The Grading Podcast

Bosley: Hello and welcome to the first episode of the Grading podcast. My name is Robert Bosley. I’m one of your co-hosts. And with me, your other co-host, Sharona Krinsky.

Sharona: Hello.

Bosley: So before we really get started with the podcast, I think we need to talk a little bit about ourselves and introduce ourselves and kind of talk about what brought us, you know, to really trying to reform and look at how we grade. So Sharona, do you want to go ahead and tell the audience a little bit about yourself.

Sharona: Well, sure, OK. So, like I said, my name is Sharona. I am currently, as of the recording of

Bosley: Yeah. And, you know, you came in year three of the program? Year four of the program? And like I said, we’d already had a lot of success. But you were going to redesign this course for the college level.

Bosley: Yeah, we were showing that we could take high school students with some support and have them going directly into a college level math course. And we were doing this with students that were very likely to have to not only do the remedial, but probably start at the lowest level of remedial. So at Cal State, L.A., I believe that was three classes that they would have had to take.

Sharona: Right.

Bosley: And we were showing that, you know, with these extra supports that no the those classes, those remedial classes that were supposed to be, you know, aiding the students to getting college ready was actually for students to finish.

Sharona: Exactly, so I have. So for me, I have two things going on, I’m in the SLAM program, the dual enrollment program with you, and we’re seeing a way that remediation is not neededSimultaneously, I’m starting to do standards based grading in my higher level classes, calculus to precalculus, calculus three. So I’m seeing unbelievable engagement with mathematics on the part of engineers and mathematicians. And then I get handed this job of redesigning the very course that you and I are teaching in. But now to remove mediation, so I have these two factors coming together in a confluence, and at first I wasn’t going to bring the grading in. We talked about this that we just needed to bring essentially what we learned from teaching it in the dual enrollment environment and bring it to the university. And then I went to that PolyTeach one day conference at Cal State Pomona, Cal Poly Pomona. And I heard Uri Treisman speak, you know, from the head of the Dana Center at UT Austin. And he said that the only kind of innovation that really sticks is disruptive innovation. And I went, Oh, shiitake mushrooms, because I know we’re trying to keep this mostly clean on this webcast, but he said, you’ve really got to go big or go home. It’s the only way it sticks. So I went back I think I told you first, but I went back to the university and I talked to my co coordinator for the statistics class, Dr. Silvia Heubach. And I said, Silvia, sit down. I want to try to persuade you of something. And I talked her into trying to take this class, are not trying, succeeding and taking this statistics class, which is going to be coordinated. Which is going to have like 15 instructors in it? I think at this point we usually have between 40 and 50 sections of it in the fall. I said we need to take this to standards based grading. And she kind of looked at me and went, all right, let’s try it. So

Bosley: And it wasn’t just 40 sections at the state level or the Cal State L.A. level at that time. We also had three three high schools in the dual enrollment with, I think, a total of five or six classes between the three different schools. And, you know, this was also about the time that I was just finishing that Joe Feldman book Grading for Equity. So when you came to me with it, I’m like, yeah, I just got through reading it, I’m ready to do this. Even though neither one of us had any clue what we were doing.

Sharona: Well, I had done it, but I had died doing it. So I knew that I didn’t want to quite do what I did the first time that I was sold, because I think I told you the conversations. That was the biggest difference for me and the pass rates too, quite frankly, one of the things that always bothered me teaching calculus at a place like Cal State L.A. is I didn’t want to punish the students for holes in their background right. When they came to me and their Algebra skills were just not that great. I didn’t want to hold them back if they knew the Calculus. So I was accepting Algebra level of work that I didn’t like. And that was that was really hard. And then once I started doing this stuff, I was able to first disaggregate and I could have an algebra skill like that with calculus skill. And it was OK to to assess on both of them. But it was a lot easier to disaggregate and be like, I’m looking for this specific evidence. And then I thought I could bring that to the statistics.

Bosley: So you decided, you know, you wanted to try to do this. You kind of came to me. I was like, oh yeah, I’m on board, so let’s try to do it. And that’s kind of where both our origin stories started and where our paths came together, which I haven’t been able to get rid of you since, but or vice versa one way or the other.

Sharona: Exactly. Now so that’s twenty eighteen. But we’re here in twenty, twenty three recordings. So how the heck did we get to a podcast. Like why. Why did you say yes when I asked you.

Bosley: Well actually before we we get into that, there is a little bit of vocabulary that I think we need to address head on.

Sharona: OK

Bosley: Because when we started this, this had a different name.

Sharona: Right.

Bosley: So do you want to address kind of the language part of this?

