Irascibly optimistic. @PlayForgeGames @HybridPed. Writing teacher, ungrading, critical digital pedagogy. One of Hazel’s dads. he/him https://t.co/unR9uSHnuv
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Jan 20, 2023 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
The conversation around ChatGPT isn't a particularly new conversation. People have been talking about how technology will transform or dismantle education for decades, even centuries. (a thread)
The fear that students will use technology to cheat is also not new. There has been headline after headline about the rise in cheating in the wake of the internet, in the wake of online paper mills, in the wake of online learning during the pandemic, etc.
Jan 18, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Gatekeeping is the single most harmful feature of academia.
When ideas congeal into a “movement,” “club,” or an exclusive “community,” lines too often get drawn, people bully each other for status, and already marginalized people end up further marginalized, which is one reason I’ve stepped back significantly from academic Twitter.
Jan 18, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
I’m increasingly frustrated when I see ungrading or a critique of grades associated with a lack of structure. One big problem of traditional grades is that they structure much of education. Removing grades, though, doesn’t remove structure, just one kind of problematic structure.
Adding flexibility for students and teachers also doesn’t remove structure. I’m disabled, neurodiverse, and need both flexibility and structure to succeed. Flexibility and structure are not at odds. Care and structure are not at odds.
Jan 18, 2023 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Ungrading isn’t a word for all alternative grading practices. It’s a set of conversations (drawing together teachers and students) that push against and ask hard questions of grading and standardized/quantitative assessment. There are lots of entry points to those conversations.
The word “Ungrading” has use value right now, which is why I’ve used it and why I’ve worked to catalyze conversations about #ungrading. But the conversations aren’t new. We have to look back in order to look forward.
10 quotes (in no particular order) from almost 200 years that have informed my thinking about grades and ungrading:
“When the how’s of assessment preoccupy us, they tend to chase the why’s back into the shadows.” ~ Alfie Kohn
“Grading tends to undermine the climate for teaching and learning. Once we start grading their work, students are tempted to study or work for the grade rather than for learning.” ~ Peter Elbow
Oct 22, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
“Ungrading is a philosophy and not a practice, one bent on turning the tables in the classroom so that students can intervene in their own education.”
The digging in of heels reminds me of the time I wrote an anti-student-shaming piece and got barraged with attacks (for weeks) that I just didn’t get the joke teachers were making … about students. 😞
Oct 8, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
The answer is not always fewer students. The teacher-student ratio depends on the notion that the teacher is “delivering” something to those students, whether that’s content, direct mentoring, etc.
But if we accept that the more important relationship is the one students develop with each other, then the quality of the community is more important than the size. Different communities function successfully at different sizes and at different times.
Oct 5, 2022 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
People continue to imagine ungrading is a stack of decontextualized "best practices." I've pushed back on that in every place I've talked or written about ungrading.
From one of my first pieces about ungrading: "There are lots of alternatives to traditional assessment and ways to approach ungrading."
Oct 4, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
This is a false dichotomies:
“The entire controversy seems to illustrate a sea change in teaching, from an era when professors set the bar and expected the class to meet it, to the current more supportive, student-centered approach.” nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/…
As long as there have been cruel, standardized, high-stakes approaches to teaching and assessment, there has been significant and meaningful pushback: Freire, hooks, Dewey, Emerson, Elbow, Greene, etc. There is nothing new or innovative about treating students like human beings.
Sep 28, 2022 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
I see lots of jobs at centers for teaching and learning. They’re essential for the health of our universities and colleges. I have yet to see a posting for a professor of #highered pedagogy who’d teach full classes for new/future faculty. It’s a shame and a missed opportunity.
Less than half of higher education faculty get significant preparation for the work of teaching. This is a systemic problem we can address by incorporating preparation in pedagogy in every graduate program and through a robust “first year faculty experience” at every institution.
Aug 14, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Grades are inequitable. Ungrading is the set of conversations that inspect and work to dismantle a system of ranking and crude evaluation that further marginalizes already marginalized students.
The work of ungrading can not be about just removing grades, especially if we are replacing visible goalposts with invisible ones.
Aug 14, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
So proud to call you a friend and colleague, @saragoldrickrab, and glad to have had the opportunity to collaborate with you in so many ways over the years. Your work with #RealCollege students has fundamentally transformed my own research, writing, and teaching.
Most of my work over the last decade has been centered around a simple premise that we need to "start by trusting students." This means we need to ask students when and how they learn, ask what barriers they face, then listen, and believe the answers.
If you’re working with teachers, in faculty development, digital pedagogy, or whatever else, don’t gatekeep. The vast majority of faculty are in adjunct or contingent positions. The work of teaching is precarious. Academic gatekeeping is cruel and increasingly short-sighted.
Don’t expect people teaching 9+ classes at 4+ institutions to conform to a narrow view of what teaching (or being an academic) looks like. Some of those institutions put restrictions on faculty that make a lot of faculty work nearly impossible.
Jul 7, 2022 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Pedagogy begins with small gestures. What we ask to be called. The online platforms we use. The first word of our syllabus. A single tweet.
Small gestures. Whether our statement about basic needs is at the beginning of our syllabus or at the end. Whether we simply cut and paste our disability statement or say something directly to students, in our own voice, about how we've worked to make the course accessible.
May 1, 2022 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Assessment for equity: (1) We have to start by seeing students as full humans, acknowledging that different students learn in different ways at different times. This requires structural change. Students can't be rows in a spreadsheet.
(2) We have to design for those who are most marginalized: disabled students, Black students, indigenous students, queer students, those facing housing and food-insecurity, etc. We need to write policies, reimagine pedagogies, for students already struggling, already excluded.
Apr 9, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
So many forces are working against teachers (and students): the cultures of austerity at our institutions, the willingness of those institutions (and leadership) to dehumanize us, the outsourcing to for-profit companies profiting off our precarity.
In education, I've watched the last two years bring out the absolute worst in our institutions. I've heard from teachers who've said, "if this is what teaching continues to feel like, I don't want to be a teacher anymore." I've also felt that.
Apr 9, 2022 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
When I first started using Twitter, my approach to internet trolls was that every time I encountered one, I would make a point of being separately kind to or amplifying the work of two other people.
On the other hand, I've long found "don't feed the trolls" problematic because it leads to a lot of people not calling out bullies doing harm.
Jan 2, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
For those working to figure out how to structure a course in our current moment, synchronous or asynchronous, in-person or online, here is the "what we'll do and how we'll do it" section from my syllabus:
"Our world is increasingly complex, and so..."
"We can't know exactly what shape this course will take over the next several months. Officially, this course is hybrid, so we’ll have scheduled in-person meetings each week (where possible), but we'll do most of our work together asynchronously online and out on the open Web."
Jan 1, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Recommended syllabus statement from my institution about the use of Turnitin followed by my own draft revision. [a thread]
Recommended statement: “Students agree that by taking this course all required papers may be subject to submission for textual similarity review to Turnitin for the detection of plagiarism."
Jan 1, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Working on the basic needs security statement for my Winter syllabus. Here's my current draft: What's most important to me is that you feel able to show up fully to our work together. I'm human first. Students are humans first.
If you face challenges securing your food or housing and believe this may affect your learning in this course, visit DU's basic needs resource site for support [link]. Please also let me know personally if you are comfortable doing so, because there may be ways I can help.
