity and care, we can create environments in which all students can flourish.

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Blog Ameena L. Payne and Jan McArthur Blog Ameena L. Payne and Jan McArthur

A Womanist Approach to Care-full Feedback

Scholars Ameena L. Payne and Jan McArthur propose womanist thought as a praxis that re-positions feedback as a care-full process embracing the emotional, moral, and political as well as one that leans into accountability, compassion, confidence, courage, joy, and vulnerability.

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Blog Andrew Burnett Blog Andrew Burnett

No Longer a Data Entry Clerk

Prior to going gradeless, math teacher Andrew Burnett felt like a “data entry clerk posing as a teacher.” Now, he has ditched the data entry in favor of meaningful and timely feedback. This shift has led to greater personal satisfaction and a marked improvement in his students’ ability to understand concepts as well as to retain that understanding.

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Blog Starr Sackstein Blog Starr Sackstein

10 Tips for Offering Excellent Feedback

Feedback is teaching—an opportunity to foster student growth. Whether we are looking to prevent mistakes from becoming ingrained or to build on skills students already have, feedback provides the learner an opportunity to grow in their awareness of learning standards.

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Blog Martin Compton Blog Martin Compton

Who’s Afraid of ChatGPT?

Who’s afraid of ChatGPT? Martin Compton argues that the machines should herald a dawn of teaching where we can realize a more humanized, compassionate, inclusive, process-focused approach to teaching, learning, assessment and feedback.

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Blog Arthur Chiaravalli Blog Arthur Chiaravalli

Can Standards-based Grading Grade Less?

Most would consider standards-based grading part of the gradeless continuum. But it has been easier to help people grade less in a traditionally graded system than in a standards-based one. Finding ways to address the ways in which SBG can become unmanageable is well worth our collective efforts.

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Interviews Lisa Wennerth Interviews Lisa Wennerth

There’s No One Right Way to Ungrade!

Lisa Wennerth, welcomes four trailblazing educators, 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.

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