Sharona: Right. So when I was first introduced to standards based grading it also, it and other forms went by the term mastery based grading, and that language is still around. So like if you use an LMS system that is at all compatible with alternative grading, it tends to use the word mastery. So if you use Canvas, for example, it uses the language of mastery

Bosley: and so does Schoology

Sharona: So I would use the word mastery a lot. And you and I are coming from mathematics, which is, you know, highly in the STEM fields. So there’s definitely a sense in our discipline of actually achieving a certain level of proficiency in a discrete skill. So this idea of you’ve mastered something when you can properly use this “thing” in a problem and get the final answer correct. There’s a lot of tendency towards that language. But what happened is, you know, some people in our community started pushing back on the on the term mastery. Now, what did you hear about that?

Bosley: Well, you know, the first time I really experienced that kind of pushback was actually at The Grading Conference, which you and I both sat on as organizers, which anyone that really wants to see how this is done, you should you should go to the conference or go to that website. We just finished a phenomenal fourth year conference.

Sharona: Right. And we’ll drop the link to that in the show notes. But, you know, it’s thegradingconference.com, not the hardest URL.

Bosley: Yeah, but during that, I think it was year two maybe of the conference is the first time I’d ever heard kind of any of that, that pushback against the language. And then shortly after my district, L.A. Unified School District, actually changed, changed the name from what they were calling it, which was mastery, grading and learning to equitable grading and instruction. So that’s kind of where I started hearing the the pushback.

Sharona: Right. And I heard it in two ways. So one is this is right around the time that computer science was grappling with some of their historical language of master computer and slave computers. So they were really having an issue with that master/slave language. We got some pushback internally about the word mastery relating to master and acknowledging the historical injustices that have been done in our community of mathematics as well as STEM. We also had a lot of pushback because a lot of people like, well, does anyone really master anything in freshman, sophomore, junior level mathematics? I mean, for, for decades we’ve said, when do you learn calculus? The first time you teach it. Like that’s a very common “joke” in our world. And so the issue becomes, well, what else do you call it? You know, who decides what is mastery of something and is it mastery? We just heard this amazing keynote by Dr. Lindsay Masland that said that maybe mastery is not the point of grading. So there’s all of this stuff about language. So as we go through the podcast, we will bring up, I think, probably all the different terms because there’s

Bosley: oh, yeah, there’s a ton of them. And we will definitely actually. Dive into because there are some differences in the terms there’s not just different terms, but there are actual differences and the, you know, the nuts and bolts of how you do it, like looking at upgrading compared to specs compared to standards based. So it’s not just a difference of language, but it is also..

Sharona: And even issues like equitable grading. I mean, as we’re going to discuss in our in our episode on Equity coming up in a few weeks, it’s not inherently equitable. It has the potential to be more equitable with intentionality. But we’ve all made the mistake of accidentally reintroducing inequitable behaviors in our grading system and practices. So just understand, if you’re listening to the podcast and you’re wondering what all this stuff is, it is still a bit messy, which led me a couple of years ago when we were first thinking about what to call the conference, because I think the first conference was called the Mastery Grading Conference. It might even be the first two. We changed it to the grading conference and we changed it to the grading podcast because that’s sort of our aspirational goal. Our aspirational goal is to get grading to be an examined and intentional practice that has best practices. And that is not what we currently experience in traditional points and percentage based grading.

Bosley: So that’s a great kind of leeway into now that we’ve talked a little bit about ourselves. Let’s talk some about the podcast. Like what? What is the point of this podcast and what is our what are our goals and trying to do this? What are we hoping to accomplish?

Sharona: Well, I haven’t figured out yet why you said yes when I brought this up. But I can tell you that my goal personally is literally to try to change the world. You know, again, I’m a second generation math educator. I’m a third generation educator, my great aunt, So my mom’s aunt was an educator, So we’ve been committed to education for over 100 years in my family. And what I discovered through my own stuff is that grading is the catalyst. It’s the it’s the tipping point. So you can do flipping and you can do active learning and you can do all kinds of engagement strategies. But grading is all pervasive in the classroom today. It overlays everything. And I think it has some pieces that are needed and some things that are incredibly destructive. And it was getting in the way of literally everything. And so since I’ve switched my grading and I know that’s the experience of a lot of people in our community, everything else pulls with it. So suddenly the students begin to demand active learning. The students begin to demand communicating with me on my discipline or with you and your discipline. So everything that we’re trying to do to reform education for me, I think comes down to fixing the grading system.

Bosley: Yeah, because it’s kind of the same thing I was experiencing is that no matter what I was doing, the grading, without me realizing it at first, was a barrier like it was undermining a lot of the things I was trying to do. And again, without really realizing, because I hadn’t started to examining the grading because it was it’s the grading, you know, I went through it was the grading that the only kind of grading I’ve ever seen. You know, you got ten questions. You get eight of them, right? You’ve got an 80 percent. You get enough of those 80 percent, you get a B. I mean, that’s…

Sharona: well, and that’s the thing. I mean, you even said I mean, you’ve got your master’s degree in curriculum and instruction. You’ve got a bachelor’s degree in education, math education. How many assessment courses did you take in your career?

