Time for Teachership Blog

5/26/2025

212. Game-Changing Equitable Assessment Ideas from This Month’s Guests

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Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:

This episode of the Time for Teachership podcast synthesizes some transformational ideas from recent guests on the podcast. In particular, we explore the big takeaways from conversations with Dr. Asao Inoue (episode 209) and Nicole Dimich (episode 210), who both challenge traditional educational norms by advocating for transformative assessment methods in their work.

We discuss strategies educators can use who are excited about making changes to their grading systems, but may not know exactly where to start.

What?
Dr. Inoue and Nicole Dimich share a vision of education that transcends traditional grading systems, embracing individuality and mastery as the cornerstones of learning. They dream of creating equitable classrooms that celebrate and nurture students' unique linguistic expressions, aiming to empower students and ensure they have the agency and voice to lead their learning journey.

Here are three big ideas from our conversations with them:

Bid Idea 1: Students should lead. On the podcast, we often discuss co-creating with students and developing shared partnerships with students, families, and educators.

Dr. Inoue shared how an educator’s job is to give our responses to students’ languaging, and it’s their job to figure out what to do next. Educators are walking alongside the journey students are already on.
Dimension-based rubrics allow students to share their own rich experiences through qualitative feedback and digging deeper.

Big Idea 2: Rethink grades and focus on feedback and self-assessment instead.

Nicole Dimich cites research that showed attaching a grade to qualitative feedback negates the possibility of that feedback advancing learning. Feedback without a grade created learning gains from 33 to 67, but once a grade was attached, the learning gains were zero. The lesson here is to focus on qualitative feedback, not grades.
Implement self-assessment practices so students have their own sense of learning and progress rather than relying on their educator to tell them; both Nicole Dimich and Dr. Inoue talk about how students know more about their own learning than an educator can.

Big Idea 3: Focus on progress and mastery, not arbitrary grades.

Nicole Dimich talks about how “it counts if it shows mastery.” It doesn’t matter how you get there, but that you get there and can demonstrate mastery of the desired skills and knowledge.
Nicole also emphasizes that a higher quality of work and evidence of learning are more important to focus on than the quantity and completion of work.
A practical strategy in our current system is to delay grades—focus first on feedback, self-assessment, and revisions before attaching grades and points.

Final Tip

To embark on this transformative journey, educators can start by initiating conversations with students and families about their experiences with grading, building a foundation of understanding and collaboration for more equitable assessment practices.

The other key thing for educators to do is prioritize time for these things that are important to them, despite the feeling that there’s never “enough” time. Prioritize reflection, student self-assessment, and utilize these equitable assessment practices.

To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Dimension-Based Rubric Ideas template with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 212 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:

TRANSCRIPT

00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Welcome to episode 212 of the Time for Teachership podcast. I am so excited to synthesize some really powerful transformational ideas from the folks that I have talked to this month. So, specifically thinking about my conversation with Dr Asao Inouye and Nicole Diniz just just hanging on to some of the things that they have said and that I've learned from their writing, but also with talking to them Wow, just it's amazing. Okay, so let's dig in. I am my mind is still blown. I'm really excited to learn from all of you what your reactions to those conversations were. But here are some of kind of my big takeaways. And then I also want to name in doing a lot of equitable assessment, coaching and kind of transforming that system around grading and assessment with a lot of schools this year. I want to dig into some of the sticking points in that coaching and how some of these ideas really coach us through. And then I'll end with a freebie which is based on Dr Inouye's work where it's really about dimension-based grading. And I I'll end with a freebie which is based on Dr Inouye's work where it's really about dimension-based grading, and I'm trying to like take the feedback from teachers who have had excitement around it and also hesitation or questions around it and try to make it as practical as possible, while not kind of turning it into a standards-based rubric, because that kind of goes against everything that Dr Inouye has taught us. So here we go. Let's start with big idea number one, which is that students should lead right and I always talk about this right Co-creating with students and shared partnership with students and families and educators, of course, important. I just want to like elevate or dive a little bit deeper into what this means around equitable assessment. So Dr Inouye talked about how you know, as the teacher's role, this is kind of a aha moment for me, the teacher's role. He said it's not my job as a teacher, nor is it a peer's job to tell a writer what to do next. If you were listening to this episode in that moment, I was just like whoa that it was. If you were listening to this episode in that moment, I was just like whoa that it was really the opposite of what we have been told as educators is our job and what I have been coaching educators to do for years. So this was really one of those kind of rock me back on my heels moments of whoa okay, what does that even mean, like I like it, and what does that mean for practice, right? So certainly some questions around that and I've been thinking a lot about what that could mean.

02:28
Now also wanted to like, elaborate and share a little bit more. If you missed that episode, please listen to it, but if you, if you missed it, I just wanted to say what else is kind of resonating with me from his words there. So he says our job is to give our responses to their languaging. So he's a writing teacher, so he's talking about writing. However, I'm also thinking about, you know, oral discussion and languaging in a lot of different spaces. So give responses to their languaging and their job is to figure out what to do next.

02:57
So he talks about how only the writer knows their purpose and kind of what feels right to move forward. And I love his quote. He says I'd rather be another soul on the road of your language journey and you meet me and you can take what you take today and you continue to walk on the road, right? So I love this idea that, like he talked about, you know he doesn't want to wield all of that power as a teacher of like you're and also, like talked about how, you know, we're often kidding ourselves with, like the power that we think it was just going to be. Like this is going to change this child's languaging, and do we want to do that? No, so I think there's a lot of stuff here around. What does that mean when we kind of put that to students and say, hey, we're going to give you this feedback. I'm going to talk to you about my experience of reading your writing or listening to your speech or communication, in whatever form, and you're going to figure out what feels right next, right In all of your languaging brilliance and all of the kind of mentor texts which could be literal texts in the class that we read together, or it could be. You know how your mom talks or how your grandpa has this particular phrase that's really engaging right, whatever, it is right Languaging and all all of his pieces.

04:07
So I love that and I know that for some teachers, when I've I've kind of shared this learning that I've had from Dr Inouye, it was, you know well, yes, that seems like. I think someone said yesterday it would take a lot of coaching into right, like we're going to have to prepare students to engage in this way because school is not typically done in that way. It is typically you do what the teacher tells you to do, right? So, as with everything, when we talk about students really taking ownership of the learning, it is a shift from what they may be used to and it is a worthy shift and it's going to take some intention and some thought behind how to do that. So that will be a continued kind of thought for me, but I'll kind of share some other examples that may support that work. If you're thinking what can I do today?

04:52
So the other piece of this that I really love, this conversation with Dr Inouye, was dimension-based rubrics, and I put rubrics kind of in air quotes here. I know you can not see my fingers, but the idea of dimension-based rubrics being, you know, the standards. What does he say? He said standards serve institutions, expectations serve people. So it's not that we're eliminating all expectations, right, the expectations are one of high challenge, right? We want to promote as much learning as possible, and the standards and the way they are written is very much in what he talks about as a white racial habitus, like it is very white dominant. Right, it's white supremacy in action. So how do we get out of that. How do we embrace multiple forms of discourse and languaging and really put again that writer or the speaker, the presenter of information, the communicator of information, in the driver's seat. So he talks a lot about that reader writer interplay and this being really a more powerful form of feedback.

05:54
So certainly I had a teacher yesterday ask about you know well, for we were doing a professional learning session on multilingual learners and supporting them with discourse and the question was really but wouldn't that be more helpful for students to have kind of clarity of a checklist? Or, you know, it feels less clear to do dimension-based versus standard space, which often has, like, lots of language. So you get to play with that idea a little bit and the freebie for today certainly is like it is, in the form of a checklist, but it is one that is, I hope, in alignment with Dr Inouye's work, one that actually gets even more specific than any rubric could, because you're responding qualitatively, not just using the checklist as the peer feedback person or as the teacher giving feedback on the same kind of quote unquote rubric. But you are answering why, right? You are interrogating the why. Why did I respond in this way? Right? What was interesting, what was confusing to me, and why right? So there is a lot more specificity in the response and the learning comes in the response, like yes, we can front load some things, but also that interplay, that constant back and forth, that revision cycle that we often skip over. That is where the beauty is and that's where the specific nature of this process is right.

