The Grading Podcast

144 – Leadership with Matt Townsley

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Matt Townsley: I’m just gonna get to the punchline here of all this stuff, boz and Sharona. Quit the researchy stuff, Townsley. If the leaders don’t get it, it’s not gonna happen.

Boz: Amen.

Matt Townsley: That’s the punchline.

Sharona: Ouch.

Matt Townsley: That’s why we’re doing this conference right? Don’t get me wrong, it’s fantastic to get a bunch of science teachers in the room and help them get better at it. It’s fantastic to get a bunch of social studies teachers in the room and help them get better at it. But if their administrators aren’t there to support them, we’re gonna have these silos of standards based grading and we’re not gonna be able to scale it out.

Boz: Welcome to the grading podcast, where we’ll take a critical lens to the methods of assessing students’, learning from traditional grading to alternative methods of grading. We’ll look at how grades impact our classrooms and our student success. I’m Robert Bosley, a high school math teacher, instructional coach, intervention specialist, and instructional designer. In the Los Angeles Unified School District and with Cal State LA.

Sharona: And I’m Sharona Krinsky, a math instructor at Cal State Los Angeles, faculty coach and instructional designer. Whether you work in higher ed or K 12, whatever your discipline is, whether you are a teacher, a coach, or an administrator, this podcast is for you. Each week, you will get the practical, detailed information you need to be able to actually implement effective grading practices in your class and at your institution.

Boz: Hello and welcome back to the Grading podcast. I’m Robert Bosley, one of your two co-host, and with me as always, Sharona Krinsky. How you doing today, Sharona?

Sharona: I’m doing really well. I feel like today, and the last couple of days, I’ve really gotten to focus on my class and also on alt grading, which are two of my favorite topics and kind of put aside some of the nonsense that happens in my other jobs. So I’m feeling a little bit refreshed, a little bit invigorated ’cause i’m getting to talk math and grading, so I’m cool. How about you, Boz?

Boz: I am just really excited for right now because we are not alone in the virtual studio. So who do we have with us Sharona?

Sharona: So back with us for the first time in almost a hundred episodes, shockingly enough, we’ve got the sportscaster of alternative grading, Matt Townsley. You’re never gonna get rid of that title.

Matt Townsley: That is so funny. In fact, I’ve had not one, but two people like catch onto that lately and say, yeah. And this other podcast, or have you heard this guy? He’s called the the Sportscaster of Alternative Grading. So your moniker is traveling the world Sharona and Boz.

Sharona: Pretty cool. Awesome. That’s awesome.

Boz: I’m so excited to have you back, Matt. It’s always a blast talking with you. So thank you for coming back on. But you did have a specific thing that we wanted to bring back on and talk about. So Sharona, if you wanna?

Sharona: Yeah. So two statements. First of all, if you’ve been listening to the podcast for the last six to eight weeks, we’ve had a lot of guests. So a lot of the listeners have had a lot of origin stories. Not this time because your origin story you told on episode 18, which is where we gave you the moniker of the sportscaster of alternative grading. So if you wanna know Matt’s origin story, you can go to episode 18. If you wanna hear even more, you can go back to episode 46.

Boz: So first is this a virtual conference or is this an in-person conference?

Matt Townsley: In-person conference we have thought about making it virtual. We thought about making it hybrid, but so far we’ve just had fantastic turnout in person. So if you can imagine, 250 educators primarily from Iowa, just like making their way to a venue in the state for a keynote and then breakout sessions. That’s what our event is about. Again, though, we’ve had folks from the Dakotas, Illinois, other states join us as well. For this event it is, it’s awesome. Like you guys have been a part, like I’ve been a part of your conference. It’s awesome when you get the people in the room, they’re like, let’s talk grading reform. It is. It’s magical. Magical. It’s magical. It’s really fun.

Boz: Okay, so if I was an administrator or some sort of leadership, but outside of Iowa you said we’re welcome, but is there things that are so unique to Iowa or Iowa’s board of Education or anything like that, that if I come in as someone from California, I’m not gonna get the benefit?

Matt Townsley: Nope. The only thing I’d say is our follow-up support, which I can talk about later, is grant supported and it’s specific to Iowa School. So the grant leadership focused support that happens during the next school year is only for Iowa schools, but for the event itself. The only little nuance Boz, is every state has their own, math standards, ELA, standards science. So there’s gonna be some nuance in that. But really, like we’re talking about things like supporting new staff implementing standards based grading. Like onboarding them. We’re talking about things like leveraging a curriculum adoption to enhance standards based reporting practices. We’re talking about things like helping parents understand grading reform. These are all not just Iowa specific things, California Nevada, like everywhere educators are experiencing these same challenges. And so it’s definitely not an Iowa centric event in that regard.