Bosley: Yeah, I you know, I never took grading 101. And quite honestly, you and I have been doing a lot of these trainings, not only in California but across the country since pandemic. And I’ve asked this question and I’ve had like three people that have ever said they’ve taken any kind, of course. And I mean, we’ve literally hundreds, if not close to a thousand educators that we’ve talked to now.

Sharona: Oh, well over a thousand with the grading conference.

Bosley: And oh, yeah, we’re counting The Grading Conference we are well over. But yeah, like I said, I’ve talked to three people that have ever taken any kind of grading, you know, actual course in their undergrads.

Sharona: Right. And well, and the other thing that I wanted to do with the podcast is, like you’ve said, we’ve done a ton of trainings. We’ve got one launching. Probably by the time this podcast comes out, it’ll be the following week, give or take, where we do thirty hours of intensive training with faculty or with instructors, with teachers. And it’s not even close to enough. This topic is so big and it takes time. So I wanted to do a podcast so that no matter where people were in their individual grading journeys, they could come into the podcast, listen to it in whatever order makes sense because there are 70 million entry points into this process, you know, and not to mention the fact that every single person does it differently, because one of the things that we’ve uncovered in this process is how grading really is a personal reflection of an individual instructor’s values systems, belief systems, ways of thinking processes. And so everybody has to customize this. So you don’t start at the same place. The place I started, which was jump off the deep end three weeks before the semester and convert three classes, is other people’s definition of hell on earth.

Bosley: And I think it might be most people’s definition of insanity, but.

Sharona: Well, we know that about me.

Bosley: Yeah. And, you know, that’s similar to some of the things I’m hoping to achieve with this podcast. But I also want, you know, between the two of us, we’ve been using alternative grading systems now for, what, 12 years between the two of us. And there is a lot of bumps along the way. You know, both of our the first time we did it and our dual enrollment statistics class, it was a disaster and yet it was still better.

Sharona: This was a disaster, yet better than traditional points and percentages.

Bosley: But I’m hoping with this podcast to not only look at the theory, but also give some practical experience both from us and from our guests. And not to sugarcoat, you know, some of this. There are a lot of mistakes that can be made and there’s a lot of things that almost seems like it has to be made, you know, to figure out this. So that’s what one of the things I’m hoping with this podcast that we’re able to do that I’m not seeing a lot of with all of the the research and the readings, which, you know, as a base are and as a theory are great. But I want to get into the nuts and bolts. I want, you know, the experience of people doing this. One of our keynotes from a couple of years ago in the grading conference was Robert Talbert and talking about how many different ways he’s done this. And, you know, that’s OK. And I want people to understand that because a lot of times the newer practitioners, the first year or two is is not good and they give up on it. And that’s one of the things I’m hoping with this podcast is that it’s a little bit of a lifeline to help people keep going until they figure it out.

Sharona: And also, another reason to do it right now is it’s gaining traction, but it’s tractioncand it’s gaining press attention and we’re already getting the you’re all doing it wrong messages.

Bosley: Yep.

Sharona: And we’re also getting people super excited to do it and not wanting to really do the deep dive piece. So the goal here with this podcast is to, we have essentially infinite amount of time, You know, the podcast is supposed to be about an hour, once a week. We can and should take the time to really delve deeper into the topics. So whether it’s delving deeper into theory in one episode or delving deeper, like really dive deep into the very practicalities, I know that we’re going to be talking about the four pillars. We can hopefully go really, really deep into different disciplines. We’re going to have different guests on from different disciplines. So those of you that may know us already, this is not a higher education focused podcast. It’s not STEM focused. It’s it’s all of it. We want to do K through 16. We want to do all disciplines, but we’re not experts in all disciplines. So,

Bosley: yeah. So we’re going to be bringing a lot of different guests and a lot of different co-host. And because, yes, you and I both are mathematics educators. You’ve got some experience in K-12. I’ve got more

experience, but not nearly as much in the higher ed. But we don’t want this to be one or the other. We do really want this to be a K through 16 STEM and humanities focus. So and they do look different. That is one of the things with alternative grading. It can look very different from a math class to an English class to a science class. It can look very different from an algebra 1 to a you know, theories or intro to theories and proofs.