07:20
So this idea right Dr Inouye talks about this asking for readers' rich experience right, that's idea. Right. Dr Inouye talks about this, asking for readers' rich experience right, that's where we get the feedback and we don't really need to attach a grade to it. I mean, I think about Nicole Dimitch's work and she cites research about how when you actually do attach a grade to qualitative feedback, like it actually negates the possibility of that feedback advancing learning. Like that's just wild. As a ruth butler study from 1988, it was like when you take the grade away and it's just the qualitative comments, learning gains were 33 to 67. When you add the grade in zero, like it doesn't, it doesn't improve, that's just wild. So, um, anyways, this idea of feedback, no grade. We're not judging, we're not saying this is right or wrong, we're just giving our rich experience as a reader or the listener of speech or kind of the recipient of communication.

08:14
Now, when you are actually practicing this, you want to prompt students to ask, you know, like what did I read? What's important about this, what's confusing and why Right? So we want to kind of pull out, like what's in the author's mind and if you're thinking about a excuse me the reader's mind, and if you are thinking about a particular writer or speaker, like he says, let us know, like if I'm thinking about oh, I'm thinking about how George Orwell writes, well, that's a very specific person you have in mind and that's going to situate that feedback in a particular way, like don't leave anything in your brain. Kind of tell us all the things that you're thinking about and you're engaging with with that in your mind, and we're going to have a better sense of the reader's experience of the writing. Right, after all of that feedback, the author or communicator is going to share two to three comments from readers, and I think Dr Inouye talks about this in kind of like at the end of the course or kind of like a reflection over time. I actually wonder if you could do this in smaller scale, like after everyone on a particular assignment has given feedback you share, you know. Here's a comment that resonated with me, and his prompts are kind of what does that tell you about where you are, how well you're doing and where do you think you are really trying again to have that student leadership, that more reliance on themselves to reflect and self-assess where they are, and not rely on the teacher to tell them how they're doing. That just breaks my heart.

09:33
Every time a student would ask, like, what their grade is or how they're doing, and I'm just like. I want you to have a sense of your learning. I want you to recognize I'm learning a lot. I'm not learning a lot, I could be learning more. I have you know, whatever it is like. That's tough, and so what Dr Inouye does is he asks students to write this and then he responds and shares his noticings as well, not to counteract or say that the students' reflections are wrong, but just to say like hey, we're in conversation, and this is what I'm noticing as well, and I mean Nicole Dimich and Dr Inouye.

10:09
They both talk about how a grade from a teacher does not really tell you much about learning. Right, it does not tell you much, and in Nicole's book she actually has a breakdown of like. Here's a I don't know what it was like a 79, right, and that's your grade. And what does that communicate right? And if you're a student, that's like oh, no. And if you're a student who has been struggling, that's like oh, yay, it doesn't tell you anything with learning right. But when you break it down and say, hey, there were four skills we were assessing here, you did fantastic on three of them, you just like knocked it out of the park. And this one, you know we were struggling a bit, so we need a little bit more support here. That now has so much clarity. I mean it's affirming that like wow, I can do these things really well. And there's this thing that I need to grow in. Great Like, I want to grow in that thing. Like let's figure out my next step. Total out, Total difference in communication.

11:02
So this other kind of big aha moment for me was in learning from, actually in Cole's book, but formative until it's summative. Is this concept of like we can give the same assessment to all bunch of students and for some students it counts as formative and for some students it counts as summative. This blew my mind. So she was basically saying you know, it counts for a grade if you show mastery. Right, it counts if you show mastery, because she talked about how a lot of people will be like, or students right will be like well, does this count? Or how many points is this assignment right and that's going to determine if they do it or not. We'll get back to that in just a moment. That is a common concern around grades and motivation. But she's talking about you know it counts if you show mastery. So how cool to be like, great you can. You've learned it, you can do the thing, demonstrate that. We put it in the grade book. Amazing, you are rewarded for what you know, right?

11:49
I think she talks about how Tom Strimmer's work, or often talks about giving credit for what you know and the averages actually hurt, that we average everything together into a number. I think her big phrase is moving from quantities to qualities. Right, we wanna know the qualities of the student work. We wanna emphasize the quality and we wanna name specific qualities. We don't need the quantities Like. The numbers actually don't help us, right? So I think that is such a powerful idea for me, and she gives in the book some examples of how logistically that would work. But I just love the concept of everyone can do this assessment and when you're good at it, when you have demonstrated proficiency in that skill, you're good. It goes in the grade book, which is a reward for you and it is formative and therefore, depending on how you do, your grading doesn't count, or counts for much less, because you're still learning and that's okay. So we're going to try again on the same skill and the next time right, and then if you demonstrate proficiency, then it will be summative for you.

12:46
So it's really trying to work within this system k-12 that we have of needing to do grades and having to report grades most often and still trying to anchor in the learning right. We're trying to like her practical sense of like we're working in the system and like here's what we're going to do to try to anchor in learning. And I think what is cool is both Dr Inouye and Nicole Dimich are talking about this idea of anchoring in the learning and grades are harmful until we try to get away from them. Yet both of them recognize we're in the system where, like you know, as a college writing professor or coaching K-12 folks, like we have to do this thing and so how do we get there. Dr Inouye's is very much labor-based grading and in kind of getting at that like elimination of grades and the feedback. And Nicole has this really cool idea around like the formative summative piece, along with other ideas which we're gonna get to in just a moment, but I just want to name that was really cool Formative until it's summative.

13:46
So here's some things that coaching has taught me are sticking points with educators and leaders and kind of like all the pieces that come up. And I call them sticking points because sometimes we get so kind of like all the pieces that come up. And I call them sticking points because sometimes we get so kind of in the weeds with some of these pieces that it actually halts conversation and further learning or like inquiring about the possible not to fault anyone asking these important questions, but this is just kind of where I've seen us be held up in the process of learning and growing and trying some things out. We don't like often move to the piloting phase, probably as a result of my like figuring out my coaching practice, but also that like this, this feels like it's really a sticking point for people that they really need to have a conversation about all of their feelings and thoughts on this, which is also understandable. So grades and motivation are probably the biggest one. Now, anecdotally, every conversation I've been in that's part of this will say if we open it up to like the personal share. Actually, I totally agree.

14:51
Grades are stressful for all of us. We have negative grading memories. Dr Inouye talks about inviting students to share theirs, and theirs are often negative and they're not helpful. Like, on the whole, most teachers will say actually, yeah, if we could just do without grades, like that could work. However, we end up landing in this place, that's like. But we need to like maintain these systems that actually presuppose that students are motivated by grades, even though we know that that probably isn't true, right, and so we're kind of like trying to break out of that. So here's what Nicole says about this Grades may motivate students who are achievement driven, but like just to get points, not to actually learn things, which is a critical distinction. And she says right, remember, grades are actually just communication. They're not actually learning. To counteract that idea that averages hurt, right, they don't give credit for what they know, according to Tom Schimmer. Right that we might just look at or grade or weight, however you do your grade calculations, the most recent demonstration of proficiency of these skills, the frequent and consistent evidence of learning like that. The most recent, frequent and consistent is what Nicole says should be right the grade that we can lean into, right, because that is evidence of the learning A lot of people have told me.

16:07
You know, my students come in far below grade level and I want to kind of measure their growth and evaluate their growth versus, like, having this one particular grade level standard. And so there's this interesting nuance here, right Of like, yes, we are going to celebrate all of that growth. And then we also have these things that are like quote, unquote, the standard right. We also have things, I will say, like standardized testing. I feel like no one loves that also are supposed to function in that way. Right, but certainly within our classes I think we can have those high expectations like push students as far as they can go, coach students along as far as they can go, right In a particular year, and like, yeah, we want to really make sure that everyone is growing, including that a student who is just coasting Right. We want everyone to grow. So the other piece is that she talks out. This is really important, separating out and really shifting from compliance and completion to evidence of learning.

17:01
This is such a huge sticking point. Often the way that we were graded as kids and the way that we were taught to grade, perhaps in teacher school, is often about compliance or completion right. Due to a lot of factors, many teachers give like a check, check plus, like you did it. Great that grade's going in because it takes less time, because we're overwhelmed, because we've been taught to do all of these assessments, because we're obsessed with these HQIMs or high quality instructional materials that have all these assessments and, to be honest, I think just it's too much, it's so much it's exhausting the teachers. Teachers can't give feedback and one of the brilliant things that Nicole said in our conversation I was like when teachers ask how many assessments should I give, she says only as many as you can provide feedback on. So if you are giving five assignments a week and you can't give feedback on all of them, stop giving five assignments a week, right, let's sit with the thing that we can get feedback on and then we cycle it into revision and that right, we work with it, we make the feedback matter, right. So that is a complete shift and there are a lot of structural pieces at play that are going to make that challenging. Right, that is going to be challenging if your administrator is saying, like you have to do these things, you have to do these things. So, administrators, listening, work with your teachers to figure out what is priority, what are the most important things? How do we do less in terms of just the number of assignments or the length of assignments? Sometimes those lengths are so arbitrary. How do we assess the skill fewer times but in a way that enables us to provide more feedback and opportunities and time for revision? Right, so much of this is a priority scheme.

