Pre-Conference: Thursday June 2, 2022
- Pre-Conference Workshop
Are you coming to The Grading Conference this year but are brand new to Alternative Grading? Not sure about all these terms? Want a quick (hour and a half or so) introduction? We have a pre-conference workshop just for you! It’s included with your registration. Thursday June 2nd at 7:30 PM Eastern Time (4:30 PM Pacific Time) via Zoom (no additional charge). Facilitated by Sharona Krinsky and Robert Bosley , we’ll give you a quick introduction to Alternative Grading (at least the way we see it). Designed primarily for people new to alternative grading, all conference registrants are welcome!Click for Recording
- Session 1: Introductions and Welcome
Welcome to the Grading Conference! We’ll get you up to speed about how the conference works, and introduce our first keynote.
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Click for Slides - Session 2: Keynote - Rissa Sorensen-Unruh
Do you wish you could enact ungrading in your classroom but feel constrained in doing so? Let’s discuss/identify/name the barriers we face in enacting ungrading, an emancipatory pedagogy, in our classes. We’ll also reflect on our own contexts to gain insight into/strategize/plan how we can move past these barriers, even if our movement is in tiny incremental steps. Join us.
Click for Recording - Session 3: Kickoff Panel
We’ll start with a quick recap of the key ideas of alternative grading, including the “four pillars” framework and a description of common approaches. Then each organizer will give a short piece of advice that helps us move from high-level ideas to practical on-the-ground implementation of new grading concepts.
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Click for Slides - Session 4A: What is...? Standards Based Grading
Presenters: Kate Owens & Sharona Krinsky
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Click for Slides - Session 4B: What is...? Specifications Grading
Presenters: David Clark & Robert Talbert
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Click for Slides - Session 4C: What is …? Ungrading
Presenters: Courtney Sobers & Katie Mattaini
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Click for Slides - Session 5A: CheckIt
Presenter: Steven Clontz
CheckIt is a free and open platform for authoring and sharing randomized exercises for practice and assessment. Currently authors have created publicly-available CheckIt banks for calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, statistics, and intro to proofs courses, with more to come in the future. In this session, Steven Clontz will show how to use the newest version of CheckIt (to be released in June 2022) to generate randomized printable PDF quizzes and export randomized exercise banks to your LMS without needing to install any software. (https://checkit.clontz.org/)
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Click for Slides - Session 5B: Building Buy-In & Establishing Trust (Panel Discussion)
Presenters: Jessica Kelly, Megan Mahoney, Priya Prasad, Raj Chaudhury
When you use an unusual assessment systems, students can (rightly!) be confused and suspicious. How do you help them trust that you have their best interests at heart? How can you communicate your reasons for using alternative grading, and get students on your side?
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Click for Slides - Session 5C: Managing Large Classes (Panel Discussion)
Presenters: Renee Link, Ann Radant, Elena Bray Speth, Sarah Marcus
Anyone who’s taught large classes knows that good logistics are critical to maintain instructor sanity. In this session, panelists will discuss their diverse experiences with implementing alternative grading in classes with 100+ students.
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Click for Slides - Session 5D: Introduction to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Panel Discussion)
Presenters: Jennifer Momsen, Amanda Harsy, Jen Friberg
The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, or SoTL, is an important way that any instructor can share research about the effectiveness of alternative grading. In this session, you’ll learn more about SoTL and how to get started in it.
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Click for Slides (Speaker Slides) - Session 6: Highlight Presentation - Katie Mattaini
Inclusive Pedagogy and Alternative Assessment
This talk will focus on how alternative grading schemes can be used to build inclusive learning environments – or not! Come prepared to reflect on your practice.
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Click for Slides - Session 7: Keynote Speaker - Rachel Weir
What’s in a Name? Grading without Labels
Over the past several years, I have used many types of non-traditional grading methods, including mastery-based testing, specifications grading, standards-based grading, and, most recently, ungrading. In this talk, I will share how reframing these methods using the umbrella term of alternative grading helped free me to make more thoughtful choices in my classes. I will illustrate this transformation by talking about the grading schemes in two of my most recent courses, a differential equations course and a sophomore seminar on writing and speaking.
Click for Recording - Session 8: Wrap Up Day 1
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Day 2: June 4, 2022
- Session 10: Day 2 Conference Intro
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Click for Slides - Session 11: Keynote Speaker - Courtney Sobers
The Messy Reality of Alternative Grading
Deciding to use alternative grading is easy. Implementing alternative grading is overwhelming. Effective implementation requires intentional choices that respect personal, institutional, and course boundaries. I will discuss what finally pushed me to use ungrading, outline how various boundaries changed my implementations of ungrading in “impossible” courses, and hopefully leave you feeling less overwhelmed and more ready to try.
