Retrospective: the ungrading webinar

Wow. Thank you to Aaron Blackwelder, Laura Gibbs, and Jesse Stommel, extraordinary educators and contributing authors of Ungrading, for taking time to think out loud about learning. 115 people registered for the event, and most – including learners who work with me – showed up, representing 28 states as well as Canada, Ireland, and South Africa. Over two hours of conversation and presentation, we explored many topics, and attendees enriched the experience by contributing to the chat. Special thanks to David Buck for his contributions and ongoing advocacy for #ungrading! Together, everyone created a wonderful dialogue and a library of resources.

Here is the recording, followed by a timeline with links and notes. If you’d like to contribute an idea or a resource, or if you’d like more examples and links to the coursework I do with learners on the public internet, please Contact me – I look forward to continuing the conversation.

00:00:25 ACADEMY OF ONE: THE POWER & PROMISE OF OPEN-SOURCE LEARNING (2021).

00:00:34 Credibility bookcases

00:01:34 Panelists Aaron Blackwelder, Laura Gibbs, & Jesse Stommel

00:01:39 In addition to their many other accomplishments, panelists are all contributing authors to the recently published book UNGRADING, edited by Susan D. Blum, West Virginia University Press (2020)

00:04:17 This work is about a personal commitment to learning, not to be confused with jargon such as “personalized learning”

00:04:31 Autism spectrum

00:05:01 Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Breakfast Club

00:05:54 The conversation where Richard Vernon is talking with the janitor about losing his connection with the students

00:06:17 Mr. Keating of Dead Poets Society

00:06:30 Mr. Hand – he set standards and held every kid accountable, but he also wasn’t going to let a kid go, and when Jeff Spiccoli was in danger of failing, he showed up at Jeff’s house and walked him through American history and made sure that he was able to not just regurgitate information, but was able to synthesize and communicate his own personal ideas about American history.

00:08:51 “Tiny Tales” series of folklore and mythology books 100Words.LauraGibbs.net

00:09:15 Laura on Twitter: @OnlineCrsLady and @OnlineMythIndia

00:11:11 Stockholm syndrome

00:12:04 Students in attendance

00:12:42 Marshall McLuhan

00:12:59 Critical theory

00:13:05 Peter McLaren & Schooling As a Ritual Performance

00:15:11 The fourth wall

00:17:42 Scientific management & behavioral psychology

00:18:04 Democratic Education at Cal

[in chat] How David Buck uses @kwiens62‘s graphic about Growth Mindset Self-talk — https://www.sutori.com/item/before-you-begin-as-you-progress-through-the-labor-of-this-course-i

00:18:14 Paolo Freire

00:19:08 John Hurst

00:20:15 Pink Floyd: The Wall (album and movie)

00:21:07 John Shoup

00:21:20 Madonna

00:21:35 bell hooks

00:21:46 Martin Bickman & R L Widmann

00:22:17 Asao B. Inouye

[in chat] Labor Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity & Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom

00:22:25 Cathy Davidson

00:22:32 Sean Michael Morris

00:22:24 An Urgency of Teachers

00:24:33 David Buck on Twitter

00:25:07 Lewis Terman

[in chat] Cathy Davidson has a great chapter on Crowdsourcing Ungrading open Pressbook

00:25:10 Alfred Binet

00:25:15 History of standardized testing in the U.S. military & higher education

00:25:24 Biological determinism

00:25:47 David Graeber & Bullshit Jobs

00:26:55 Capitalist system

[in chat] Spencer Bagley’s presentation on assessment and learning / talk on ungrading

00:32:25 anthology.lauragibbs.net

00:32:36 Pressbooks

00:34:48 Primacy and recency

00:35:13 Engaging with traumatic responses to the word “essay”

00:36:52 Orbiting the Giant Hairball

00:37:47 “Why most schools won’t ‘reinvent’ themselves after the pandemic” by Scott McLeod

00:38:54 Jessie: “You can’t kick ass by yourself.” [NOTE: There is no link for this. It’s just true.]

00:39:59 Jessie: “I don’t want to use the learning management system because the learning management system is all roads lead to the grade book.” [Ibid.]

00:41:06 Aaron: “The kids who were disengaged and disenfranchised during online learning were just as disengaged and disenfranchised before online learning.” [Ibid.]

00:43:02 Laura: The use of grades instead of Pass/ No Pass favored by students and professors, but admin feared the bureaucratic load and the impact on GPA. [Ibid.]

00:46:12 Textual analysis of student Google Doc

00:48:14 AARON’S SLIDES

00:48:42 Spectrum Life Magazine

[in chat] Colin Madland’s dissertation overview on the impact of online assessment practices and lit review

[in chat] David Buck’s crowdsourced #ungrading presentations chapter

[in chat] The single-point rubric

[in chat] Structured observed learning outcomes

[in chat] Unilateral grading contract to improve learning and teaching

[in chat] Specifications grading

01:14:54 teaching.lauragibbs.net has the content from Laura’s “unpresentation” and features randomized student comments

01:17:24 University of Mary Washington course evaluations

01:19:53 JESSE’S SLIDES