18:49
One of the things that Nicole says around this idea from like shifting from compliance and completion to evidence of learning is is the sticking point of accountability, right? So she's like, really, what we want to do is we want to make sure we're assessing and giving feedback on evidence of learning, not just the compliance and completion, although we could separate that out and give that separate feedback of like hey, like love all the work you're doing and you turned all of these assignments in late, so that's like a separate thing, right? Maybe that's an executive functioning thing, maybe that is just like like, organize your schedule better, like, I guess, all those things. But she's saying we need to explore this idea of accountability, which is often driving this compliance and completion thing, right? So what are we holding kids accountable to? Are we holding them accountable to getting their work done or to getting to a higher quality of work? Right, and I think we'd all argue the latter, right. We want them to get to a higher quality of work and often less fewer assignments, right, that's better, that's going to get us there and it's going to be less stressful for educators too. There's so much we have to do. Let's just work. What is the work? Smarter, not harder, right?

19:56
Ok, one specific strategy that she names, too, because, yes, we still have to do grades. We have to put something in the grade book that is often a requirement for most of us, and we can delay the grades. So research has suggested that this can be helpful. Where we actually just provide the qualitative feedback. We don't have the grade on it. We require revision, right? Or, in Dr Inouye's case, we give that feedback, we explain the reader's rich experience, the writer or speaker, they decide what to do next, they revise and then we can grade right, so we have to require a round of revision first. I really like that strategy. I feel again like that's practical. It gets at both pieces of this.

20:40
Now, another sticking point for coaching is how to shift, like how do we do the thing? So we're on board with this idea. We like the idea of equitable assessment, but we're a little nervous about family responses, about the fact that our students are going to go to college and how our college admission is going to look at this process of, maybe competency-based assessments, feedback like what is all of this going to look like in the broader scheme of things, and how do we, like you know, communicate clearly with families? And so the response, as per usual, is to partner with students and families, and I love that. Dr Inouye talked about this, right? So he is talking about framing, where he's like all right, I ask students about one experience with grading and I imagine you could do this families as well One experience with grading option to share out, and then inevitably, it will be negative.

21:30
Many of you'll co-create with the group pattern recognition of, like what are we noticing about grades and their impact on us, right? Nicole asks a similar question what is it like to be you in school? Right, let's center in lived experiences of students and families as students. Right, and then we can jump to the research. So Dr Inouye talks about how we would want to talk about the history of grading and the harm done. Right, just a few things. We don't need to inundate them, right? They're not going to get like a dissertation done in this piece, like exposure to the reality that harm is done by grading. Right Again, families, students, educators we're doing this work together and then, because we're on the learning journey together, we can all kind of co-create the assessment policy or those negotiations. Now, this is going to take a longer time. I know time always feels like it's too short, but this is where you're going to get that kind of like co-creation, quote, unquote, buy-in, whatever that is Like you'll get less critical feedback when we're doing it together and we've done the learning together. So I really like this.

22:33
And one more quick thing, just my own two thoughts here. It is only college and I guess, if you're like a younger teacher, like you know, maybe the high school, but maybe not, because high schools a lot of them are competency-based now that really grade in this particular way. So if we're like, oh, but you got to prepare the high school kids for college. So we have to do this thing in this way because college is going to do it in this way. Well, one, some colleges don't, but many do, yep.

22:59
And it's not really life is not really like a timed assessment or one grade and you're done and you never get to fix anything again. Like that's not really how life works, anything at least that I have worked on in my work. Like I have an opportunity to try it, to get feedback to make it better, to constantly take in the cycle of feedback and learning and revision Constantly. I can ask colleagues for support, I can ask for peer feedback, I can learn something new, I can decide what my next steps are. Like that is life. That is like most jobs, right.

23:34
And the other piece of this is so back to that point. It's really just college that we're prepping them for, and not even all colleges. I do think colleges will get behind this idea of more equitable assessment. It just might be a little delayed, but I don't think that kids are going to be punished for this and I recognize that, like we want to make sure kids are not going to be punished for this. So the other piece is like if we recognize and the research does show that this way of traditional grading is harmful, like is that a good enough reason to keep doing it? Is that a good enough reason to keep doing it? I'm going to leave you with that for a moment.

24:14
So other sticking points here Two left One what would dimension-based rubrics look like? I won't talk about this too much because I'm going to attach a freebie from what kind of what my brain has put together really heavily, heavily based on Dr Asao Inoue's work. I basically took his dimension-based rubric example that he has shared publicly and then just adjusted it a little bit to build in some elaboration and reflection questions. I kind of made a version for, like, the student and then the version for the student I should say, the writer or the speaker, right and then I made a version for the reader or listener the reader or listener. So you can check that out. That's going to be posted on the blog post for today's episode. So lindsaybethlyonscom slash blog, slash 212.

25:03
Okay, so then the next thing is coaching students to be able to self-assess and determine their next step. Like that totally takes coaching in too. That is going to take some time, and so some thoughts here really reflective of some of the themes we've talked about today. Make time for it. Again, we don't have time. We don't have enough time ever and it's a priorities game, so we all have like a finite amount of time. Some certainly have more time for, for example, history classes than others. However, we have time and it's a priorities game. So is it important enough that we want to carve out some time for peer reviews, for that sharing of the reader's rich experience, and for students to self-reflect and make decisions about what their next step will be? And then time to revise, because I really want to honor that like yes, some people assign homework.

25:57
I typically have not been one of those people. I want to try to make sure that my students can do all of the work within the school day. So giving that self-reflection time, building in their revision time. This could look like just independent writing time. This could look like conferences with me. This could be an exchanged, you know, journal writing or something where the students are kind of reflecting asynchronously with me or with peers or just themselves. So again, I think, even if you have a designated curriculum, can you work with an instructional coach or leader to figure out what are the assignments that are most important, prioritize those.

26:32
And I mean maybe an unpopular opinion here, but like skill-wise, hypothetically, and we're going to the extreme here. Just for this example, if I had a student that revised one piece of writing all year and it was like fantastic by the end of the year, but they just kept working on it, kept working on it, I wouldn't need skill-wise them to do any other writing, right, because this is kind of like their masterpiece. Think about like novels People write and just revise and revise and they produce one book, sometimes every like three years, right? So if someone is piecing together like revising, revising, doing all this cool stuff around one text, I think that's fine. Now the piece that becomes a complicated factor that sometimes we conflate is like that's the skill of writing versus like the content that we need to assess. But we can assess content in different ways. We can assess it verbally, we can assess it in like more project-based things. If you need them to write an essay, do you need them to write 10 essays? I would argue no. You might need them to express the content from other units in different ways, but if they're just perfecting one essay over the course of a year and it is fantastic at the end. Great, I'm going to tell you that you have got like, as long as they're doing all the work, you have got all these writing skills.

27:40
Amazing, because time is not like a skill. I'm not assessing someone and I don't know any standard other than like the standardized testing container that requires students to do things fast. And again, in life and jobs you don't really need to do things fast sometimes, but often, particularly in like professional capacities, professional like I don't know what the word is but like when you have to like put together writing I guess I don't know what, I don't know what that word writing based careers Sorry for my lack of vocabulary. There you will have the time to work on it, to get feedback, to revise. It doesn't need to be this timed thing where you need to get some like really thoughtful piece of writing together in like 30 minutes, or else right writing together in like 30 minutes or else right.

28:35
The last piece I want to name is your peer reviews, your kind of way of inviting student reflection. We want to make time for those and certainly you can just hand students kind of paper and the students writing and then they can like go through and write. I've also known students to be sometimes having an easier time verbally. So I've done peer reviews in kind of a hybrid writing reading and kind of doing it with a group. So that is something that you could also do. My process has been like similar to like a dissertation committee.

