Teaching for Student Success Steven Robinow

Grades demotivate student learning.  That is a problem.  Faculty also often spend significant amounts of time grading.  Another problem.  So, if we know grading demotivates learning and we are spending lots of our time grading, are we working against ourselves? Are we working against the goals of our courses?  Isn’t our goal to motivate students to learn, and then provide them with the resources they need to move from novice towards expert?  In this episode Dr. Jesse Stommel talks about the problems with and possible solutions for the traditional grading system in which most of us participate. 

Content isn’t enough!  The classroom environment that you create can foster learning or impede learning.  If you really are here for all of your students, and I think you are, then it is critical to ensure that the environment you provide is one the fosters learning for all students.  In this episode Dr. Oscar Fernandez discusses Inclusive Excellence at Wellesley College, an effort to create a community of faculty, students, and staff working to ensure that all students feel a sense of belonging in their higher education community and that all students are supported in their efforts to excel.

A huge amount of information must be provided to students at the outset of every course.  Enter the SYLLABUS!  A universal one-way communication tool that can set the tone for your course and for your relationship with your students.  It defines the rules of engagement - the struggle for power between student and faculty.  In this episode we talk about the syllabus; how it is used, how it can be used and how it can be abused with Dr. Matthew Cheney who has written extensively about the cruelty-free syllabus.

For decades, the United States has been trying to increase the number of STEM professionals from underrepresented groups - with limited success.  Retention and persistence at the undergraduate level, and advancement to graduate degrees continue to be problematic areas.  In this episode we talk with Dr. Nilanjana Dasgupta about her fascinating long-term study on the impact of peer mentors on the persistence, retention, and advancement to graduate degrees of female engineering students.  This is an amazing study following 150 students through their entire undergraduate academic career and one year beyond! The simplicity and success of this intervention is surprising.  There are lessons here for all disciplines that experience equity and inclusivity issues.

UNGRADING! You might already implement some form of UNGRADING but it is more likely that you don’t.  Perhaps you heard of UNGRADING and dismissed it, or thought about it but decided it wasn’t the right time, or decided it wasn’t right for you or your students, or thought the whole idea was insane, or perhaps you don’t know anything about UNGRADING at all.  Perhaps this is the first time you have even heard that term.
Whatever your prior knowledge is or isn’t about UNGRADING - please listen Dr. Sue Steiner of Chico State talk about her motivations to implement and her experiences with UNGRADING.  This conversation may convince you that now is time to take the UNGRADING plunge.