Sharona: So I have a question. I have questions. Sorry, you interrupted me last time. I get to ask my question this time. Matt, you asked a question, which is, what would I want it to look like? What would we want it to look like? But my question to you is why leadership? Why is that the focus of this conference as opposed to a teacher based conference of let’s get you doing this. So why leadership?

Boz: Amen.

Matt Townsley: That’s the punchline. That’s why we’re doing this conference right now. Get me wrong. It’s fantastic to get a bunch of science teachers in the room and help them get better at it. It’s fantastic to get a bunch of social studies teachers in the room and help them get better at it, but if their administrators aren’t there to support them, we’re gonna have these silos of standards-based grading. We’re not gonna be able to scale it out. So if the leaders don’t get it, it’s just not gonna happen. And so that’s why we’re three years and counting now on a leadership focused standards based grading conference.

Boz: And that is so important. ’cause we actually talked in some detail in an episode that will come out right before this one about, how do we make these things not just get up off the ground, but continue to go. And it’s all about the support. It’s the logistical support, it’s the administrative support. It is such an important thing. And we’ve talked a lot about, we see all these small silos and that’s great. We don’t wanna discourage that at all. If you’re the lone person in your school that wants to do this, jump on and do it. But if that’s where it stops, this is never really gonna grow. And what you’ve gotta get those support pieces in. And when it comes to K 12. That most important support is gonna come from the admin because they’re the ones that are gonna set up all the structural things that’s going to allow the teachers to work together, to do this. So I, I am so thrilled that you guys got this conference that it’s going so strong. It’s in its year three because Yeah, with, without the admin support and like you said, that support doesn’t come without understanding first and just really, I, not just buying into it, but understanding it and appreciating and seeing that, what did you call it, stage two or level two change in the thought processes in, in those beliefs.

Matt Townsley: Second order change. You got it, Boz.

Sharona: So one of the things that’s always interesting to me when we bring on someone from K 12 is that. As much as I dabble, I tip my toes in, I dip my toes in, and I certainly train K 12 folks and things like that, but really my life is higher ed. And so I hear what you’re saying from a lens of my personal experience and thinking about the challenges in higher ed. Because we do not have strong academic leadership in higher ed, in my opinion, from a teaching perspective, we might have strong research leadership, but teaching leadership in the higher education landscape is spotty at best. I don’t know that we would necessarily call department chairs educational leaders. Some of them choose to be, but many of them are just, and they’re just literally administrators, scheduling classes, moderating fights between tenured faculty about who gets to teach what. And yet I’ve had a firsthand experience of a department chair coming in and destroying a standards-based program intentionally, like intentionally targeting and destroying it. ‘Cause they do have the power of that. So I’m wondering how the principles of what you’re talking about might apply in a higher ed world. And I think that’s a topic for

Matt Townsley: Yeah. Germany, just a quick aside there, Sharona I hear you that there’s, just, the way I think about it is there’s different levers to pull in higher education, middle management, and even, up the leadership ladder versus in the K 12 world, right? Like in the K 12 world, it’s totally normal for principals, directors, and so forth to have an influence on policy related to curriculum, instruction, assessment. That’s not the norm, for a a dean or a department head in coll in college. In fact, it’s like a, it’s a foreign concept almost, right? And so it

Sharona: would be just, and yet they’re all in on student success right now. So they’re all in and they’re spending tons of money and they’re talking about student success and they’re talking themselves in circles and they’re spending money on tutors and advisors, but God forbid you actually talk about teaching.

Matt Townsley: It’s a different world. It’s just a different world. And I, and so I think this idea of leadership and leaders focused on leading grading reform learning is definitely something that, would be much more of the norm, not that it’s happening a lot, but much more of the norm in a K 12 setting. And it’s just a, it’s just a different beast in higher education, is the best way to say it.

Sharona: So I wonder, Boz, thinking about the place we’re going in June. Engineers Canada, which is the accrediting agency for engineers in Canada, is moving to competency-based accreditation. So they’re changing their accreditation to be competency-based, which means that many of the engineering programs are changing their programs to at least have competency based testing. And we went to a symposium and presented a symposium there last year at Queen University and a lot of ’em went, oh my gosh. There’s a grading component that in interacts with the competency based testing and if we want competency-based accreditation, we need to do this through line. So we’re gonna be working with a program there. So I wonder if that’s an area for programs that have accreditation if maybe that’s where the leadership comes. Because we also know that like medical schools are driving some of the active learning things ’cause they’ve gone to team-based learning. And interleaf practice and all these really good things, and that’s starting to percolate down into pre-med courses, at least at the top level. I don’t know, maybe that’s where we go, but.