29:03
You listen to a presentation or you read a piece of writing, you can ask some clarifying questions and the author can respond, and then really you as a team of like three to four students are completing kind of the dimension-based rubric or whatever the feedback form is. Use a consensus protocol if you do need to assign a grade Ideally you don't, but if you do and then reviewers can, orally and in writing, share the why, right. So again to Dr Inouye's points. We are going to share, like the why. We're going to interrogate the reasoning behind our rich experience of reading the text or listening to the expression verbally. Okay. So with all of that, that was a long solo show. Thank you for listening, excited to hear how you might implement this like equitable assessment piece pieces in your communities. And once again, the blog post for this episode, along with that freebie with dimension based rubric ideas, is at the blog post lindsaybethlionscom slash blog slash 212.

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5/19/2025

211. A Tech Platform to Elevate your Standards-Informed Instruction with Chris Hull

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Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:

In the episode, we speak with Chris Hull, a former seventh-grade social studies teacher who created an innovative tech platform--Otus—to support student performance. Together, we discuss the transformative impact of standards-based grading on education.

The episode delves into how this approach can revolutionize grading by focusing on student progress rather than static performance. Further, the integration of AI in education serves as a supportive ally for teachers, managing routine tasks and allowing them to concentrate on meeting student needs.

The Big Dream

Chris's big dream for education is to center it around students, making the connection between student and teacher easier and more impactful. He envisions an educational system where teachers are supported in understanding their students better, allowing them to maximize each student's learning potential. By focusing on the connection between teacher, student, and learning, Chris believes education can become even more exciting and effective.

Mindset Shifts Required

A key mindset shift involves viewing assessments as measurements of student progress over time rather than static evaluations. Educators can look at where students are now, and use that to inform the path moving forward. Chris highlights the importance of breaking down complex skills into manageable components, which personalizes instruction and better addresses individual student needs.

Action Steps

To better serve student learning, educators can adapt how they are using assessments to measure students’ progress over time. Here are some steps to implement:

Step 1: Begin by breaking down assignments into specific competencies and skills. This simplifies the grading process and ensures a more accurate depiction of student abilities. It also helps students see their progress, inspiring them to keep learning and growing.

Step 2: Utilize data to inform your pedagogical and instructional practices. As you document what students know, how many of them understand a specific thing, and other data points, you can adjust your instruction to meet them where they are. Chris’ platform, Otus, leverages AI to collect classroom data and utilize tools to maximize student performance and save time.

Step 3: Engage your families and broader community in the conversation. Data helps frame conversations around equity in education because you can get a clear picture of how students are progressing and can use it to inform instructional practices that best serve the individual student.

Challenges?

One challenge educators face is a lack of support to manage their “grunt work” (i.e., preparing information, organizing things, running reports). Otus’ AI platform is designed to help educators do this and take some data analysis tasks off their plate.

Another challenge is the resistance from those accustomed to traditional grading systems, including teachers, families, and colleges. This requires a phased approach and clear communication about the changes you are implementing.

One Step to Get Started

To begin the transition to standards-based grading, educators can start by getting clear on the core skills that they want to develop. Educators can then build out the system on how they are going to measure the progression of those skills, which is something Otus can help with.

Stay Connected

You can find out more from Chris Hull and his work on LinkedIn and the Otus website.

To help you implement today’s takeaways, Chris is sharing a Webinar: How to Tackle Key Grading Reform Challenges as a School Leader with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 211 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

Quotes:

3:01 “It’s really important to look at an assessment as a measurement. You’re measuring where the student is today.”
13:21 “That’s a very broad thing—how do I really know what skills you have mastered or are still working on? That’s why the instruction should always be informed about your skill progression or your competency-based instruction.”
23:34 “When you go in for your car tune up, it is just like standards-based grading—‘Hey, this is how your transmission is, this is how your engine is, this is how your fluids are, this is where your brake pads are’—that is standards-based grading.”

If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:

TRANSCRIPT

00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Chris, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast.

00:05 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Oh, thanks so much. Really excited to be here, Lindsay.

00:08 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I'm excited to have you. Your platform, otis, is really fascinating, so really excited to dive into that today as part of our larger conversation about equitable grading. So that's certainly on my mind. Is there anything on your mind that you think the audience should know about or keep in mind as we jump in today?

00:24 - Chris Hull (Guest)
No, I think it would be helpful for the audience to know that I was a seventh grade social studies teacher for 11 years and I think it's really important that I did standards-based grading, or what I like to call standards-informed instruction, before it was even really a thing, before all these folks came about it, but it was really focusing on the skills and how we could really measure students' progress on these standards.

00:49 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Awesome. As a fellow social studies teacher, I'm excited. So, in line with the idea of freedom dreaming that Dr Bettina Love talks about and she describes as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice, I think certainly that fits into our conversation today. But how does that kind of inform your big dream? What is that big dream you hold for education students?

01:09 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Yeah, I really think it's important that when we're focusing on education, it's really centered around the students. We need to really make sure we are able to learn and listen to who they are, who they were, so we can really meet them and really help them advance forward and really help them maximize their learning. And so, for me, my ultimate dream is to be able to really have that connection be possible and easier and so that each teacher doesn't have to constantly be unlocking every student that they have but they might be able to have some help from the previous teachers. And it's almost like a articulation of like tips and tricks that can help you connect to students and help students feel heard, so they feel like they're not having to restart these relationships over and over again. And once I feel we can get there, once we can really focus on that connection between teacher, student and learning and you know, the student and learning to me, that's really where everything becomes even more exciting.

02:05 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
That's awesome.

02:05
I just last night was on a coaching call around equitable grading where we talked about like the original definition of assessment, to be like to sit beside Right and to like confer about how we're doing like that really resonates for me is that it's relational, Right?

02:18
This idea of like being in kind of that coach teacher role. It's relational, and so I love that you centered this in in relationships, kind of that coach-teacher role. It's relational and so I love that you centered this in relationships. I mean that actually might even be a big mindset shift for a lot of educators that that is the way that we approach assessment. But are there any other mindset shifts? Or, if you want to go down that path of that piece, like what, when we're thinking about educators who are kind of educated in that traditional way this is how I was graded or this is how assessment worked when I was in school or even in teacher school and we're shifting over to that idea of standards-informed instruction, what have you seen be kind of like a mindset shift that unlocks the new way of approaching assessment?

02:57 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Yeah, I think that for me it's really important to look at an assessment as a measurement. I really think if you look at an assessment, you're measuring where the student is today. And I think every teacher goes into teaching because they believe and know students can improve and grow. And so if you know growth is possible, if you know this is going to take place, you want to be able to take measurements along the way, to kind of be your guiding principle of hey, am I on the right track? Are things progressing properly? And to me the mind shift really comes where this is not like a permanent thing, this is really just a moment in time. We're going to take this measurement, and the shift for me in terms of standards-informed instruction is this idea of if I gave a test or a paper, I did a lot of papers or projects as a social studies teacher. I am not looking just at the total score, like that doesn't really exist. So how do we break it down for the student? And so in my classroom we were really focused on the ability to read, write and think critically and independently, and so then we broke that down. So the breaking down of that was informational reading and writing, and then breaking down that further is can you explain who is this situation about? Can you explain where is this situation? When is this situation Like? What is the situation? How does this situation connect to something you already know? And then why is it important? And by focusing on that breakdown of these skills, I was able to better personalize or differentiate my instruction. And I think that all teachers are doing this. They just sometimes don't realize that their observational measurements or their observational looking at where a student is is something that is actually informing their instruction.

04:42
And when you can kind of take a step back, I think it can click into it. You know, and I have, you know, four kids and it's like when they were in kindergarten. You know you you're helping them tie their shoes or put on their jacket. Well, it's like, you know, you had the I was like the place and flip where they'd flip it over their head. Well, first it's going to get the jacket on their body. Then it's like, oh, now we got to work on the zipper.

05:02
Well, you're breaking down the skills and I think we all see that in social studies. It's like I can't get to what is this situation before you can tell me who's in the situation, when is the situation? You know, when is the situation? All of a sudden it's kind of taking about. We're breaking it down and it comes into everything we do, like when you're doing a recipe and you're cooking, unless you're really, really, really, really good, you're not just throwing it all together and making it work. No, you're this ingredient plus this ingredient, and I think once you can kind of have that moment to step back. This isn't a change. It's more embracing the fact that you're taking the skills and your observations and now we're just documenting them and making them visible for everybody. Amazing things can happen.

05:48 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I really like that because I think there is particularly for new teachers. Sometimes it's like oh, there's this magic that happens once you learn how to be a teacher. You just like figure it out with all of that stuff. But what you're naming is like let's document it so that we can be really transparent almost in our pedagogical decisions. What are we looking to observe and like let's not keep it a secret anymore, which is great.

06:14 - Chris Hull (Guest)
And I think that data piece really allows you to learn we all want to be lifelong learners.