Click for Recording - Session 12A: Q&A About… Standards Based Grading
Presenters: Kate Owens & Sharona Krinsky
Now that you’ve had more time to learn about Standards Based Grading, come ask us questions about it in this ask-me-anything session!
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Click for Slides - Session 12B: Q&A About… Specifications Grading
Presenters: David Clark & Robert Talbert
Now that you’ve had more time to learn about Specifications Grading, come ask us questions about it in this ask-me-anything session!
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Click for Slides - Session 12C: Q&A About… Ungrading
Presenters: Courtney Sobers & Katie Mattaini
Now that you’ve had more time to learn about Ungrading, come ask us questions about it in this ask-me-anything session!
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Click for Slides - Session 12D: Late Work and Equitable Policies
Presenter: Jayme Dyer
Should a student’s grade reflect their timeliness when turning in assignments, and, conversely, should late work be penalized in the grade? Whether you have a formal late work policy or not, how you deal with late work and deadline extension requests has wide-ranging impacts on student equity. In this presentation, the equity impacts of traditional late work policies will be considered, and a variety of practical, more-equitable policies will be presented that you can mix-and-match to fit your classroom needs.
Click for Recording - Session 13: Current SoTL research
Presenters: Sharona Krinsky, Ben Fahrman, Jasmine Badiee, and Owynn Lancaster
What do we know about the effectiveness of alternative assessment practices? In this session, speakers will share brief presentations on their current and upcoming work in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning regarding alternative grading.
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Click for Slides - Session 14A: Rethinking Assumptions
Presenters: Heather Miceli, Spencer Bagley, Rissa Sorenson-Unruh, Theresa Gaines
Many assumptions about grades are baked in to the structure of higher education. This panel will make explicit some of these assumptions, and raise the question of what could be if we no longer felt compelled to follow some of these.
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Click for Slides - Session 14B: Dealing with Data
Presenters: Nathan Fox, Debbie Gaydos, Rebecca Reck, and Jacquelyn Rische
Learn how to use alternative grading with various learning management systems (LMSs) and other tools, including Canvas, D2L, and Gradescope.
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Click for Slides - Session 14C: Managing Workload
Presenters: Kate Owens & Robert Talbert
How can instructors manage their workload and time in an alternatively assessed class? Bring your questions to this ask-me-anything session run by two veteran alternative graders!
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Click for Slides - Session 14D: Generating Reassessments
Presenters: Greg Crowther, Angela Hodgson
How can you generate multiple versions of an assessment, for students to use on reattempts? Our presenters will share how they do this in non-math classes.
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Click for Slides - Session 15A: Using Alternative Grading in Lab Classes
Presenters: Courtney Sobers, Marney Pratt, Jeff Markert
A panel discussing the use of alternative grading schemes in both traditional and CURE lab courses.
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Click for Slides - Session 15B: Blending Ideas
Presenters: Christelle Sabatier, Cara Pina, Kristina Reardon
Many alternative graders put their own twists on specs, standards-based, or ungrading. During this session, panelists will discuss how they chose components of different systems to come up with grading schemas appropriate for the goals of their own classes.
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Click for Slides - Session 15C: I Came, I Learned, I Tried, I Wish I’d Known
Presenters: Monica VanDieren, Michael Levet
Past participants in the Grading Conference will share their experiences and lessons learned when implementing alternative methods for the first time.
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Click for Slides - Session 15D: What Could Reassessments Look Like?
Presenters: Robynne Lock, Abby Noble, Josh Veazey
How do reassessments actually work in a class? Should you use revisions or new attempts? In class, office hours, or something else? Our panelists will share how they use reassessments, why they use that approach, and advice for new practitioners.
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Click for Slides - Session 16: Keynote Speaker - Robert Talbert
Iterations on Specifications Grading
We should never ask a student to do something that we ourselves would not be willing to do under similar circumstances. For alternative graders, this includes engaging in feedback loops: Trying things, recognizing and dealing with shortcomings, listening to feedback, and trying again. In this talk, I’ll describe my ongoing journey with alternative grading and the feedback loops I’ve used over the last several years. Starting from my early well-meaning but not-so-great attempts at specs grading, I’ll describe what happened, what I learned, and how I am attempting to improve.
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Click for Slides - Session 17: Town Hall Q&A and Conference Wrap Up
We’ll end the conference with an extended Q&A session to help set you on your way to using alternative grading in your own classes.
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