Boz: All right. Going back for a little bit to the conference, is there any like things that you wanna talk about or that you’re really excited about, whether it’s keynotes, whether it’s certain sessions, like what’s getting you riled up and excited about?

Matt Townsley: Yeah. Because we’re a low budget operation, yours truly no cost is the keynoter for year three in a row now. Year one the keynote was focused on what I’m calling the four Ps of getting started and sustaining grading reform, things like: creating a grading purpose statement; developing a number of three to five grading policies. Then what I called a pilot, being very conscientious and strategic about how you rolled out. Maybe, start with the sixth grade team, then roll it up to seventh, or maybe start with math and then go to science. There’s different kind of models for scaling out, not just saying, Hey, we learned about in April, we’re gonna go all in on August, like being very strategic in how you do it. And the fourth P was called, probe, which was provide monitoring and support for teachers. Don’t just, assume that they’re all doing well and happy about it. And so that was keynote in year one and a neat way for schools that were already thinking about like, all right, I’ve read all the books by Tom Guskey and Rick Warmly and Ken O’Connor, like, how do I get started? And so that four P framework was a nice way for a school brand new to all of this, to, to get started. Ironically though, as we have done this conference, we’ve also found a number of schools that are doing what I call, like rebooting or refining Hey, we started this, seven years ago we’ve had change in leadership, or we don’t feel like we’ve, done it very well the past couple years. And so they’re like, okay, that’s a starting point for us. We never actually had written down grading policies. Like it was just, we just all were doing it differently. And so that four p grading framework in year one, I think set a really good foundation.

Last year’s keynote was really focused on integrating ideas. Not just saying grading reform is something to be done in isolation. And so we talked about, for example if you’re doing the professional learning community mantra with collaborative teaming and departments and things like that at your school, how can you integrate that work with the ideas of standards based grading? Which happens to be one of my books called Standards Based Grading in a secondary PLC at Work Through Solution Tree. So just this idea of thinking, not about grading reform as being something different or an isolation, but really making it a part of your overarching school improvement process. This year we’re gonna talk about Extinguishing the Fires. We’ve talked a little bit about that in previous episodes and things like that. I know. But there’s just a lot of things that come up in grading reform, and so we’re gonna focus on some of those fires. I’m gonna just keep silent on the specific ones I’m gonna talk about. I wanna reveal those right now. But it’s based upon one of the books I’ve co-authored called Extinguishing the Fires and Assessment and Grading Reform. We’ll talk about some of those fires this year. Really, the idea in our keynote is just to get our folks fired up about the day and really excited about the work that they’re doing or the work that’s in, in, in front of them. Our breakout sessions are facilitated primarily by practicing educators. Many of them are from Iowa, although we have, I think, a group from a group or two from Wisconsin this year. So again, you’re starting to see our reach go beyond the state of Iowa. We’re asking them really to come in and just share their personal experiences, right? Hey, you’ve been doing this for a while in your school. Tell us how you’ve onboarded brand new teachers. Hey, you know what? You’ve been creating some fantastic proficiency scales or rubrics. Give us your framework or your three, top three steps in how you do that. You’re we know that grade book, electronic grade books are a huge deal, right? So we’ve got, there’s three major electronic grade books in the state of Iowa. So we’ve got somebody that’s a point person for each one of those. We’ve even invited the vendors to come in.

So it’s a place where you just show up and say, Hey, I wanna learn more about how to do standards based grad with, that grade book. And so go to that side of the room and talk to somebody that knows how to do it. That side of the room for a different one, that side of the room for a different one. So again, we’re trying to just meet the needs of schools that are trying to get started or get better at it. We’ve also are doing some fun things again, like talking about how to onboard and help parents understand all this, right? As a school leader we’re, they’re, they have a multifaceted job, right? Not just talking and supporting those that are inside the building every single day, like the students and the teachers, but also they have to have conversations with parents that have questions about this. My friend Chad Lang, who I co-authored Parent’s Guide to Grading Reform, he will be, for example, leading a session on cracking the code, helping parents understand grading reform. Here’s the feedback we’ve gotten, honestly, Sharona and Boz here’s the feedback we’ve gotten every year at the end, we send out a survey. For the past two years, there have been a number of themes, but here’s the number one theme. There were so many good breakout sessions, we couldn’t get to all of them. No joke. No joke. And so we’ve had a number of repeat folks that came in year one, they come back for year two, or they’re, they were here for the year two and they’re coming back for year three because there’s just so many great sessions. And it’s a challenge for us every year to create that conference program, both new and fresh stuff, but also repeating some of the more popular sessions from the year before.

