75 - Failing Our Future: How Grades Harm Students and What We Can Do About It: An Interview with Dr. Josh Eyler

Episode 75 • 17th December 2024 • The Grading Podcast • Sharona Krinsky and Robert Bosley

Josh Eyler: Do you think that this is actually possible? Do you think that that it is possible to change grading at at a, you know, in major ways and have, have the kind of major reforms that we're talking about? Or are individuals just going to keep doing their own experiments in their own corners? And to be honest, I don't really have I, who knows, right? I do think that change happens with very small steps, and that often the biggest changes that have happened in education, when you look back and see how they began, it didn't seem like a whole lot was happening and then all of a sudden things started to really happen all at once.

Boz: Welcome to the grading podcast, where we'll take a critical lens to the methods of assessing students', learning from traditional grading to math, 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 to be able to actually implement effective grading practices in your class and at your institution.

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

Sharona: I am celebrating. The semester's over. Although, to be honest, I still have a lot of work as the coordinator for the next four days on this semester. But we made it through, I made it through this first semester of this crazy new job. And I am very excited to have a little time off, go see my older son. How about you?

Boz: I'm doing good. You know, my semester and both my high school and college is also over at the time that we're recording this intro, which is really kind of weird because usually, you know, for the high school part, I usually have another week or so. But yeah, we're actually getting out at the same time, although I am a little bit upset. We had an interview that I was really looking forward to with Josh Eyler. I've actually talked about it on some of the other episodes about how excited I was. And unfortunately I had to miss it.

I think I mentioned this a few episodes back, but I took a bit of a fall and kind of banged up my knee and I was finally able to get into my doctor, but the only time I could get in was when we were supposed to be doing this interview with Josh. So I'm a little upset that, I had to miss that, but you got to do it. You still went in and did the interview cause we didn't want to cancel it and try to have to reschedule it and not get him on. So how did it, how was the interview?

lier keynotes, I think in the: 2021

Boz: Well, I look forward to listening to it just as our listeners do. Cause I didn't get to be a part of it. So let's get to it.

Sharona: So I am so excited to welcome to the pod. We have a new guest in our virtual studio and for this portion of the pod today, it's just me with our guests. We are so excited. I'm welcoming Dr. Josh Elyer to the pod. He is the director of faculty development and director of the Think Forward Quality Enhancement Plan at the University of Mississippi Ole Miss. He's also a clinical assistant professor in teacher education. And he's the author of Failing Our Future, How Grades Harm Students and What We Can Do About It. So, I wanted to welcome Josh to the pod today.

Josh Eyler: Thank you so much. I appreciate the invitation. I'm looking forward to this.

Sharona: Absolutely. Now, is there anything else in your bio that you really want me to highlight before we move on? Because I mean, I definitely have more that I could say here.

Josh Eyler: Oh, no, not really. I mean, I think that it I, I think that A lot of the work that I've done in my career feels like it's been leading up to this book about grades, and so I'm really excited just to dive in.

Sharona: Awesome. Okay, so speaking of diving in, you're new to the pod, and as long time listeners know, we always ask the same first question. I ask it a little bit differently than Bosley does. My question is, what is your origin story, either villain or hero, of how you got started in alternative grading?

Josh Eyler: Yeah, I love this. It makes me feel like I'm in a comic book. So this is fun. My origin story, I think it's, it's not a linear one. I think there are sort of some winding paths that led me here. So one of those paths is that I started my career as an English professor and graded very traditionally graded as I had been graded. And my field that I did my graduate work in was medieval studies, which is not in any way a progressive field in terms of its teaching strategy. So yeah, you know, I graded extremely traditionally but I found, after years of grading papers and exams, that I was really dissatisfied with the whole project, the whole process. And I often was so caught up in the just the process of, is this an A minus or a B plus A minus B plus, and it was expending an enormous amount of psychological energy trying to determine which of those it was. And then more importantly, this is, I think, the kernel of the origin. More importantly, after I had decided the grade, what I found was that most of my feedback was being used to justify the grade that I had given rather than really targeted toward helping the student improve as as a writer or for the next assignment. I mean, I'm hoping that the feedback did that as well, but from my perspective, it was like making a defense in court, right? I've decreed that this is a B plus, and here's all the evidence to show that why it is a B plus.