Sharona: Yeah. I mean, I personally teach three different classes regularly. I teach history, math, linear algebra and statistics. And those three classes have different versions of grading based on the content. So we want to be all things, and yet we’re not going be able to be all things all at once. So I think on each episode we will try to mention, you know, where the focus is or we might be speaking from different perspectives because, for example, when we do episodes on buy in, there’s going to be a whole category of buy in that you are going to talk about that I really know nothing about. And that’s going to be parents.

Bosley: Yeah,

Sharona: because I can’t talk to parents legally as a college instructor without the permission of the student. I don’t talk to parents and yet they’re a big part of your world.

Bosley: Yeah. And the K to 12 world, you know, parents are, you know, the second biggest shareholder group, you know, next to next to students. But yeah, it’s completely different with the higher ed where it goes from almost as large of a share group from students down to nothing.

Sharona: And that’s why. But then when it comes to disciplines, you know, there are certain principles that will go across disciplines, but the implementations can be very different. So I know one of our first guests is also going to be someone who’s done this in English. And, you know, that is going to bring a different perspective. But I think we can learn from each other and that’s what we’re hoping to do. That’s a kind of community we’re hoping to build with this podcast. And I think it’s going to be really exciting.

Bosley: Yeah, so and a couple of things for for those that are joining us, we will put some links in the show, notes to both our website, but also the grading conference website. Put some of the reading links to some of the readings. There are some great readings out there that we’ll be talking a lot more about in some of the later episodes, but we’ll put some of those in there. So if you wanted to start reading, you could

Sharona: So Boz, one last question I have for you. Of all the things we’ve talked about today for the podcast, what are you most excited to get to bring to the listeners in this in this format that we’re really not able to bring elsewhere?

Bosley: We have limited amount of time. And whether whatever group were with time is always an issue. So doing this with this format, we’ll be able to go a lot more deeper into each of our topics and our listeners, whatever thing they need, they can go to. Like you don’t need to go through a 30 hour MMA course. I did. I did. I called it…

Sharona: the mixed martial arts. And we’re keeping this part in. Yes. The Math Association of America. MAA

Bosley: Yeah. So you’re not having to go through a whole 30 hour course when you know it’s three hours of that. That is the. You really needed. So I’m really excited about that, I’m extremely excited and nervous and hoping I learn as much by branching out into some of the other, you know, the other disciplines. Like I said, I’m really looking forward to the idea of having, you know, a bunch of different people from worlds that we’re not used to. So we’re also learning, you know, we’re becoming better at this craft as we do this.

Sharona: I think some of the things I’m most excited about, I mean, you and I have talked about it. We’re both big podcast listeners and, not everybody is, but not everybody is… you know, some people really need an audio format and it’s just too hard. Like I’m a huge reader, huge reader, but my life has gotten so busy I don’t get to read anymore. I do, however, do audio books. And so. As someone who loves one format and I learn well from reading, but I don’t have the capacity, having the ability to put this in an audio format to speak to people. And then I know a lot of people for whom reading is not their thing and they much prefer an audio format. So I love the diversity. This is going to be supplemented, I’m sure, by a lot of the work we do with the grading conference. I love the diversity. And then, like you said, I love the time element that we get to space this out.

Bosley: Yeah.

Sharona: Thirty hours of an intense workshop is a lot. Two days of the grading conference feels like a fire hose. And there’s just so many ideas flying this way and that way. And one of the things we’re realizing is that every one of us who is an educator not only has 13 years of K-12 instruction under our belts with traditional grading, we have a minimum of four years of college instruction, plus possibly a graduate degree, plus whatever classrooms we are in ourselves. I mean, for myself, I have, what, forty eight years or something like that of indoctrination into traditional grading, into points and percentages. And as a mathematician, I can at least explain the math behind a points and percentages system. A lot of people can’t. So it’s a little bit scary to try to break away from that. And I’m hoping to be able to give people the courage and the knowledge that’s needed to break that programming. But it’s intense.

Bosley: It is.

Sharona: That program is very intense. And I know we have some episodes planned where we’re going to talk about some of the hidden stuff buried in our grading system, too. So I’m excited to get to really delve into this and to be honest and open and have on guests that are willing to be honest and open.

Bosley: All right. So I think this is probably a good stopping point for this one. Please do join us next week when we really start looking at traditional grading and why… why do we need this alternative grading for most of us have experienced, you know, the the percentages and the points. Most educators, if we’re an educator, means we probably were successful in this kind of model. So really starting to look at why we even need this. So that’ll be coming up in our next episode.

Sharona: And also, I wanted to just close with if you are someone who is currently practicing alternative grading of any form and you’d like to consider us… being a guest on a podcast, you can contact us on our website, thegradingpod.com. There’s a contact us. We’d love to hear from you if you have any comments you want to share with us about this episode or future episodes, we look forward to seeing you around the pod.

Bosley: All right. So we’ll see you next week. Thank you very much.