Sharona: And I wanna point out that two of your presenters we’ve had on the podcast, so Don Smith, was on episode 40. Yeah.

Matt Townsley: Shout out to Dawn.

Sharona: And Chad Lang was on episode 59. So if you’re connected with the grading podcast, lot of overlap with your conference because we might have been fed some of these guests by you.

Matt Townsley: The alt grading world’s kind of a small little pond, isn’t it? In that way there’s I dunno, three degrees of separation or something like that.

Boz: All right? If I’m a administrator listening to this episode, is it too late to sign up? And if it not where can you go to get the information get the registration and all that?

Matt Townsley: Heck yeah. I’ll make sure that a link is in the show notes. Make sure you have all that. What’s really neat about our conference, again, because we really want folks to attend as a team, is we give a pretty nice discount if you bring a team of four. So the idea is if you’re a, a principal, assistant principal and a couple of teacher leaders sign up as a group of four, it’s it’s something like it’s almost like a 30 or 40% discount if you bring a team. And that’s the idea, is we don’t want just a teacher to come solo or even a principal to come solo. Make sure that you sign up on our conference website. We’ll make sure there’s a link in the show notes. Please do come. Heck, even if you showed up on the day of the event, June 15th, can’t guarantee a book for you, guarantee a lunch. But we’ll make sure you have a seat in the room. How’s that?

Boz: Love it.

Sharona: That works for me. Sorry I am not going to be there. I apologize. But our conference, like we said, starts bright and early, the 16th. Get it. We expect you there. We expect you to be at ours because ours is virtual.

Matt Townsley: Virtual’s Good. Virtual’s. Good.

Sharona: And we get the same complaint about the multiple track sessions. The nice thing about if you register for the grading conference, we record everything, including if we get the permission, we record our keynotes, which is unusual. And if you are a paid registrant prior to the conference, you will get everything, including the keynotes, within a few weeks. If you do not register, you don’t get the keynotes. But literally every recording we have made from every conference we’ve ever done is on our website free for the public to see except those keynotes. So we have now, can you believe we’re coming up on our seventh conference.

Matt Townsley: Yep. Number seven. That’s incredible.

Matt Townsley: Yes. That was wow. Keep up the good work. Wow.

Boz: Yeah. So besides the conference, which is a huge thing that’s not been the only thing you’ve been up to lately. What’s the state of the world or state of the union from your perspective on, on grading reform?

Matt Townsley: Yeah. I’ve been working with a ton of schools. So one of the things I was kinda alluding to there is through our Institute for Educational Leadership for any Iowa based school. And we wish that our, just, it’s just by the way the grant was written any Iowa based school that attends, they can apply for leadership focused support during the next academic year. And we, we have to turn people away. We’ve had so many applications from those that come and what that leadership supports look like has changed over the years, but think, and. I’m the person that does it, right? Think you come to the conference and you’re like, whoa, Matt we don’t have a list of three to five grading policies. Could someone help facilitate that work with our team? Could someone help us, increase our knowledge of, reassessment? So we can take that learning kinda a train the trainer model, if you will, back out to our teachers. Hey we have no idea how to create task neutral rubrics that are aligned with standards. Could we start creating a couple of them, get some feedback from somebody that’s done this work, and then take a framework out to our staff. Could we get some talking points to talk to parents? So that’s the type of leadership support that I provide in a hybrid format to a limited number of districts. I’m out visiting them, connecting with them on Zoom. And at the end of the year I write up a report that says, here’s the great work you did that aligned with the goals that you set, and that I recommend, like where to go next.