And that is not at all why I wanted to be an educator. I got into this because I wanted to be more of a coach to help students learn how to be great writers and to appreciate literature. So that was the beginning for sure. And then when I moved into the world of centers for teaching and learning and I began to work on a book called How Humans Learn which came out a few years ago and has a chapter on failure in it. And as I was writing that chapter on why failure is so important for learning I was running into a lot of research about grades and how grades set up obstacles to that natural learning process where we try something, we make a mistake, we get feedback, we try it again. And so that I put it on the shelf for the time being, but that, that too is part of the origin story.

And then I think the third and final part was that at all at the same time, I was seeing a lot of people in my circle, in education, a lot of people I interacted with, trying out new approaches to grading. And I finally said, probably, I don't know, eight or 10 years ago now, I'm just going to dive in. I'm going to try, I'm going to try it. And it's going to, it may be uncomfortable, but I'm convinced that changing the way I grade is for the best.

So I started small. Dipping my toes in the water with portfolio grading. Just giving lots and lots of feedback and lots of opportunities for students to revise and then turning in a portfolio at the end and that got the grade, but they would have had a lot of opportunity to really make things improve along the way. And then I moved to contract grading with the graduate courses I was teaching, and then finally, for the last five years or more, I've been doing collaborative grading or ungrading. In a variety of the education courses that I teach here at the University of Mississippi. So all, yeah, it's a, it's not a traditional origin story maybe, but that's what led me here.

Sharona: Well, what we're finding is there's no traditional origin story and there are common themes in almost all origin stories. So things like defending the grade you're giving is very common. And also the feedback not being aligned with what your personal teaching goals are.

Josh Eyler: Yeah.

Sharona: So for myself, when I was in undergraduate, I thought I was going to be a genetic scientist. That's what I went to school to do. And I got a couple of years in and I hit organic chemistry and realized I was not a scientist. I really was a mathematician. But even then I was never a research mathematician. I had grown up with a mother who was in math education and was a university faculty member at a Cal State. And so I decided that I really wanted to continue the work she was doing, but she was working primarily with pre service and in service teachers, mostly K to eight. I didn't want to work that young. And I thought, well, why don't I try to do some of what she's doing, but do it at the university.

So I wanted to change the way we taught at the university, started a PhD, did not finish, stopped and went off and did other things for 20 plus years. So I actually went away from education altogether. And when I came back, I was very frustrated because I had all these tools that I wanted to work. I had been told were the right thing to do. Cooperative learning, active learning, group work in the classroom, inquiry, and I couldn't make them work. I was not that kick it out of the park, the instructor who changed your life, kind of instructor that I wanted to be. So and I discovered that grades were the barrier for me. So similar, but different.

Josh Eyler: Right? Yeah.

Sharona: So. So now you're doing all this grading change, and you said you now live in the collaborative grading space, which is my understanding, is kind of the current nomenclature for the ungrading world. Ungrading has decided that the word's not working so well anymore.

Josh Eyler: Well, I think the issue with the term is that has come to mean so many different things. It's hard to know which meaning people are using when they first use the term. So it can mean the philosophy of using no or fewer grades. It can mean the umbrella for all the different alternative grading models, or it can mean what collaborative grading solely means, which is a process by which the instructor gives a lot of feedback, students do a lot of self assessment and reflection along the way. And then they propose their final grade at the end of the semester after, for me, a really extensive reflection project. And then that final grade is kind of solidified through a conversation between the instructor and the student at the end.

Sharona: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's why we tend to use the word alternative grading, which for us is actually an aspirational term. We call it alternative grading because we want it eventually to be what we mean by grading. So we're hoping to drop the alternative eventually. And so right now it's the only thing that alternative means is really not points and percentages.

Josh Eyler: Right. Yeah. Not traditional grading.

Sharona: It's supposed to include collaborative, contract, all these different things. Not so much on the philosophy side. I love what Jesse Stommel did in his book with the ungrading and the deconstruction of the word. But, yeah. I'm not quite there. I'm more in the standards based world. So you just came out with a book.