06:16
We want our students to be lifelong learners. Well, that means you, as a teacher and educator, you want to constantly be reflecting, and to me, when I would be measuring my students and their growth on these skills and their ability to apply these skills and a various set of information as we would change topics, it was really helpful for me, like if I had a class that was all of them were struggling on a certain skill. Maybe it was deciphering a data visualization, which is still reading. Right, you're trying to understand what this data visualization is. Well, what is tripping them up? You know we were able to decipher a short article in the newspaper or online. Why are they now struggling to apply these same questions to a data visualization? Well, if all of a sudden, it's like man, they're really struggling with the when I'm making this up.

07:02
So maybe my example won't be very good, but all of a sudden it's like teaching them hey, this is how you map that. Or maybe it's a select number of students and then you can differentiate. Okay, well, these 12 kids get it. I'm going to let them do the extension activity. Well, these six kids, I need to kind of work with them and do it. Well, it's informing your instruction and actually making you more efficient and effective by having this documentation of the data, or I like to say the information that's going to really inform what you do next, so that we all are enjoying the progress forward. No one likes hitting a wall or hitting something that's an obstacle. We all thrive on that aha moment of those breakthroughs where we're really able to put it together.

07:45 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Oh, you're hitting on so many things here Certainly like that motivational piece when students can see the breakdown of like. It's not just like a 65 or whatever the abstract number is, but it's like no, I'm great at these skills and I need some work in these skills. That is affirming that they have strengths and areas for growth like everyone. And what I also loved I mean mean, maybe we could start talking about Otis as a platform, but what I loved in in some of the visuals that I saw in there like, it's not just for the teacher but it's for the students and the families too that they can see.

08:15
Firstly, that they can see their most recent you you initially started talking about like. It's where they are right now, which I love, because obviously when they come into our class at the beginning of the year, we don't expect them to have all the skills that we're going to teach them all year and so it's like what is the most recent kind of level or proficiency kind of that they have, and I love that. That's centered. And I also love that there's that visual breakdown of where has this skill been across time while you've been in my class. I don't know if you want to like talk a little bit more about the platform that I just started going off on.

08:47 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Oh, no, definitely, and I think that's really where we want. We want the tools that we're equipping teachers with to be helpful, and you know, one of our most helpful tools we provide our educators is our standards-based sorry our view in our grade book. That's our standards-based grading view and it's really. It's allowing you to do your normal assessments or assignments. If it's a rubric and all of a sudden you have different descriptors that are breaking down the different components of that assignment, you're just grading that rubric in a really easy, simple couple clicks here and you're all of a sudden providing this information. We then gather that information, or it could be their performance on a typical quiz or test where there are items and questions, but the idea is you're just doing your thing and instead of a traditional grade book where you might be just having an assignment with a total score where you could have kept that on a clipboard or a spreadsheet back in the day, in standards-based grading it's almost like going from two-dimensional chess to three-dimensional chess, because you want to know how they did on the assignment, but you also then need to be able to expand it out and say, hey, how did they do on these six skills or standards that I'm measuring or the competencies that I'm evaluating, then you want to be able to look at those and if all of a sudden there's one skill or competence that you're coming back to over and over again, you want to be able to say, hey, where is their growth been? And again, that's where the tool can help you. It's kind of like a Fitbit or an Apple Watch where all of a sudden, like, yeah, you're just doing your workout, or, in this case, you're just doing your assignment and your grading and then the system is doing all the calculations. Hey, you want to look at what is their most recent score? Great, you want to do decaying average? You want to do mean mode? All of those things are possible and we even allow you to, because you know a lot of folks when they're getting into standards-based grading or standards-informed instruction. It's a transition. We talk about that transition.

10:39
Otis can actually be that kind of conversion tool. You know again, again, I like to think of everything as a measurement. So it has a unit of measurement and that unit usually for traditional is like points. Well, when you get into you know, standards informed instruction or standards-based grading, you might get into things like um, different labels like mastery, near mastery approaching. You know the labels can be very wide. You know some even use numbers as their labels, but there is still that need for some people to see that crosswalk Well, what did this mean from a point to a standard space.

11:11
Now for the people who are further advanced or further along in their pedagogy, they know that they don't want to do that, they want to get completely away from numbers. And hey, you can do that. You can go completely to the pure or the great standards in form of instruction or that transition might need to happen and so sometimes we need to be able to have that crosswalk and conversion and say this is how, this is what it meant, this is what it is. Is that ideal? I think the ideal is what is practical, what is actually gonna help people get to where we need to go and really get to being able to connect with students.

11:48 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I love that because I'm just thinking about the different folks I've been coaching and schools and districts have been coaching around this shift to more equitable ways of grading, thinking about standards-informed instruction, and that is such a concern it is like, but this has been the way that we do it. So what is the crosswalk? What is the conversion and I love that it of situating of that phase being a phase on the way to ultimately being able to potentially release that and just have standards. I know the structures that we live in are very much in people's brains, both teachers and families, and a lot of times teachers are thinking about when they're shifting grading policies, for example, what will the families think, what will the colleges think? Right, like, I really appreciate that you name that and that that that crosswalk is possible.

12:33 - Chris Hull (Guest)
And I think I think that's one of the key pieces we've we've worked with districts for the past decade around this and in an ideal world where there weren't pressures from the community to just go standards based like, yeah, that would be amazing. And that's really why I use the term standards, informed instruction, because instruction should be informed by the skill progression. That is like without question if we're really going to get into it. The analogy I often use is like a job application. If I'm trying to get a new job, I can't say I got an A in my last gig, hire me. No, I have to tell you what skills I'm proficient in, where I'm you know'm really qualified in, and that's what we want from our students. As a teacher getting a new student, I want to know where were they, what are their skills?

13:18 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I don't want to know. Hey, you got to be in algebra.

13:20 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Well, that's a very broad thing, like how do I really know what skills have you mastered, what skills are you still working on, what areas are you doing? So that's why the instruction should always be informed about your skill progression or your competency-based instruction. But the reporting to the community, the reporting to colleges if that is a difficult thing to change, it's okay to say hey, we'll change that later. Let's get every teacher really thinking like this, because then we can begin to have those conversations with the districts. And when we talk about equity, it really is around everybody having the same information to have these discussions with and then to really engage in those discussions. And you don't need to rush them.

14:07
Hey, let's really work with you. Let's say you're concerned as a high school family community that this is not going to be great for you to get into college. Great, we can show you these are your points, traditional scores that you know how they work. But let's show you in parallel how this can inform our instruction, how it can improve the learning. And really, when you then have that documentation of the information, to me that can drive the equity conversations, because I don't think it's just a simple flip of a switch. It really is something you have to engage with, you have to really think about, you have to be constantly reflecting and improving upon. It elements, all those initiatives or concepts you're pushing forward. They're so much easier to have that happen when you can have a system like Otis document it for you. So you're not dealing with the documentation of the data entry, no, you're really focused on the examination or analysis of this information or the application of it or the communication, and then you can really focus on those things.

15:11 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
That's great, and I love this equity frame as well that you keep referencing, because what I'm thinking about is the last couple of days I've had a lot of conversations and I was a former special education teacher and so thinking about students with IEPs I think this could be so critically important for students with IEPs particularly, or students who have been kind of labeled as like struggling learners or anything, because often what we see is when teachers are overwhelmed and I certainly am like guilty of this as well, you know, you're just like okay, well, these students are going to struggle with this.

15:43
So I'm just going to kind of reteach this whole group that has the label of having an IEP or something right.

15:48
And it's like actually, when we break down each of those skills and the standards, we realize that actually these two kids have this struggle with this thing and these six kids are going to right.

15:56
And so what I really love is one of the things I saw in your platform is that you have this ability to actually zoom into a particular standard and be like who is proficient and kind of at what level of proficiency are students in this particular standard, and then you have the option to actually create groups within the platform to target that instruction. So in like a co-teaching scenario, right, I could imagine, okay, great, now we're going to do some stations around this skill and that the students who maybe struggle with decoding or something right, some sort of literacy standard actually are amazing critical thinkers and so when we look at that, that's like a totally they're in a different group for that and you can break that down and have students actually be motivated by their strengths as well. I don't know if you want to talk about that aspect of the platform or what you've noticed in the use of it.

