Grow Beyond Grades

Mike Rutherford is the founder of gotLearning , an EdTech company that revolutionizes learning conversations between teachers and students while using generative AI and Natural Language Processing to analyze large amounts of student learning data. Mike’s passion for education and technology stems from a diverse career as a teacher, technology director, publishing executive, and entrepreneur. Mike'...

Angela Stockman is an instructor in the Department of Education at Daemen University in Amherst, New York. The author of several books on multiliteracy instruction, she is regularly invited to lead curriculum and assessment design work in K-12 schools, where she has also facilitated the shift to standards based grading and reporting. A former public school teacher, Angela spent fifteen years in th...

Dr. Kelsie Reed is a nationally certified school psychologist serving elementary and middle schools in Prince George's County Public Schools, Maryland. She is the co-author of Hacking Deficit Thinking, a book that outlines eight practical reframes for fostering strength-based schools. As the founder of the Strength-Based Collective, Dr. Reed provides educators and parents with practical tools and...

Our guest on the Grow Beyond Grades podcast is Akil Bello, an expert in educational access with over 30 years of experience. Akil began his career as a test proctor in 1990 and has since held roles from CEO to consultant, working to improve outcomes for underserved students. As the founding partner of Bell Curves, Akil focused on helping underrepresented students succeed in high-stakes testing. Af...

Paul Emerich France is a National Board Certified Teacher, instructional coach, keynote speaker, and adjunct professor with over a decade of experience in the classroom, teaching grades transitional kindergarten through fifth grade. He is the author of Reclaiming Personalized Learning: A Pedagogy for Restoring Equity and Humanity in Our Classrooms and Make Teaching Sustainable with ASCD. His work...

Carissa McCray is a member of Research, Advocacy, Collaboration, and Empowerment Mentoring program, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and the American Educational Research Association. She has presented across the United States on topics ranging from implementing social-emotional strategies in the classroom to culturally responsive teaching techniques through the lens of...

Fabiola "Fabi" Torres is an online Ethnic Studies professor and Certified Faculty Developer at Glendale Community College. During the pandemic, she has led nationwide workshops and courses on applying equity-minded methods such as culturally responsive teaching in the online environment, humanizing online teaching and learning as well as ungrading practices. With dual M.A. degrees in Chicana/o Stu...

Jesse Stommel is a faculty member in the Writing Program at University of Denver. He is also co-founder of Hybrid Pedagogy: the journal of critical digital pedagogy and Digital Pedagogy Lab . He has a PhD from University of Colorado Boulder. He is co-author of An Urgency of Teachers: the Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy . Jesse is a documentary filmmaker and teaches courses about pedagogy, film,...

Mike Flanagan is the CEO of the Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC), a growing group of high schools creating a digital high school transcript that opens up opportunity for each and every student—from all backgrounds, locations, and types of schools—to have their unique strengths, abilities, interests, and histories fostered, understood, and celebrated. Mike oversaw the design and development of M...

Alex Shevrin Venet is an educator, author, and professional development facilitator based in Vermont. She teaches community college and graduate teacher education. Previously, she was a teacher and leader at an alternative therapeutic school. She is the co-founder of the Nurturing the Nurturers collective, a healing community for educators. Her first book, Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education...

Nate Bowling teaches Social Studies at a US Embassy School in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. He is a past Washington State Teacher of the Year and National Teacher of the Year Finalist. He and his wife blog about living and teaching overseas at BowlingsAbroad.com and he is the host of the Nerd Farmer Podcast on the Channel 253 Podcast Network. He writes a weekly newsletter called Takes &am...

Dr. Juuso Nieminen is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong and a Banting Fellow at Ontario Tech University, Canada. He studies the social, cultural, and political aspects of assessment. Why do we assess the way we do? Dr. Nieminen’s research focuses on the student perspective in assessment. He is particularly interested in how assessment shapes students’ iden...

Vanessa Ellis is an 8th-grade social studies teacher at Veterans Memorial Middle School in Columbus, Georgia. In 2017, Vanessa was named a Georgia Economics Teacher of the Year, and in 2018, she was selected as a Harvard Fellow to study research-based practices in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2022, she was honored as Teacher of the Year for her school and for the Muscogee County School District. T...