Josh Eyler: Yes.

Sharona: So why don't we talk, first of all, let's tell the origin story of the book itself. And then I have some questions about the book. So how did you get to the point where you decided to write a book?

Josh Eyler: Well, some of it has, is connected to the origin story, really the dissatisfaction grades, the immense amount of research that I was seeing when I was writing the previous book. About the problems with grades. I mean, it was just so striking. And I wrote just a little bit about grades in that book, but I knew that I had to come back to it, that there is something so clear about the directions that the research on grades were headed in terms of illuminating their problems on a whole range of topics. It came from a desire, having been a part of this great community that we are a part of with grading reform and seeing how the conversations are taking place collectively among a small group, but in pockets largely, in the education world. So faculty are talking amongst themselves, students amongst themselves, parents amongst themselves. And so part of my desire to write this book was as a way to communicate with a broad audience and try and get everyone on the same page with the same information so that we can move forward together to try and make change.

So that was part of it as well. And finally, a lot of it comes from being a dad, and I tell some of these stories in the book about watching my daughter begin in the K 12 system, and when she was in kindergarten, she didn't get any grades. But then in first grade, when we were in Houston she was suddenly coming home, asking me all kinds of questions about what A's meant, and what a hundred meant, and all sorts of things. And so the things that I experienced theoretically in writing about grades, I was seeing very very close to home and talking to her about her experiences as well. So it all came together and then I knew that I really wanted to kind of look at grades from a 30, 000 foot view and from all angles as to how they have an impact on people's lives.

I was, you know, back in the: 1980

Josh Eyler: Well, and see, this is part of the point, right? That we all have stories like this, and I use the metaphor in the book of the Scarlet Letter to describe the exact effect that you are talking about here. That even for those students who got lots of good grades like you yourself are talking about, those stories that communicate or that we think communicate something about who we are as people and about our skills and talents that we carry with us for the rest of our lives. Yeah. And that is true of every student who moves through a system with traditional grades, and I think that that is not what education is supposed to be. And it's certainly, I don't think what people intend when they give grades, but it bears itself out time and time again, that the stories that we construct as students about what grades tell us really go with us long after we leave school.

Sharona: Yeah. And it's somewhat shocking. Now the audience for this particular podcast is well aware of some of those harms. So we don't need to rehash all of them, but I did want to point out a few things from the book. So the book is Failing OurFuture: How Grades Harm Students and What We Can Do About It. That part was really important to me and what we can do about it. But in, you have a chapter here, chapter three, that it's titled the weight of their world grades in the mental health crisis in America.

Josh Eyler: Yes.

Sharona: And I was really struck at the opening of that chapter. You talk about Lisa Damour, who is a psychologist and writer who wrote a subheading, school is supposed to be stressful. And you just came out and said, I disagree. Can you maybe summarize a little bit about what this chapter is about and what exactly do you disagree with?

Josh Eyler: Yeah. Well, and I should say from the outset that I really like Lisa Damour's work. I learned a lot from her book. She does amazing work with especially adolescent girls and talking about the teenage years. But that sentence, school is supposed to be stressful, strikes me as the heart of this whole problem. School is not supposed to be stressful. It just often is stressful largely because of the evaluation systems that we have set up that students are stressed not because of learning, not because of inherently what is eight plus eight or what is the symbol of the raft mean in Huck Finn? They get stressed because the work that they do is evaluated in a particular way using traditional grades.

So I disagree that school itself has to be stressful. It just is stressful because of things that we ourselves have designed. And I use that as a jumping off point for really looking at the research on mental health crisis among preteens, teens and young adults in this country. The surgeon general just a few years ago put out an official advisory that this was a crisis, a health crisis in our country. And look specifically at studies that have been done over the last five to 10 years that connect academic stress in particular, grades, with to the anxiety and depression that those students in those age groups are really facing. Right?

There's a study from the Pew Research Institute that asks students what the biggest issues are in their in their age groups and anxiety and depression at the top of their list. Then they ask they follow that up with a question about why. And grades and the pressure to get good grades is the most cited answer among among those who were studied, and that's just one of many, many studies, both in for high school students and for college students. There are there's a wealth of of data out there now that really is overwhelming in its evidence that the things that we are doing in our education systems are are contributing significantly to what is now a health crisis.