16:43 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Yeah, I think that you hit on a key piece. I think teachers understand that the idea of you know, differentiation or grouping the students is, you know, one of the key ways that we work. You know we really want to be able to do that. You know you have centers or you have all of these things where you're really progressing in this way, and so one of the things we have done is we understand that not every educator is a data scientist or understands the difference between like descriptive or diagnostic or predictive analytics Again understands the difference between like descriptive or diagnostic or predictive analytics. Again, we want to meet these educators where they can gain insights from the information that has been captured and then so that it becomes really practical in its use. And that's really where this grouping comes into play. As you notice, we have a really great ability to group students based upon standard performance. We can also group students about how they answered a certain item on a quiz or a test. We also can group students around their passions or interests. You know, maybe it's something where you have folks who are in a varsity sport, but in addition, we really understand that because of MTSS and RTI and these things, we want to be able to group kids and then track their progress, and so that's really what the system allows you to do, and then with that information, yeah, you can make those classroom instructional decisions that are informed, which is going to bring better results. And then this feedback loop can really be created to where you, all of a sudden, are really meeting your students where they are, and then their engagement goes up and then their learning increases, and it really is empowering to be able to do that.

18:16
But it all comes back to us really being you know, I'm a former educator. We have about 35-40% of the folks at Otis are former educators. We really want to be listening and learning to. How do we get better? How can this tool really be making folks more efficient and effective? Because there is nothing more valuable to an educator than time. If I hadn't, if we could grant every teacher more time, I think they would be. You know, that would be the ultimate gift, and that's what we're really trying to do. We're trying to make the time more efficient and effective for them, because that engagement or connection with students is something that you can't rush. You can't all of a sudden just streamline that.

18:55
So we want to be able to hey, let's save you some time in the grading process, let's make it easier. Or let's save some time in the calculation process, or the hey, let's group the kids for you based upon their score or their ranges. You know, we are able to bring in some assessments that could be like NWA or SBAC or DreamBox math or whatever the assessment you have for your students. We can bring that information so that when, instead of having like a day-to-day, that's a data day where you're just, like you know, having like a PLC no, you can actually have the PLC anytime with this information and you all of a sudden can then, oh, on this sub score, or hey, in DreamBox with this score. This is how we're going to do it, so you can use your own classroom assignments, but you can also have some of these like state assessments or common assessments the district can do.

19:43
They can also be used to group kids, really allowing you to do some amazing things and, at the end of the day, what we allow, our goal is we want to be able to have educators and families be able to ask very specific questions and to be able to give answers that are really about their data, their information, and that's one of the exciting things that we have coming out in just a couple of weeks. It's this data assistant. We're using AI, a piece of technology. You'll be able to ask these specific questions. Instead of building a report or seeing those really nice visuals of the groupings, you can just use plain English and just type in your question and be able to get that answer back, because teaching can be a little bit lonely. This will give you that ability to have a sounding board and everything's going to go to the teacher. It's not, you know, we're not like grouping automatically. No, we're giving insights as recommendations and the teacher can evaluate those on their own and then really decide what's going to make the most sense for them and their students.

20:44 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I love that. That's so cool, because not everyone has like an instructional coach or right like a founding board. I mean, I I was wondering if that was maybe a challenge when, when teachers might be new to using the platform, for example, or just even new to like standards of permanent instruction, if that was a challenge that they're kind of like lost in the data and like, okay, this is a lot of information. I used to work with panorama and I know that like that's a response, it's like whoa, it's a lot of information, how do engage with it. That that could certainly be a way to adjust that challenge. I don't know if you want to talk more about that challenge or if you want to talk about like a different challenge. I just wanted to make sure I got a question in around like what challenges do teachers engage around and how have you kind of helped them through that, or what have you seen be effective in helping them through any challenges?

21:36 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Yeah, we really want to be able to meet everybody wherever they're at. And, as you noted, like my dream or my, I guess, my jealous. My jealous dream was I had college professors who had like five TAs who were helping them run around.

21:41
I'm like man how great would it be to have like five TAs. That would be really helpful here. That's really what we're looking at for our use of AI. How do we really provide teachers with somebody to do some of that, what I would title grunt work, some of that like, hey, can you help me prepare for a parent-teacher conference for this child? Well, again, you have the information. It's just going to organize it in a nice way Again, giving you a set of notes to go in.

22:08
Or, hey, I have to prepare for this PLC meeting. These are the assessments I gave. All of a sudden, you did the work. Just help have a summary. And so we really are gearing everything as that supplemental piece, that supplemental assistant for our educators, because we know how much they have on their plate. They they don't have time to dabble and experiment for hours upon hours on the data. I mean that would be amazing if they could, but they're so focused on preparing for the next day, getting all the needs met, making sure that we're again meeting the kids where they're at. So we really are focused on having a really great place for all this information to live, but then having that assistant right. Again, maybe you don't have a teaching assistant. Maybe you don't have that co-teacher with you, but we can provide, like this, ai assistant, which is, again, everything's secure, everything's safe. You then have this place to kind of maybe ask a question that you're worried to ask in the staff meeting, because it's kind of silly.

23:09
You know, or you know, one of my favorite things, that's you know it's available right now, the Insights is on right now. That we're getting better and better is hey, can you help me explain standard space grading to you? Know, johnny's father? He's a mechanic. You know, and I did this, we were actually with a district and it was amazing because, yeah, like being a mechanic, when you go in for your car tune up, it is just like standard space grading.

23:35
Hey, this is how your transmission is, hey, this is how your engine is, this is how your fluids are, this is where your brake pads are Like, that is standard space grading, grading. And all of a sudden, when I was working with this district and they were talking about, like, oh, that type of communication is going to allow that, um, communication of information to happen so much better and again back to this equity piece, that's how you drive it we're all of a sudden now we're all talking about the same thing. So now it doesn't feel like I'm talking in a language I'm unable to comprehend or understand. No, we're on the same page. Now I can really help my child, or help my students in a much better way.

24:10 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Oh, that's such a cool use of AI to think about how to draw those parallels to people's jobs. Wow, okay, very cool. I'm thinking about kind of transitioning to our close here. There's a lot of things that are possible, I think, with standards, informed instruction. There's certainly like a lot of features on this platform. I'm curious if there is something that you would encourage listeners to do in kind of the like assessment framework we've been talking about that they could do like tomorrow. So one kind of thought I had was like is there pre-work before they get to kind of the Otis like conversation, such as outlining their standards or something right that like needs to happen first.

24:53 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Yeah, I definitely think there is. I think, again, you know, again, I'm a socialist I think social science teachers always rely on analogies, because you're trying to explain something to folks and you want to make sure it makes sense to them. So my, the analogy I give to this is if, if it's like a workout plan, it's like a fitness plan, it's like, well, what do you really want to do? Are you trying to like bulk up and like become like a, you know, a world bodybuilder? Are you trying to run a marathon? Are you trying to be able to, you know, get back on the soccer field or, you know, play on the basketball court? Like there are, there has to be some goal that is being had and it can't just be a checklist, it can't just be a checkbox.

25:31
And I think every district has this vision for what they want their students to achieve and they clearly will have a set of skills. You know, maybe it's about being a good citizen. Again, the world, it's open, right, I think each school can kind of prepare and again, there are state standards and common core standards. But, like, what are the core skills that we want to develop? You can't do everything, you know. It's like, again, there's too much time and there's not enough time. There's not enough time in the day to achieve everything. I can't become the world's greatest musician, the world's greatest basketball player, the world's greatest, any of these things, but what we need to do is being able to teach to a level, or teach to the skills that we care about. And so that's one. And again, this could be at the school level, could also be at the class level.

26:16
Again, when I was doing this, social studies was really supposed to augment and support reading, the ELA class, and then also critical thinking, and so for me, I really said, hey, if I can teach my students how to read critically and independently right, being able to read, write and think critically and independently, and focusing on informational skills such as what I mentioned, those basic questions, if those are my focuses, then when I am now looking at the US colonies and I'm teaching that subject, or if I'm teaching the Civil War, or if I'm teaching World War I, world War II, whatever, if I'm teaching reconstruction, any of those things, I now have this framework of skills that I'm going to be measuring, and so step one is like what are the skills that you want to be measuring? Again, it's funny when you look, you know, kindergarten, pre-k sometimes they have the easiest ones, like, oh, I want my kids to be able to put on their jacket, I want them to have these. You know, you know fine motor skills or whatever it is like define what is success. And then you want to, once you have those key skills, you're going to be measuring you.

