Episodes
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172 – No Grades, No GPA: How Evergreen Does College Differently
What would a college look like if grades had never been part of its educational system? In this episode, Sharona and Boz welcome four guests from The Evergreen State College—Rachel Hastings, JuliA Metzker, Nathalie Yuen, and Julia Zay. They take us on a journey to explore an institution that has operated without traditional grades since…
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171 – Less Grading, More Thinking: Peer Coaching in the Age of AI
What if reducing the emphasis on grades could create more opportunities for students to think deeply, collaborate meaningfully, and develop their own ideas before turning to AI for help? In this episode, Sharona and Boz explore “Talking Is Also Thinking: How Teaching Students to Coach Each Other Before They Write Makes AI Shortcuts Less Tempting,”…
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170 – Honors Without Honors Classes: One Year Later
What if students could earn honors recognition without enrolling in a separate honors class—and without simply doing more work? In this episode, Sharona and Boz welcome back Marc Aronson, who oversees faculty and the academic program at Cheshire Academy, for a follow-up to their conversation in Episode 114. A year after introducing a system that…
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169 – Building the Course While Teaching It
What happens when an alternatively graded course moves from the planning stage into an actual classroom? Six weeks into teaching Quantitative Reasoning for Everyday Life for the first time, Sharona goes on the hot seat as Boz asks how the course she spent the summer designing is actually working. They revisit the central idea that…
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168 – What Are We Actually Trying to Measure?
If higher education says its students are learning, how do we actually know? In this episode, Sharona and Boz dig into Doug Lederman’s three-part series on measuring learning in higher education, focusing on his proposed path forward and the questions that have to come before choosing an assessment. What should students actually know and be…
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167 – What Students Believe About Grades
What do students believe grades are supposed to do? In this episode, Sharona and Boz explore that question through three recent articles written by student journalists about traditional and alternative grading. Their arguments surface beliefs that are deeply embedded in our educational culture: that letter grades provide objective information about learning, that grades motivate students…
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166 – How Do We Make Grading Reform Stick? The Five P’s
With grading reform receiving increasing attention across both K–12 and higher education, how do we turn growing interest into change that actually lasts? In this episode, Sharona and Boz explore The Five Ps of Starting and Sustaining Grading Reform, a framework developed by Matt Townsley and colleagues for moving grading reform beyond the work of…
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165 – Go on Offense: Make It About Learning, An Interview with John Warner
When students can outsource much of their schoolwork to generative AI, is the answer to make assignments harder to cheat on? Or is it to make learning more worth doing? In this episode, Sharona and Boz are joined by writer, educator, and Inside Higher Ed columnist John Warner, author of More Than Words: How to…
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164 – MIT Says It’s Time to Rethink Grading
What happens when one of the world’s leading technology institutions concludes that responding to generative AI requires more than deciding when students should or shouldn’t be allowed to use it? In this episode, Sharona and Boz dig into a new report from MIT’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training,…
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163 – Can Alternative Grading Work with 300 Students? An Interview with Jordan Kostiuk
What does alternative grading look like when your class has 300 students—and what happens when generative AI forces you to rethink a system that had been working? In this episode, Sharona and Boz are joined by Jordan Kostiuk, Associate Teaching Professor of Mathematics at Brown University, to talk about his use of team-based inquiry learning…