Are you ready to align your grading practices with your values? Join us December 17–18 for the Alternative Grading Institute (online), which will bring together faculty from across higher education for a two-day, hands-on experience in standards-based, specifications, and collaborative grading.

For your amusement.

Dean by day, cruciverbalist by night. Dr. Mark MacLachlan discusses the science behind the art of his hobby as a crossword creator for @nytimes.com and more.

Shaking my fist at @dccmath.bsky.social because his syllabus structure is so good that it is making me want to completely redesign my other syllabus.

Everyone loves a good #ChartCrime, especially if it’s by OpenAI! Enjoy ! www.theverge.com/news/756444/... Also - “vibe graphing” 😂😂😂

AFAIK, the only major missing feature for instructors using JupyterBook (and the @jupyter.org) is a robust way to present notebooks slides. Here, @quarto.org really has clean and tight workflow! 🎉 So I’ll be working on building a Jupyterbook with Quarto Live slides… r-wasm.github.io/quarto-live/

I am in dire need of case studies from higher ed instructors using flipped learning in the humanities, fine arts, social sciences, or business for the 2nd edition of my book. If this is you, or you know someone or can reach someone like this, @ me and I'll send details. 🙏

Congratulations to Serene (my first grad student) for defending her masters thesis today 🥳🤩 ! Thesis: Instructor Perspectives on Alternative Grading at UBC ☂️!

hey lovelies, I finally got around to publicly sharing my compilation of big tech energy and emissions data. I'll be using it in articles, posts etc but it's yours too, free to use (w/ attribution is nice) ketanjoshi.co/2025/05/23/d...

Alternative graders! I'm working on a blog post about "rookie mistakes" -- the things that new alt. graders most commonly do that cause them trouble. My list so far: - Unlimited reassessments - Too many standards - Super-duper complex system What would you add?

2025. #DEI. "findings could help promote equity in STEM by ensuring greater focus on the fields in which women and girls are most underrepresented and negatively stereotyped." www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I am happy to announce the publication of the first part of a 2-part @jcmsjournal.bsky.social Teaching Media dossier on #ungrading that @lisawj.bsky.social and I co-edited. Please check out "Part I: Critical Reflections on Ungrading" here: quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jcms/teach... Part two coming soon!

Charts are back…✨

As the (brand new!) head of the department that is doing the hiring, I can confirm that this position is available... please share and apply! Tagging #AcademicSky 🧪 for reach!

Looking forward to being back in Vancouver for Digital Pedagogy Lab next week. I’m co-teaching about alternative assessment with the inimitable Martha Burtis. bccampus.ca/event/digita...

In other news, if you’re looking for a speaker on engaging all students, teaching STEM, teaching large classes, or need someone to offer mentor training or coaching, HMU!

2i2c has officially become part of the mybinder.org federation, introducing a new, cost-effective, and faster approach. We hope to make it easier for more people to join the federation by contributing a single-node BinderHub at 2i2c.mybinder.org. More in our blog: https://2i2c.org/blog/2025/binde…

🤯

Just saw 4 more articles that used final & final exam grades as statistical measures of improvement. Please - for the love of all research everywhere - STOP using grades as a measure of anything. Grades can’t be combined statistically b/c they have too many embedded factors - some defined some not

💯 this… I’m right at the threshold, teetering on the brink, one way and then another.

An insane story of an intern working at ByteDance (TikTok), deliberately sabotaging models to redirect compute resources. And then winning Best Paper at the prestigious NeurIPS ML conference. To be fair, the work was evaluated “blindly” but it wasn’t revoked after 🤔 www.wired.com/story/byteda...

Who is for abolishing grad app letters of rec at the point of application? Would it be so bad if letters were requested AFTER candidates were shortlisted? If we do this at UCSD who will join us?