And my position in that chapter is first of all, to lay out , that information so that we can see that this is in fact an issue, but then to try to make the case. That if we know this is true, we can act and do something about it. That we don't have to think that this is just inevitable. We don't have to we don't have to assume that, well, this is just how school is, so they're just going to have to suck it up. That's not true. We created these systems. We can change these systems. And so it's in part to help people feel like they have some agency as well to, to help these these kids and young adults who are experiencing these things. And that, you know, that extends to the second section of the book, which is how, how do we help? What do we do? But I felt it was very important. For to talk about this particular aspect of grades because it's not something that has really been that much a part of the conversation for very long. We talked a lot about the academic obstacles and the motivational obstacles. And even some of the equity issues, but , the connection to mental health, I think is both vital to to explore and under discussed at the same time. So I really wanted to just shine a little bit of light on it.

Sharona: Right, and you even say in the book that many institutions remain staunchly committed to keeping their grading systems because they believe it helps them maintain a sense of rigor. In our world, we have a saying rigor is for corpses. We actually have some of our members who've done needle points to that effect. A shout out to Katie Mattini. And there's a vested interest in maintaining this grading system because there's this veneer. But it's false. The other common one I get, and I'm curious to see if you get this, is I get, but students understand the common system and therefore asking them to learn a new way to be graded is too hard. Do you get that one?

Josh Eyler: Yes, of course. And to me, that's a two part system two part, Part A, students are used to the traditional method. That's true, but it's also because they've been in that system.

Sharona: But I didn't say used to.

Josh Eyler: Oh, right, right.

Sharona: I said understand.

Josh Eyler: Right, yes, yes.

Sharona: And that's a critical thing because I think you're right. Students are used to it. They think they understand how it works. As a mathematician, I guarantee that they don't, I can't get them to do a regular average, let alone a weighted average and all of the grade books lie to them.

Josh Eyler: The second part of the statement though, that therefore we cannot introduce anything new, is just completely false because we are seeing great success with lots of experiments with new things. And that's both at the college level, but also the K 12 level. There are many, many school districts each year that switch over to standards based grading. Just two years ago, the entire city of Santa Fe switch their schools over to standards based grading. So students not only are coming to college with experience with alternative grading models, they're primed for it, right? Once you talk to them about the reasons why we're changing the way we grade the research on it, the benefits of it. It takes a little bit of time because they've been conditioned into a traditional grading system, but they are able to change, not only able to change, but they relish it at the same time, as soon as they see how it frees them up to focus on learning.

Sharona: Exactly. And those of our audience that have been listening to the pod for the while, you know that Bosley has been involved with Los Angeles unified just did their first grading policy update in 20 years. And they went to a strongly suggested, but not mandated equitable grading policy practice, and they are trying to roll out, they call it equitable grading and instruction. I have some issues with that name because one of the things we do is we teach faculty who are redesigning their courses how to avoid reintroducing inequity. Because although these practices have the potential to be more equitable, if you're not careful, you absolutely can make an alternative grading system just as bad as anything else.

Josh Eyler: Oh, sure. Definitely. That's a really important point. So you have to do it with intention and you have to do it with a foundation in this research and you have to ensure that you are really attuned to your own biases and how changes that you make to an evaluation structure have ripple effects to other elements of the course.

Sharona: And those ripple effects, those are pretty big. I'm not going to lie.

Josh Eyler: Yeah.

Sharona: Now you mentioned that the second half of the book, and that was the next part I wanted to ask you about. You have three separate chapters on what can be done next. Can you share what distinguishes those chapters from each other?

Josh Eyler: Sure.

Sharona: and how we can use them.

Josh Eyler: Sure. Definitely. So one of the chapters is for parents. The second chapter is for teachers and college faculty. And then the third chapter is for, it's really for everyone involved in educational systems to think about how we change grading models at scale and the obstacles that exist to that. And, you know, some success stories that I think. hopefully provide models for what is possible. So the chapter on parents is really and it's a tension that I try to I try to honor throughout the book, that parents themselves cannot change whether or not, their their kids schools are giving grades or what kind of grades they're given. And so we're sort of in this trap where we want the best for our kids. On the one hand, on the other hand, we also know how the world works. And that's that colleges demand grades to get it for admission. And so you have to pay some attention to the grades, even as you think about the child's wellbeing.