So this is some pretty, in my opinion, very unique, high quality systems level leadership support that not only these school districts are receiving in Iowa here, but I’ve learned a ton from them. So to be honest, like that’s where my learning has been because a lot of my personal experience had been prior to that in my own school district or doing, one off or very short term, consulting work for schools across the state and across the country. It’s not too often that I’ve had the chance to like work with a school for an entire school year at the leadership level. All right, so here’s some of the things I’ve learned. This is crazy and interesting. All right. Two things I thought about leading up to this podcast episode. One is this, I bet that you all, and not just you all, but anyone listening has heard of the idea of response to intervention or multi-tiered system of supports, like this idea of, as a classroom teacher, I provide core instruction to everybody, and then for the a certain percent of kids that don’t get it, I provide more intensive tier two instruction to kids in small level support. And then there’s tier three support as well. All right, so hang out with me. What I’m finding is there are some schools out there that are getting really good at providing school level tier one training and professional learning for their teachers on how to implement standards-based grading. Okay. But then they’re coming people like me being like, but I’ve got this team. Or, I don’t know if we can move forward, or, I don’t know if we have enough people on board to scale it out. And they’re like, what do I do? How do I help the next layer of teachers who need additional support get help? And what is the specific help that they need?

So I’ve been geeking out with some tools these things called innovation configuration maps. Think of them like implementation rubrics for adults, an implementation rubric for reassessment and implementation rubric for different elements of standards-based grading. And we have teachers and teacher teams self-assess where they’re at on that adult implementation rubric. And we use that information to determine which teachers and which teacher teams actually have a strong level of readiness to implement. And then which teachers and teacher teams need additional training to get better in areas that they’re not yet good at. So it’s a multi-tiered system of support I’ve been helping schools with and dreaming up as a framework to support the teachers in their building implement standards-based grading. Does that sound amazing or what?

Boz: That absolutely does. And I was like, is this going to be published anywhere? Where can I get my hands on this? And where can other people get their hands? Is that in the works?

Sharona: And how can we be offering it through the Center for Grading Reform on a national level? Just saying,

Matt Townsley: Hey to be honest, this is the most cutting edge systems level support that I have ever been a part of or thought of as it relates to grading reform. There’s a lot of good, four p frameworks like I talked about earlier, just to get started. But what do you do after that? Okay, so it’s not yet in the books. It’s not yet in the articles. I’m not yet ready to reveal if and when and how it’s gonna come out. But to answer your question, Boz, it will be all right. It will be.

Boz: All right. When you are ready to announce that or when it comes out? Yeah. You gotta come back here and give us a, all the juicy details.

Sharona: We want the inside scoop.

Matt Townsley: Good.

Sharona: We’ve been here since the beginning.

Matt Townsley: These tools, I believe, are going to be fantastic. The way for school leaders who are typically familiar with the idea of response to intervention or multi-tiered systems support as a structure for their school in supporting student learning to help them say, Hey, we could do that same level of work for the way that we support the adults in our building. So here’s a teaser though, Boz, just be real. Okay? It’s not framed this way as a multi-tiered system of supports but some of the tools are already out there. So in my book, making Grades Matter at the end of a couple chapters, some of those tools are being retooled, if you will for this whole new framework that I’ve been actually pilot testing, if you will, beta testing with these schools have been supporting. So some of the tools are out there, they’re gonna get retooled and put together in a better form and a better way in the future. But the second thing that I’ve been seeing and hearing out in the field, I do have much more of a concrete timeline on how’s that for a teaser? Should we talk about that one?

Boz: Absolutely,

Sharona: yes.

Matt Townsley: All right. So

Sharona: you really are the sportscaster though. You’re doing the tease and the pitch.

Matt Townsley: Coming up next after this commercial. No, just kidding. All right. Okay. So as I’m out there, again, this is all leadership focused stuff, but as a part of those leadership teams, we’ve got, principal, director, assistant principal, whoever. We’ve got like a PE teacher who’s on that grading task force that I’m working with, and so we’ve got teachers who are asking some content specific questions. Now, all three of us come from the math world, if I remember right. We’re kinda math centric type people. And so we may just, preconceive the way to do alt-grading, standards based grading through the lens, if you will, of math in a way. Okay. And in a lot of ways there’s a lot of good things that, that come out of that. So when I, again my, my part of my origin story back in the day was as I was a K 12 teacher, I’m sorry, a high school teacher turned district office administrator. And part of my district office work, as it turns out, was leading not just math teachers, but entire school district through grading reform at the time, I didn’t have the resource and the ideas I’m gonna share with you about right now, but what I wished I would’ve had was, is could somebody help me nuance out some of the implementation steps for PE, for science, for math, for music. Hear me out for a second. PE probably has a lot bigger class sizes than math. The choir teacher has a lot bigger, the band teacher has a lot more students in the class at the time. Like they can’t do the stuff. N now. No, for those of you out there are like, Hey, I got 40 kids in my class. I hear out. It’s tough with 40 kids in your class or 35, but we’re talking about like the choir teacher that’s got a hundred kids in the class, right? So we’ll talk about things like, reassessment in a math class of 35 students. Now we’re talking about a PE teacher who’s got, 70 kids in the class and it’s more of a a performance based content area. What does reassessment look like in PE and how is that different than how we might operationalize reassessment in mathematics?