27:22
You want to, once you have those key skills you're going to be measuring you want to then decide what unit are you going to be using to measure it, like, how do we know against sparkles, how do we know something is successful? And once you have the framework and how you're going to measure it and how you're going to engage your kids, then then you need the system, and that's really what otis then comes into play. You know a system like otis where it's like, okay, now I need to measure it because it's going to be too difficult to do with pen and paper, and then do the calculations all myself and then to track all these all myself, and then where is it going to go. You know, and I want to use Google, I want to be integrated with these tools that some of these platforms like Otis are. It's really starting there.

28:04 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
What are the skills and how am I going to measure it? And then it's well-timed this will air at the end of May, so people will have that kind of summer to think on it, like what are those skills, be ready for the new school year with those ready to go. So that's fantastic, thank you. And to close, the last two questions are a bit bit personal. So one is kind of what have you been learning about lately? Now, this could relate to work, but it could also be like totally outside of your profession, in a personal sense, things you've been learning about yeah.

28:33 - Chris Hull (Guest)
so learning is something I care too much about. I guess I could go in so many different directions. I am an obsessive reader but I guess the skills that I focus on most are I'm really working. I'm continuing to work on my dual language, dual lingo. So my all four of my kids are in a dual language program and I feel like I'm on the 25 year plan to learn Spanish. I do a dual lingo every day. I'm actually looking on my phone right now because I'm curious.

29:03
My streak you know my streak is I'm really proud of myself. I'm over 1600 days in a row, but it's embarrassing. My fifth grade daughter is better at Spanish than me, so it's one of those things where I I'm trying to continue to get better at it. I miss, you know, I taught several years ago. I missed it. My students are the ones who started to teach me and you know I missed that application, which was very fun. Duolingo is an amazing product, nothing wrong. But again, there's nothing like that real live, like there were some students who I think they would talk to me and they would know, and it was like pushing yourself. So I guess what I'm learning right now is learning to speak in Spanish.

29:40 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Amazing. Oh my gosh, I love that response. My learning to this question would be I'm learning ASL, so similar idea of just like I want to be multilingual. What does that look like? Awesome. And then finally you know people are going to want to connect with you, learn what kind of product dates Otis has, connect and get kind of a demo of Otis.

30:05 - Chris Hull (Guest)
Where can people go to connect or get that information? Yeah, definitely. I think the best way to learn about Otis is to go to our website. That's otuscom. So Otis with a U, not an I like the elevator company.

30:12 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
So Otis with a U, and so really that's organizing technology for us.

30:15 - Chris Hull (Guest)
So our website, otiscom, really has a ton of information about how we're helpful with. You know standards based grading, or helpful with progress monitoring, or helpful with MTSS, or helpful with common assessments. We can be helpful in a ton of ways. If it involves how is a student doing, you know their performance and their information, either academic or behavior, or you know any of these things that really tie in, we can really help you know with that If they want to be able to connect with me. Linkedin is a great place. It's probably the best able to connect with me. Linkedin is a great place. It's probably the best way to connect with me. So that would be the great way to connect, and then the website will be the best way to learn about Otis.

30:52 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Awesome. Thanks so much, Chris. So nice talking to you today.

30:56 - Chris Hull (Guest)
I really appreciate it, thank you.

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5/12/2025

210. "It Counts if You Show Mastery" & Other Transformative Assessment Ideas with Nicole Dimich

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Read Now

Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:

In this episode, we speak with author and educator, Nicole Dimich, about the role of assessment and grading in education.

She draws from insights in the second edition of her book, Design in Five, to encourage educators to shift how they view assessments. By focusing on students’ strengths and potential, we can create a culture of possibility where students are learning and growing according to their strengths.

The Big Dream

Nicole's big dream for education is to create a culture of possibility where students see themselves in terms of strengths and potential rather than deficits.

She envisions a system where educators partner with students, allowing them to play an active role in their learning journey. Nicole's vision is rooted in her personal experiences, emphasizing the power of recognizing and nurturing potential in students.

Mindset Shifts Required

To realize this vision, educators must shift from quantity to quality. This moves us away from a system based on points and categories, and instead focuses on learning outcomes. Ultimately, we want to create an environment where students are partners in their learning and educators are empowered to feel joy, love, and confidence in what they do.

Practically, this means connecting grades to descriptions of learning—the actual learning outcomes you want students to reach. This helps all students know where they are, what they’re doing well, and where they have an opportunity to grow.

Action Steps

As educators make the “quantity to quality” mindset shift, they can focus on taking these action steps:

Step 1: Educators can move away from the idea of compliance and completion and embrace evidence of learning. Grades should be about communication, where students are at a point in time. Delaying grades and offering feedback instead are two ways to take the focus off of numbers and points.

Step 2: Hold students accountable to a higher quality of work. It’s not just about getting work done, but showing the evidence of learning. This means going deeper and revising work to show learning over time.

Step 3: Understand that formative and summative assessments are not methods, they’re about levels of understanding. It’s not just about whether something “counts” to the end grade, but showing mastery in their learning.

Step 4: Educators can partner with students to co-create learning experiences that emphasize their strengths and potential, fostering a culture of possibility.

Challenges?

One of the challenges educators face is the complex relationship between grades, motivation, and accountability. Traditional grading practices often overshadow feedback, leading students to prioritize scores over actual learning. High-achieving students may also be reluctant to take risks, resulting in minimal learning gains.

Additionally, educators struggle with turnaround time for providing meaningful feedback and aligning assessments with learning objectives.

One Step to Get Started

The first step an educator can take is to start with just one unit or time frame and decide what they want kids to learn. Take whatever way you’re scoring and share it with students in a way that breaks down the learning, shifting from quantity to quality.

Stay Connected

You can find this week’s guest on LinkedIn or X at @NicoleDimich.

To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing Nicole’s Assessment Practices White Paper with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 210 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

Quotes:

1:55 “I think that’s the gift educators give young people—when you see possibility and help cultivate that strength.”
8:53 “Oftentimes, kids would rather do more assignments, do more things, and get more points rather than go deeper—and not because they don’t want quality work, but this is how the system has worked. So that shift from quantity to quality is a game changer.”
21:05 “When kids say, ‘Does this count?’ Then we say, ‘It counts if you show mastery.’ It’s not about a method, it’s about a level of understanding.”

If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:

TRANSCRIPT

00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Nicole, welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast.

00:05 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

00:08 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I'm so excited I was just telling you I've been talking about this book to so many people so your second edition of Design in 5 is out. It is brilliant, and that's what's on my mind right now as we enter the conversation. Is there anything that you want the audience to know, either about you or to kind of keep in mind as we have that conversation today?

00:27 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
Oh, yes, well, I guess the biggest thing for me is just this idea of creating a culture of possibility for young people and using assessments in ways that helps young people see themselves in possibility and see themselves in strength and not always deficit. So so much of the grounding of design and five, the assessment design the technical part, as well as the way we use it as a process is with in the service of like creating space where students can really grow in deep ways.

00:59 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
That definitely feels in line with the next question I was going to ask you so very, very freedom, dreaming of you and I know I always try to surface Dr Bettina Love's quote about freedom dreams, dreams grounded in the critique of injustice, which I love. So I don't know if you want to name or elaborate on that big dream that you hold for education. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that beautiful quote as well, you know.

01:22 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
I think it goes back to that sense of possibility. I mean, I was the little girl in Northwestern, northwestern, minnesota, where in kindergarten, first grade, I was the. The only way I got to school was because the bus driver got off the bus, grabbed my hand, got me on the bus and I was the last stop, so he like walked me into into school and it was a teacher in sixth grade who who looked at me and said, nicole, I think you've got something, I think you've got some leadership in you and like recognize possibility in me before I recognized it in myself. And so I think that's the gift that educators and others give young people and each other, like when you see possibility and you help cultivate that strength. So, and I think I also have a deep passion for partnering with students to say what is it like to be in school. So it's not just about the adults designing a system that really has not really worked for a lot of students, and even students who it's worked for potentially may or may not have transferable skills that are like OK, now it's not just a hoop to jump through. It's this meaningful experience that I'm learning really interesting things and I'm learning skills that are going to help me decide where I want to go and be, you know, really really feeling happy, successful, proud and confident. And so I think I have that dream of creating school where students are partners in their learning and that we empower educators to feel joy and love and confidence in how they are able to engage and facilitate and foster learning for students.

02:58
So my pathway has been in lots of different spaces and assessment happens to be the central role and how I've really tried to figure out and tried to like facilitate and learn and then create space where assessment is about building relationships and assessment is about information and not so much evaluation, where we start to use it as a process.

03:20
That's part of a culture of learning and so and I think there's really like practical ways we can do that so teachers workflow is doable, feasible, possible and and feels really like like what's what's happening is working and I can sustain it.