So that chapter is really to talk to parents about what you can do at home, given this tension, given this trap that we're in. And so it's things like really focusing on a child's strengths cultivating curiosity you know, helping them to withstand the failures and stumbles that that come their way and to think about and communicate to them to the kids how their their worth is not and your love for them has no bear has no basis in how they perform in school or on the athletic field. I think part of part of the problems that arise at home with respect to grades and within families with respect to grades. is that in some cases the children begin to feel like it's kind of a quid pro quo situation that in order to get expression of parental love, I have to, I have to get the kinds of grades that's will allow me to access that.

And that is, of course, the opposite of what we want to convey. And so it's tools and strategies that we can use as parents. The chapter on teachers is, would probably be the most familiar already to the people who listen to this podcast. That it's trying to put in one place, the most common alternative grading models with descriptions and examples of people who use them. So everything from standards based to contract to ungrading and beyond, and to stress that there is no one definite way to do any of these things that you can adopt and adapt to your culture and your classroom and your students. Because I think sometimes in these conversations, there's a little bit of evangelism of one model over another. And my interest is really just helping people find the models that work best for them and for their students. And so that's what that chapter is really about.

\And then the final one looking at grade reform experiments at the institutional level and things that have happened and things that are things that are currently happening everything from grade list colleges like Evergreen state in Washington to experiments in Vermont and Maine that mandated all the schools in the state changed to proficiency based grading and It really failed in Maine and it really worked in Vermont. And I tried to unpack why those things happen. Why do some of these initiatives succeed and why do they fail? And the big spoiler alert is that there are two major reasons. One is transparency with the leadership. So being clear as to why this is happening and bringing lots of people on board right away to to really help to make the decisions. And the other is communication. All the way down the chain. So the superintendent has to communicate with the principals and the principals to the teachers and teachers to the students and the parents have to be a part of it as well. So those are two major reasons why we whether some of these things either succeed or fail.

Sharona: Well, and I love that focus on doing what's right for instructors because I sometimes get asked what's the best way or whatever, and I say, well, let me tell you, I am one instructor and I have three different systems for three different classes.

Josh Eyler: Right? Exactly.

Sharona: And you probably have multiple systems for different classes at Bosley has multiple systems. So we'll put the three of us together and there's eight systems across our classes. So what's the one right one. The one right one is the right one for you in your context in that class. And we tell people, we're like, you've got to look at where does the course sit? What is its institutional context? What is its academic context? Who are the students? Does it sit in a sequence? Is it a GE course? All of these things factor into what is the right thing for you, as long as, and that's why we go back to those four pillars from the grading for growth book, which I noticed you mentioned. And I am super embarrassed, but I'm going to thank you now. I didn't realize until about two weeks ago that you actually called out the grading conference in the book. So thank you for that.

Josh Eyler: Yes, absolutely.

harona: And you spoke back in: 2021

Josh Eyler: I did.

Sharona: Can you believe it?

Josh Eyler: It doesn't seem that long ago, but yes.

peakers for this year for the: 2025

Josh Eyler: It's really amazing how far these initiatives The conversation, all of it has really come in the last 15 years. I mean, from the time I started in teaching centers. This everything has exploded, right? There wasn't much talk at all 15 years ago, maybe ish about know, a tremendous upheaval of the way people were grading. It just, it's changed dramatically for the better. Right. And the grading conference is a huge part of that. So, yeah, I was delighted to be able to mention it.

Sharona: So you brought up teaching centers and that was going to be the next topic that I wanted to kind of go to. I know that I. At the institution that I'm at, I've been involved in my teaching center for a while. I think they're fabulous. I don't see them doing anything on grading. I'm like the sole person vocal person on my campus. I do know that some of my English faculty have gone to some contract grading stuff as well. And actually our engineering school has gone to standards based grading, but what are you seeing? Yeah, well, we got a, we got an NSF grant. We got like Three or four of the sophomore level classes converted. What are you seeing at the teaching center level? What is the visibility? I mean, are there national conferences and this is getting more visibility? What do you, what are you noticing at the teaching centers and at the faculty who use teaching centers?