Hear me out. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a book, a resource for secondary teachers that had an entire chapter on how to implement standards-based grading in math? Another chapter on how to implement standards-based grading in science, another chapter for PE, another chapter for music. And what if those chapters were written by different people? An all star lineup, if you will, of people from across North America. That’s the resource that’s coming out.

Sharona: You know what would also be really cool though? I just have to throw this in. If there was a podcast that had, say, episode 74, that has a PE teacher on it specifically talking about it, that would be really useful.

Just saying, yo random episode number 74 with Josh Ogilvy. Just saying.

Matt Townsley: What if I told you that Josh also knew about this book?

Sharona: Yes. That doesn’t surprise me.

Matt Townsley: Yeah.

Sharona: But see that’s, but that’s the point of the Center for Grading Reform, right? Is that we wanted to be independent. Although we appreciate that the University of Iowa is doing all this work, they do have a mandate to focus on Iowa. And we appreciate all these things. But the center is supposed to be independent of states, independent of disciplines, independent of educational levels. Yes, we’re trying to be all things to all people, but by bringing together this network. People to do this. So you so you have a book coming out with all this detail That’s amazing.

Sharona: I want them to rewrite, I want them to rewrite the Common Core math standards with the model of the next Generation Science.

Matt Townsley: Yeah.

Sharona: Like they really do.

Matt Townsley: Yeah. ’cause we’ve got, these these three dimensional science standards and that just creates some very unique things. And and also science being a lab inquiry based content area. A lot of like lab based activities and things like that. So there’s just some very interesting questions about, what’s reassessment look like, for example. Should we keep the three dimensional Next Generation Science students together? Should we unbraided them as we think about how to assess and grade them? There’s just all these different. Questions. I’m like, I didn’t know that as a district office person back in the day. I just didn’t have that level of, or that depth of knowledge. But the people that I’ve been talking with want that depth of knowledge. They need it. They, because they’re at that point where they’re like, okay, we’ve read x, y, z book, we’ve gone to this conference, but we want this, very in the weeds question answered. And so that’s what this, this resource is gonna be all about. What’s also gonna be neat is in the first chapter of our book, we talk about things like what should be similar. What should be the same amongst all of those content areas. And so we plant the flag a little bit in chapter one. A neat little table in chapter one also talks about here’s are the decisions that should be at more of the systems level, see a repeating theme here. And there’s also some, maybe some decisions and things that could be nuanced out, at the teacher or content team level.

Sharona: So that’s amazing. But I wanna pivot to your four part YouTube miniseries, which is titled Grading Reform isn’t optional anymore. So now you’re taking a really strong sand to say, Hey guys, you can’t not do this. What’s that all about? Yeah, because it’s all exciting. Like this is all great and fun and good and we love trying to get it done, but it’s a humongous task.

Matt Townsley: You got it. You got it. You got it. Yeah.

Sharona: So why is it not optional?

And there’s just even more research. I know you all are just, beating this drum. We talk about grading inflation on this podcast, and are we even asking the right question about, what grade inflation is all about and things like that. And so there’s just so much evidence out there now that says that grading practices are not what they ought to be. And so there’s a, let’s just say it, there’s a knowing doing gap. Or just this it’s ignorant now to say I don’t think that grading practices need to change. That’s just ignoring over a hundred years of research out there now. Measurement, equity, consistency and clarity. All of those areas are feeding into the idea of our grading practices need to change. So it’s just a knowing, doing gap now. It really is.

Boz: Yeah. There’s a line in building thinking classrooms that sums it up perfectly. It’s like you’re doing 20 century grading on 21st century teaching and learning the course. There’s a mismatch. You, we can’t keep doing that.

Sharona: Now I have a different answer to why grading reform isn’t optional. Let’s hear it. But it’s from my perspective and it’s the threat that AI poses to higher education. I don’t know if AI is the same threat to, k 12 because you have a lot more like sort of legal constraints and rules that you can put students in a box, but it is optional for students to go to college and they have to pay for it. So if college is not valuable, because we’re not teaching the right things, we’re not telling students how they’re doing on the right things. And if AI can do better than our students can do, the value proposition of higher ed blows up very fast. And sure, the elite institutions will stick around your R ones your Harvards, your Yales, because that’s a different value proposition than say a Cal State system. But I am very concerned that AI is going to outpace the ability of universities to adapt. So I think it’s not optional because it’s existential crisis for higher education. Again, K 12 public education right now is government funded. It’s legally mandatory. The threats are a little bit different, but higher education, I think it’s existential.