Nice! Thanks to some great instructions, changed my handle from @firasm.bsky.social to @firas.moosvi.com 🎉. Also I survived the term - congrats to everyone who also did! Onwards... bsky.social/about/blog/4...

Fully realizing that all of these folks are up to way more than puzzling about more humane, just, and effective assessment, here is our attempt at a @growbeyondgrades.org starter pack! Who’s missing? go.bsky.app/8EEJ1Tw

😂🤣 #ungrading

Well said - 100% agree with this post! Great principles and I plan to follow them. Let’s not get burned again…but if we do, we’ll be more prepared.

My feed is looking and sounding close to what I had on the dead bird site - missed you all so much! Welcome back everyone 💖❤️! *sigh of contentment*

"We love interdisciplinary work! But..."

Wanted to create a starter pack for Teaching and Learning in Higher Ed. It took me 5 hours on this app to be connected to this motley crew! go.bsky.app/J71phoP

Somehow I missed this news (I blame Elon 😡) but this is very, very exciting! 🥳🤩 The killer (new) feature for me is embedding content from other websites. Huge fan of Jupyter Books! Go team!

After #POD24, I'm really curious about this: to those who are active users of AI and, particularly, those who are promoting AI in the classroom, how are you accounting for the environmental impact of AI? Shouldn't we address the harms before we widely embrace this in education?

Based on a wonderful suggestion from @jaustinedu.bsky.social, I've created a rough Starter Pack for those involved with #ungrading & alternative #assessment. If I forgot someone (I'm sure I have!), please forgive me & let me know if you want to be added to the list. Thanks! go.bsky.app/G6hA6Ru

Houston, I think we have critical mass. #BlueSky 🦋

I’ve had my head in the sand for a while and now I’m back. Are we having an #iTeachPhysics renaissance? I’m so here for it!

Here's a list of #UBC faculty, staff, units and research groups - happy to add/remove folks - just drop me a message (either reply below or you can DM too). bsky.app/profile/did:...

Next up in "news that is just a new version of the same systemic issues that have been around for ages":

Certified BlueSky Elder 😂 —— Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #324,285!

It’s not really that complex 🤷🏽‍♂️ - secretive yes, nefarious yes, but everyone admits it’s expensive. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

There are roughly 1000 people registered for the #GradingConference that I'm now attending! I stand by the claim I make in my book that we are in the midst. ofthe largest and most successful grading reform movement since the development of letter grades in the 1890s.

Schedule is up! There are some great looking sessions as always.

A restriction of faculty access to campus facilities is a restriction on academic freedom that cannot be tolerated.

Asna Tabassum: “A yes or a no would be an injustice to the issue. Any sort of idealogical debate or academic discourse is worth clarification and worth discussion”. Asna’s response to a CNN anchor asking for a yes/no answer on a loaded question.

Best comment ever from my weekly learning logs: “I love the energy you bring to the lectures! you made file systems sound like a hit new triple-A game!” 😂 I do love my file-systems! (Also, what’s a triple-A game!?)

Whatever your stance is on world issues, this (👇) is not okay… www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Finally going through my inbox and resurfacing important emails and came across this GREAT post by @dccmath.bsky.social titled, “Finding middle ground”. “There is not one ‘best’ or ‘correct’ way to use alternative grading, and there’s no need to blow everything up and start from scratch.”

I am very excited to be recruiting a Ph.D. student in Complex Systems and Data Science for Fall 2024 to work with me at the University of Vermont. I am looking for students interested in data ethics and computational social science. Please help spread the word! www.uvm.edu/socks/node/6...

The Alternative Grading SoTL linkage grant I’m working on with @drceleste.bsky.social (and many others) has FINALLY had the Ethics application approved! 🥳 Time to start doing the work! isotl.ctlt.ubc.ca/services/sot...

Hi folks, I want to respond to the new Nature Reviews Psychology Comment arguing that “Beliefs about success are prone to cognitive fallacies.” rdcu.be/dqMVI (1/N)