Josh Eyler: Well, so You know, teaching centers are interesting organizations in that they are so shaped by their institutional context. So you know, we do have a major conference every November that that brings together people who do this work. And two years ago, there was a lot about grading this year. I was talking to Emily Donahoe, who I know works with you on the grading conference and who works with me in our teaching center. There wasn't a whole lot about grading this year. Everything was AI, which is no surprise, but it was It was striking that the balance had shifted so suddenly.

But I think what you see with teaching centers is that largely they are driven to support the faculty. And so, you know, in some cases, graduate students as well if the institution has grad students in ways that are tied directly to the needs of their community, right? And so if an institution is pretty far along with the conversation about grades, then you will see more and more programming from teaching centers. But I think if teaching centers are not necessarily hearing a lot of it from their faculty, there's less programming. And in that case, sometimes what has to happen is a workshop here, a workshop there to gauge how they can help shape the conversation at their institution.

So some are very far along. I was at the university of Virginia giving a talk just a few months ago and lots of people there are talking about it and they've had working groups and, and, and things like that. Because Emily and I, and also Liz Norell, all work in the teaching center at the university of Mississippi. We do a lot of workshops on this. So I think part of it is shaped by the context and part of it is shaped by what the people in the teaching center themselves have expertise in. But I do see movement. I see a lot of momentum to support the work of faculty in developing alternative grading practices within teaching centers, where I think we still need to go, but probably aren't quite there yet is what that third chapter in that section we were just talking about is really focused on. And that's institutional change, right?

I think where the point where we are in terms of the work teaching centers do is building building momentum with individual faculty and with departments to do this work. We're not maybe yet at the point where we can use that momentum to say to institutions, how can we incentivize this? And how can we take this momentum and help change the nature of evaluation at the institution itself? I think we're not far necessarily from that. And some places are closer than others, but you know, I think that there's still some work to be done.

my first alt graded class in: 2016

Josh Eyler: Nice.

tudents, something like that,: 1200

Josh Eyler: Yeah, I mean, I think that that's true. You know, part of the nature of higher education is that there's so many silos, right? Even within departments, there are, there are silos. And so it can be hard to crack that shell of individualization and kind of Individual identity to have some of these conversations, I think, and I could talk about this probably for the next two hours, but I think that academic freedom sometimes gets brought into these conversations, um, you know, rightly or, or or wrongly you know, we could debate. whether academic freedom protects teaching practices that are potentially harmful for students, right? It certainly protects research and it protects your ability to talk about controversial things in the classroom, but, but what role does academic freedom actually have if you are doing something that research has shown is harmful to students? That's a big question that I would, that I kind of love to talk about. In

sections and over: 2200

Josh Eyler: Well, and that, yeah, that's the key, right?

Sharona: Right.

Josh Eyler: The collective decision making to do that. And hopefully Some input into what what those decisions look like, right? So, yeah, I think it's certainly a complex conversation, but it does, I think, have an effect on departmental conversations about teaching in some ways, it's easier, at least my experience has been, it's easier to have institutional conversations about effective teaching than even within, you know, Departments themselves, because within the department, people are making decisions about other people's careers. And so how a conversation about teaching plays out has many different layers of complexity to it.

Sharona: Right, but there's having the conversation about it. And then there's actually making it happen in the classroom. So you're right, having this vague philosophical conversation about grading practices in a multi and, you know, multi departmental meeting at the ballroom with a nice fancy lunch is easy. Sitting down at your department meeting and saying, Hey, these 20 instructors that are going to be teaching pre calculus next semester, We're trying to get everyone on the same page for what is active learning look like, how many exams are we going to have, how are those exams going to be graded, you know, that's a whole different level. And that is my world. It sure is. That is my world. So. Great. But I wonder. You know, there aren't a lot of people that are good. I haven't met too many disciplinary based people who are really good at facilitating those conversations. So is that a place that teaching centers can help play a role? Because there's like this push pull. One of the reasons I'm effective is I am a disciplinary content specialist with the skills to facilitate this. But how do you get disciplinary people to be able to talk like this and have these facility, these conversations?