TG2 team member, Michelle Cottrell-Williams , interviews Jan McArthur , Senior Lecturer in Education and Social Justice in the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, UK. Jan’s research focuses on the nature and purposes of higher education and how these relate to practices of teaching, learning, and assessment. Jan McArthur coauthored the piece, A Womanist Approach to Care-Full...

Liz Norell is passionate about great teaching and student success. As a political scientist (well, really, a political psychologist), she's motivated to understand how/why we develop the political beliefs we do...and how to have more productive dialogue across differences. As a faculty member and mentor, she loves brainstorming ways to make classrooms more inclusive, engaging, exciting, relevant,...

Mike Rutherford is a lifelong teacher and learner. Eight years ago, he returned to the classroom as a middle school English and Social Studies teacher after many years in the education private sector with Blackboard and Just ASK Publications & Professional Development. Prior to his time in the private sector, Mike was a middle school teacher and technology training specialist in Fairfax County...

Because ungrading is essentially an emancipatory practice, it cannot be held to one formula or singular standard. Instead, ungrading relies on a robust community of educators to circulate, celebrate, and elevate the practice in its various forms. Lisa Wennerth , welcomes four trailblazing educators—Liz Leininger, Rita Shah, Firas Moosvi, and Taylor Vivanco—whose article “ Why There Isn’t One ‘Righ...

Miriam Plotinsky is an author and instructional specialist who addresses challenges in both teaching and leading across schools with a wide range of differentiated needs. A strong advocate for student-centered learning, she provides coaching and professional development for teachers and administrators. She is the author of Teach More, Hover Less: How to Stop Micromanaging Your Secondary Classroom...

Jay Percell, Ed. D. is an Associate Professor of Teaching and Learning at Illinois State University, an author of several academic essays, and a TEDx presenter. Michelle Cottrell-Williams hosts as Jay shares his reasons for moving away from traditional grades and toward a classroom where learning, improvement, and growth is the focus. Resources: Jay's TEDx Talk: "Make Grading Point-less: Eliminati...

Sarah M. Zerwin teaches Senior Language Arts and AP Lit at Fairview High School in Boulder, Colorado, and author of the book Point-Less: An English Teacher’s Guide to More . You can follow her blog The Paper Graders and on twitter at @SarahMZerwin Topics include: What led to the idea that points get in the way of learning. How to identify learning targets and communicate them to students. How to e...

This episode is the continuation of my conversation with college educators Maha Bali , Jesse Stommel , and Asao B. Inoue (you can listen to the first half here ). As college institutions struggle with the implications of COVID-19, it’s important for them to place equity and access at the center of considerations about ways in which college can resume. As Professor Inoue pointed out, however, we al...

In this episode, I sit down with three college educators known for their commitment to creating inclusive, humane educational spaces—both in the classroom and online. All three of them have experimented with different forms of going gradeless as part of this commitment. All three have given considerable thought about teaching under the current pandemic. You can check out Part 2 of this interview h...

Sheldon L. Eakins, Ph. D. is the founder of the Leading Equity Center and host of the Leading Equity Podcast . With over 11 years in education, he has served as a teacher, principal, and Director of Special Education. Dr. Eakins has a passion for helping educators accomplish equitable practices in their schools. You can follow him on Twitter at @sheldoneakins . Topics include: What is equity and h...

As the school year draws to a close and final grades are calculated, it is becoming clear that traditional grading is inequitable. Some students are able to remain engaged while others, for various reasons, cannot. Schools need to provide some form of summative reporting. The question is, “How can we move forward?” Jay Percell, Ed. D. is an Assistant Professor of Teaching and Learning at Illinois...

This episode explores "Do No Harm" grading as a response to distance learning in the midst of COVID-19. Educators across the country are experiencing first hand how online distance learning exacerbates inequities in education. Students are struggling with more than access to proper technology and internet connectivity. There are inequities in supports, environments, and time constraints. On April...