Book updates and a short break

We're signing off for the rest of this month but you can preorder our book!

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

As we approach the end of the semester, we’re going to take a break from posting here at the blog through the end of April. This will give us some time, hopefully, to handle those pesky end-of-term tasks like, well, grading. Regular posts will resume on May 1, with articles in the works about how the media can get the definition of ungrading right; student-chosen directions for growth in David's upper-level geometry class; a guest post from Spencer Bagley on student perceptions of alternative grading; and more.

For now, we have some exciting updates on the Grading for Growth book. The book will be out in July, and you can pre-order it today through Stylus Publications’ website. We even have a cover image:

Long-time readers know that this blog was started as a way for us to work out the ideas for the book, and we’ve been hard at work on this for over two years. This time last year, David was finishing up what we consider the heart of the book: Over a dozen case studies from real higher education faculty using alternative grading of various kinds in their classes. Last summer, we met 6-8 hours per week on Zoom doing collaborative writing sessions like this one. We’ve been editing since February and, although it seems hard to believe, we turned in our final comments on the page proofs last week.

We’re incredibly happy with how this book is turning out, and we can’t wait to get it into your hands. We feel it succeeds in what we set out to do: Communicate the need for a change in the way we think about grading, and get the blueprints and tools for change into the hands of faculty members everywhere. Our book not only makes compelling arguments for why we should change — it shows you how to do it.

We’ll have a lot more to say about the book as July approaches. For now, best wishes and good grading as the semester and academic year come to a close. We’ll see you in May.