Josh Eyler: So I think teaching centers could play two different roles there. One is, if the desire is to have someone within the department leading the conversations, then to work with the those folks who are doing the facilitation on how to just effective facilitation skills and creating some ground rules for the conversations and parameters for what what an effective outcome looks like, right? So there's some some prepping that, that that, that we could help with. The other thing is that I have been brought in to departments to facilitate these kinds of conversations because expressly, because I'm on the outside, like I have no horse in the race. I'm just there to create a structure by which people can talk to each other. Okay. And make, make decisions that move the conversation forward. So I, I think that there's a role to play there. And it's really a balance of what the departmental priorities are

Sharona: well, and to clarify. I'm much more effective when I go to other people's math departments than where I go to my own. So I will argue with you at all. I love having disciplinary based content people like you could do it in writing, right? You can really go in somewhere. I'm facilitating a writing conversation. If you're not a part of that department, my experience is you try to walk into a math department and they're going to be very polite.

And then the minute you're gone, they're like, well, that just doesn't work in math.

Josh Eyler: Right.

Sharona: But I'm going to get that across the board. We've literally heard every department tell us why it would work in every other department, but not theirs.

Josh Eyler: Sounds familiar.

Sharona: So where do you hope to go now? The book is out. You're the head of the center. Right? What do you see, what, what are some of the goals for the next few years, both higher ed and K 12 and K 12 maybe talking to higher ed?

Josh Eyler: Right. Well, I think that's a big goal, actually. I think that we're, we're probably at a point where having creating opportunities to bridge the divide between K 12 and higher ed is what is necessary to move the conversation forward and to really, Because often high schools are afraid to change because they're afraid of what the admissions process in college. Colleges don't know what's happening in high school, right? And colleges are afraid of grad school, med school, et cetera. So getting everyone to talk to each other and to allay some of these fears, I think is important. And also to create systems and programs and policies that can really help with this.

So I think that's an important element. I think the work that the grading conference is doing and the Center for Grading Reform that you're leading. I think that these are really important developments that we need more of now, right? Because where we're just moving beyond where people are dabbling. And now we're like in second and third wave of development of these kinds of alternative grading models and movements. And so I think we need more places for people to talk together and share their work in their research and also you know, come together into research teams to kind of push, push this work forward. So I think that's a part of the future as well. On our own campus where we're talking to students about grading reform, talking to faculty about it, trying to bring people together to move as a collective to see what can be done.

Sharona: That's amazing. And I do want to call out one of the things, I don't know if you're as familiar with it, but there is a group called the mastery transcript consortium, and they're doing some amazing work trying to get more robust reporting tools. So we recently had Jack Schneider on the podcast. His episode will be coming out in the next little bit, but he wrote off the mark and he in their book, he comes at it from a history perspective. They look at how grades and transcripts developed and some of the efficiencies that were needed. At the time. So this is, you know, 19th century. So they finally have lead pencils, yay, and paper, but they don't have computers. So they had gone for this very, very minimalist recording structure just due to the needs of the bureaucracy. Well, the mastery transcript consortium is saying, Hey, we don't need that so much anymore. We have sort of this infinite digital space. And so they have what they call like two click transcripts where first you can click and see the whole thing, but then you can click in and get more detail about courses and how the student did it in a narrative and evaluation. Other people are talking about doing overwritable transcripts. So I agree with you. I love the idea that we've got to start to communicate more. And we're hoping to create some of those spaces. And at multiple levels. So that's why some of the work of the center is advocacy, you know.

Josh Eyler: Right? Yeah. Advocacy is badly needed, I think. And again, you know, part of why I wrote this book is so that we so that more and more people. People could be on the same page with what the, what the issues were and what the research said about those issues. And I think advocacy is a big part of continuing to spread that message. I think the other thing about what you were just saying, oh, the, the fact that organizations in some cases for profit companies are catching on and designing software to allow for these transcript translations is actually, you know, I, I'm no apologist for technology, but for those interested in grading reform, that's actually an optimistic thing. That's if they're catching on and figuring out there's a market for this, that must mean that they're seeing more and more movement toward this. Right. And that's sort of a dystopian kind of. Kind of approach to it, but but it is, it is indicative of progress on the grading reform front.