Boz: You said that was the first of this four part miniseries. And I’ll be honest, I didn’t know anything about this miniseries. I can’t this weekend, but I know next weekend I don’t know how long these things are, but I plan on watching all of them a week from this weekend.

Matt Townsley: Hey, Boz, just to g just to to give you some cover there. They’re pretty new. They’re hot off the press. Yeah. Cue ’em up and listen to ’em, buddy. Cue ’em up and listen to ’em. Yeah. Yeah, so we talk a lot about, really in the first the first episode. Why, like, why is grading reform still a conversation? Why is it not optional anymore? That’s really I think I’ve summarized that one. The second thing we talk about is really what I was kinda referring to earlier of how to get started. So many people I know want to get started in the weeds. First, they want to prioritize the particulars without circling back to the purpose of all of it. And so we talk about in that episode the four P framework that I was referring to just a little bit ago as the first keynote in our standards based grading conference. This idea of, Hey, if you’re listening here and you’re not really sure where to get started start with a grading purpose statement. Get the right people in the room and just say The purpose of grades in our school is to communicate students’ current levels of learning in relation to the academic standards. Let’s get going.

And so every other detailed decision that we make about what our grade book’s gonna look like, how we’re gonna handle reassessment, all of those detailed decisions that we make are going to be in support of that grading purpose statement. So we talk about, doing the purpose statement policies and so forth. And just kinda walk our viewers and listeners through what all of that’s like and the importance of it. Too many times Sharona and Boz, I’ll be honest I have a Google alert set up. What a Google alert is like, where you can have Google send you stuff based upon keywords and phrases. So I have Google alerts for standards based grading, standards, reference grading. So whenever there’s a school out there, whether it’s a good news headline or a not good news headline, like it comes to my email inbox and I read those stories. Oftentimes when schools are struggling or perceived to be, maybe being challenged by this, somebody is trying to throw the baby out with the bath water. What I mean by that is, is there it’s a communication issue. It’s a people aren’t really sure what the change is. There hasn’t been enough time to actually implement it. And so we believe by really walking through the purpose and the policies and the pilot and the probe, and really trying to, scale it out well, that schools can hopefully avoid, becoming a headline essentially, that ends up in Matt’s Google Alert inbox. So that’s kinda our second episode. Really, the format of these podcasts is just Chad and me just chitchatting, talking back and forth about our experiences, which makes, I think, for an enjoyable kind of fireside podcast listening experience. Pour your favorite beverage, get a few chips or pretzels Boz as you’re listing on your weekends.

Boz: I’m definitely looking forward to it, and I, you just said something that also made me feel so validated because one of the things that I have found and that I’ve talked about a few times is, and I don’t see this in the higher ed, but this is a K 12 mostly issue is yeah. That problem of, okay, great. I don’t need to hear all this o other wise, and I’ll just tell me how to do it in the grade book. Just tell me the mechanics and it not working. And that rush that I don’t know. I have my suspicions of why that is, but that seems to be really a K 12 issue or at least much more a K 12 issue than a higher ed issue. So the fact that you’re bringing, you’re seeing that same thing and you’re bringing that up makes me feel validated. ’cause that’s what been one of my things with K 12, is no I’m not gonna, I refuse to go in and do a, an hour long PD on how to hack or our, use our LMS system to do standards base or EGI, as we call it and L-A-U-S-D. I’m not gonna, I refuse to do it because it’s a recipe for disaster.

Matt Townsley: That’s also a unique thing. We talk about that in episode three is really how to support staff through grading reform. That’s also, I think, a unique thing in the K 12 world. There is this notion of, we have a professional development day or afternoon every month or every couple months. And as a university professor, we don’t have that. We don’t have, the first Wednesday is professional development, or every Thursday afternoon is early out. So we sit through trainings. It’s just not the way we operate, right? So there’s like an expectation of good or bad, being professionally developed as a K 12 educator that maybe is not, that structure isn’t necessarily imposed upon university professors. And if we host a, a, fantastic, oh, I know, right? Go ahead, Sharona. You’re right. No,

Sharona: I was just gonna say, because some faculty actually think that professional development is only for intervening with poor instructors.

Matt Townsley: Yep.

Sharona: So there’s an active pushback against professional development.

