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I enjoyed your conversation! You both seem so thoughtful about every element in your respective classrooms. At the K-5 level, we are required to submit standard-based grades (4,3,2,1) every Trimester. Even though we teach in very different contexts, I found this episode very insightful.

Have you read any of Jesse Stommel’s work on ungrading? His research has helped me be more critical of how I use assessment and grades in my classroom. I know you both give your students tons of feedback so that students can have more agency in their learning. I’m curious what you think about the idea ungrading at the HS level. I believe Stommel uses a lot of learning reflections with college students.

https://www.jessestommel.com/ungrading-an-introduction/

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I have read quite a bit of Stommel's work and appreciate the theoretical push of "ungrading" as a concept—but while I'm sympathetic to the values behind it, I also am against an individual teacher within a school/district going to far astray from what the norms are. (As I noted in the episode, I tend to be a very big fan of collective efficacy.)

Even schools/colleges that have moved away from traditional grading have often returned back to it after finding how difficult it was to operate within the broader system (transcripts, transfers, job applications, etc.). That doesn't make "ungrading" wrong—just functionally very difficult to achieve, in my view, especially once you get to high school. (Though, again, I very much am supportive of the intentions behind it and that also shapes how I approach grades with as much flexibility and humility as I can.)

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