Sharona: Right. And the transcript is a big piece of it. One of my fondest dreams is to get connected with some of the technology companies like the learning management systems and get them to give us many, many more options for grade tracking and progress tracking, because the amount of coding and Google sheets and things that I've seen to try to compensate for the minimum issues with the technical grade books, it's astonishing.

Josh Eyler: No, you're absolutely right.

Sharona: So I have one more question for now. I'll probably have another one after that. But if someone's listening to this podcast and they're already doing some things in their classroom and they're like, wow, I'd really like to do some of that advocacy. I'd like to get more people. Where do you recommend that people consider starting to become that advocate in their local community or, or in whatever place they want to go?

Josh Eyler: Oh, that's such a good question. I love that. So on the one hand, I think so there are two answers. One is external and one is internal. The external answer is to connect with this community that you and I are talking about, so to attend the grading conference or to to find some some folks within the grading reform community on social media and just become a part of the conversation to learn about advocacy strategies that have been successful elsewhere. So that you can bring them to your local and and adapt them to your local context. And then the internal answer is actually to, you know, find folks who are already doing this or partner with your teaching center. I mean, if someone came to me and said, I am really interested in having a conversation with our community about how to make this work more visible or to to build momentum, we would be all over that. We would we would find a room. We would find the time we would get people together for that advocacy to occur. So I think partnering with the teaching center could be a really important way.

Sharona: That's amazing. So is there anything I haven't asked about that you would really, really like to share with this community? And by the way, I want to point out you're not getting paid by us. You are not paid to shill the grading conference.

Josh Eyler: Oh, no, not at all. I just love it.

Sharona: Thanks there.

Josh Eyler: Yeah, no, not at all.

by the way, you presented in: 2021

we have seen just, just since: 2020

Sharona: I share your optimism in part. Because what we've seen is that these grading reforms are some of the stickiest things that happen when an individual faculty member really commits, they almost never go back to traditional points and percentages in fall. It just, it sticks. And although we want to do this at these grand scales, It is something that almost all teachers can find a way to do in their own classrooms with no outside intervention, right? So you can, you are capable of educating yourself and getting this done. And one of the things that I like to brag about is, you know, I was married to a lawyer for 20 years. I am no longer married to him, but I can find a way to make this fit in any, almost any system that you think, Oh, my rules don't allow this. Oh, let me try because they're like, well, you know, 15 percent of our grade has to be on such and such. I'm like, great. That's five of your 12 learning outcomes. That's 15 percent or at least 85 percent of our grade has to be from, you know, major assessments. I'm like, great. All of these standards based quizzes, you know, a hundred percent of my grade comes from all these standard based quizzes. It doesn't say that each one has to be 85 percent of points. It just says 85 percent of your grade has to come from this stuff. So I can lawyer this stuff. I can lawyer this stuff. So to the listeners, if you are struggling, cause you're like, I don't think my system allows me. Please send it by the contact us form and I will take a lawyer crack, a lawyer and a mathematician crack at making it work for whatever system you have. I've not yet found a system that I haven't been able to crack without violating the letter. I'm definitely violating the spirit, but I'm not violating the letter of the grading policy.

Josh Eyler: That's great.

Sharona: Well, Josh, thank you so much for the work you're doing, the people that you're mentoring, the advocacy that you're out there. You know, my kids are now 19 and 22 and so unfortunately, I still I feel like I'm always a step behind. I'm just behind trying to change it in time for my own kids. So my new one is my grandkids could change it in time for that.

Josh Eyler: That's right. Yeah. I have to keep an eye on the prize. No, thank you so much. I really appreciate getting the chance to come here and have this conversation. It's been great.

Sharona: Absolutely. We'll have you back anytime. So everyone, thank you very much. And we'll see you next week.

Please share your thoughts and comments about this episode by commenting on this episode's page on our website. www. thegradingpod. com, or you can share with us publicly on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. If you would like to suggest a future 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.

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