Matt Townsley: And, we have like centers for excellence in teaching and learning at the university level and things like that. And I think frankly, they may be underutilized, right? There’s there’s, so there’s such an opportunity for learning. But I’ve gone to those sessions at my university and there’s often the coalition of excited that’s there, right? The people that probably already love it and get it and are there to get better, don’t get me wrong. Like you go to the AI sessions where all of our minds are blown on all the things we don’t know. It, that’s different than being a teacher and saying, Hey, in the next two years we’re gonna be implementing standards based grading. And so go to this series of workshops that our school is providing. It’s just a, it’s a different narrative.

Sharona: I don’t know if you listened to our most recent episode where we went back to the Harvard issue with Dr. Stephanie Valentine. Yes. And just what they’re doing and her way of cutting through okay, Harvard is trying to double down on ranking and sorting. Do you understand what that is going to do to your students’ risk taking and innovation and entrepreneurship like you can. You can go to rank and sortt, but it’s gonna have consequences.

Boz: Yeah. But it really does boil back down to those, like you said, Sharona a couple episodes ago, those very opposing, not just different, but opposing purposes that grades have been used for, which is, a message of learning versus ranking and sorting and that purpose, like you were saying, Matt, going back to those grading purpose statements, why those are so important because, if you really think that ranking and sorting is what the grades should be, then yeah, maybe this, alternative grading or any of that isn’t for your school site, but I’ve not found too many K 12.

At a system level or a leadership team level that’s going to say, yeah, purpose of grades is to rank and sort our students.

Matt Townsley: Yeah. I think what you just said, something like, it was a, if it’s about sorting, then it’s a scandal, but if it’s about communicating, then it’s the goal or something along those lines, I thought.

Yeah. Yeah. Said.

Boz: And I know I was looking at this list and there was another one that you listed your number, your fifth one that you listed. The Notorious SBG administrator.

Matt Townsley: That’s great.

Boz: Be I am not only particularly interested in this one because of the mixed methods, and I just love reading the kind of research like that, but I actually think my nieces schools were involved in this.

Matt Townsley: Oh, no way.

Boz: I, I. Yeah, I’m gonna look into it, but I, because my youngest brother and his family are in Arkansas, and I remember one of my nieces talking a little bit about some stuff. I think they might’ve actually been part of this, so I’m really eager to get into that one.

Boz: Exactly. All right okay. I cannot believe this. We are already at time. I think we could go on forever with you. I love it. But we are coming up on time, Sharona, is there any last minute thing that you wanted to bring up?

Sharona: Thank you, Matt, for continuing to push this work forward and continuing to be one of those connectors those key network people, because I think that it’s efforts like what you’re doing and hopefully what we’re doing that’s creating a community out of what was not a community. It was pretty isolating back in the day, pre pandemic, and the fact that we get to the fact that I get to say, Josh Vy and you’re like, I know that person. And I’m like, Hey, Chad Lang, I know that person. Like it’s really neat to get to build this network with you. So thank you for continuing to do the work and coming back on the pod as well.

Matt Townsley: Yeah, my pleasure. And just as a reminder, if the leaders don’t get it, it’s not gonna happen.

Boz: All right. So I do have one request. When that book does come out, what is it gonna take to get a signed autographed copy from you?

Matt Townsley: Hey, we can make that happen, Boz. You bet.

Boz: All right, Matt, as always, this is always a blast to have you on. We’re gonna have to get you back on.

Sharona: Not waiting episodes. We’re not waiting another hundred episodes episode. No.

Boz: And we all the best luck on the conference, love to hear, somehow how it goes. After you’ve had it. But wish that conference the absolute best.

Matt Townsley: Thanks you all. Hey, I appreciate all the work you’re doing. I think we’re all in the same just the same team here trying to make grading reform as practical as possible for people. So I’m just grateful for the the ongoing work you all are doing to make this podcast a thing.

Boz: Yep. And to our listeners, I wanna thank you guys. You’re the reason why we’ve been doing this for well over a hundred episodes. We’re coming up on almost 150. So thank you all. You’ve been listening to The Grading podcast with Baz and Sharona, and we’ll see you next week.

Sharona: Please share your thoughts and comments about this episode by commenting on this episode’s page on our website, http://www.thegradingpod.com. Or you can share with us publicly on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. If you would like to suggest a featured topic for the show or would like to be considered as a potential guest for the show, please use the Contact us form on our website. The Grading podcast is created and produced by Robert Bosley and Sharona Krinsky. The full transcript of this episode is available on our website.

Boz: The views expressed here are those of the host and our guest. These views are not necessarily endorsed by the Cal State System or by the Los Angeles Unified School District.