03:38
And then, of course, having students just feel confident and feel and I think for me I was a pretty compliant kid, so I you know I was getting seen in my possibility a lot, but I also noticed that students who maybe didn't see school in terms of the process, didn't want to play the game or didn't see it as possible, were not getting seen in possibility. We're often getting seen in deficit, and so part of my journey has been to create space and I think we can do really innovative things in education. And if we don't transform, assessment and grading, all of that can increase pressure and stress and actually almost not necessarily negate, but also not have some of those innovative practices really realized in the potential that they have. So I think assessment and grading, but assessment in particular, sits at the center of us being able to create some of these big changes that will also result in big learning and big confidence for students.

04:34 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I love so much of that. I just I love the partnering with students. I love that you know you're kind of situating also in your own personal experience of people who found the possibility in you. I love that you know we're kind of thinking about shifting our understanding of our roles as educators in some ways right when we're thinking about partnering with students. It's not maybe how we were taught, right, but like that often that is like the shift we need to make to be able to do this.

04:59
Well, your question of what is it like to kind of be you in school or experience school is brilliant and I love just the simplicity of it and just the importance and weight of it. So all the things I'm really excited about. And I want to ask you this next question around shifts, because I think you had so many things in this book that I read it and I was like that is totally blowing my mind and shifted everything I've thought about. And I'm often in conversations about equitable assessment and so I was like whoa, this is like an extra mindset shift that is so cool. And so I'm curious to know what is like the big one or one of the big ones that you've seen in terms of a teacher, like had this way of thinking about assessment, had this like nugget of information or thought change? And then was like oh, this has unlocked so many things for me. Is there one that sticks out for you?

05:48 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
Yeah, well, and maybe two. I'll try to just keep it to one. They kind of bleed into one another. But one of the pieces that, as at right the teeth like a classroom piece, that so has kind of resonated is this shift from quantity to quality. So, as students are asking questions like how much is this worth? They're making decisions about how much effort they're going to put into something, by how many points it's worth, or how big it is, and so, or even we as educators will sometimes say well, this is worth this many points, so pay attention to it. So even we fall into that quantitative language. Or we categorize kids the high kids, the gifted kids, the low kids, and we it's these labels that are quantities of like. Okay, this is where you're at.

06:35
And so when we so that shift to quality, when you take, I think one of the examples I use frequently that seems to resonate is let's take 67%. Let's say you get an assessment back and it's 67%. When you ask students, what does that mean? They often are like I don't know. Some kids are like I passed, they're so relieved and now they're done, and other students are like I failed, I'm stupid, and so why try next? And so I think, noticing the impact of those quantities on students, it really it really makes an educator's job much more difficult to help students engage when we, when they don't feel like anything they're going to do is going to make a difference, that it's going to help them learn more or even help their grade go up. So even that that in itself. So then, when we take 67% and we break it down by specific learning descriptions, so the 67% is okay. You know two of these things you know how to organize data, you know how to calculate and you need to work on interpreting data. That's the area you are struggling with. So, when people have shifted from quantity to quality, even like a rubric score of two, or if people are doing a standards-based reporting, a two can, if it's not connected to descriptions of learning, can be just as damaging as a quantitative or just as confusing for students, or they tie that quantity to their self-worth. So then, oh, this is about me instead of about my learning and what I know and what I still need to work on.

08:06
And so that shift from quantity to quality is how do we share information around assessment so students understand what that 67% means, or understand what that two means and they're reflecting on each assessment that says okay, this means I understand these pieces and this is what I need to work on. And I think kids who do well over time like when kids do well over time and they make a mistake my experience is some students just get so freaked out or so stressed because they don't attach that mistake as an opportunity to grow. They think it's all about them and they'll do anything for points. So it appears that they're motivated by grades, but it really isn't about learning. Because you ask then, how will students revise their work? Are they interested in revising their work? Well, oftentimes kids would rather do more assignments, do more things, get more points than go deeper, and not because they don't want quality work.

08:59
But this is just how the system has worked.

09:02
So that shift from quantity to quality has been a game changer and, like practically just even in the last, we just, like you know, just take an assessment and put a cover page on it and break down, even if there's nothing initially attached. There's been some really not necessarily easy moves, but simple moves of just like take one assessment that you already have and break it down by learning and then see how students engage with it differently. I mean, and the cool part is for me is that when we start to do some of that, it also really eases the workflow for teachers, because now, if you know, this is what students need to work on and it's not just about, oh, they got a bad score or they got this score, so this means they need this. It's really about what is the learning they need to work on. So that's that quantity to quality shift is kind of foundational to changing from assessment being just about a grade or stop everything in assessment and really more feedback. That's helping us understand strengths and next steps.

10:05 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I love that, and one of the things that you were kind of mentioning is like this idea of motivation, and so that's been such a huge piece of the conversation, right, I was just saying that. You know, last night I was in a conversation with teachers who are like we collectively agree in this virtual room that grades are not motivating and our policies are still. The things we fall back on are still that grades are motivating. So like how do we kind of parse apart that stuff and I know you cite research in the book around this and like what grades can do or not do to learning, and so yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts around like this idea that is kind of stuck in our brain sometimes that grades are motivating when actually maybe not.

10:44 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
Yes, well, and ironically that leads to another shift in the book from really this idea of compliance and completion to this idea of evidence of learning. Because I think we have to and I've been influenced by so many great thinkers around grading Maria Ruiz Primo and Tom Guskey and James and I'm blanking get kids to do things, but as a way to say, this is where your proficiency is at this moment in time, and because it's very hard to get kids to do work when they don't feel compelled to do it. I mean, I'm seeing lots more need for students to see relevance in things, and so I think that notion of relevance is important. So, positioning grades as communication and then thinking about because, if we think about this, if we give kids I think it's Doug Reeves who talks about this experiment he says, okay, for all the students you gave zeros to one unit. If our theory is, if I give them a zero, it will motivate them to get more work done, let's track the students who got zeros, the next unit and the next unit, and if that list changed, then maybe it's working. But if that list stays the same, then we have to figure out something different, because just giving kids zeros isn't going to work. So I think there's like some I always tell people, you know, just pilot some things like create some space, and I you talked about this one study and there's some, of course, some challenges around the study itself, but essentially what happens is when you asked when you put a grade and I think this anecdotally, teachers tell me this all the time you put a grade on something and you put feedback. I mean, I was an English teacher, I used to put books on kids' papers and my deep insights they were not always taking me up on them and they were on the floor or in the trash.

12:55
And it turns out like when you put a grade in a comment on, oftentimes students look at the grade and then they're not even looking at the comments. They'll look at their peer and say what did you get? And they're comparing numbers instead of comparing their work to a set of qualities and so delaying grades so that students pay attention to feedback and then requiring revision to kind of get through this idea. So I guess there's the focus of separating motivation from do grades motivate? They motivate some students who are really achievement driven, but they're motivating students to get more points, not to necessarily to create more quality work. So I think there's part of that. So really helping position grades as purpose. The other thing is is, or as communication of learning, and I think the other thing is we have this really this hard issue of combining everything together and averaging it and and then we don't really understand what the grade means. So a grade of C without any understanding of what goes into that can mean a myriad of things like that. Kids and kids did really well. They show evidence of academic achievement, but they had enough no homework in, and so we don't give feedback around behaviors versus, you know, academic achievement. But they handed no homework in, and so we don't give feedback around behaviors versus academic achievement.

14:13
My son, when he was sophomore that was during COVID and he stopped doing anything and he didn't really love me asking if I could help. But he took an American Sign Language class and it was midterm and the teacher gave, of course, had to do an interview and he showed up for the Zoom, thank goodness. And at the end of the Zoom call she said Reese, you know everything you need to know. That's most essential in American Sign Language. So I'm going to exempt you from all of those other little assignments, because I have evidence that you understand. And he looked at me and he said Mom, I think I'm going to take ASL 2. I have evidence that you understand. And he looked at me and he said mom, I think I'm going to take ASL 2. And he took ASL 3 and ASL 4. And I think that teacher was so brilliant because in that moment she shifted from a focus on chasing him for getting work done, compliance and completion to really looking at evidence of learning, which saved her a ton of energy as well, because she's looking at I don't have to try to chase kids to get all these points in. Now I can look at okay, what do I have?

15:15
And then there are some folks who'll say, well, where's the accountability? And I will say, like, was I not annoyed that he was not doing some of those things? Yes, and he did not have to do them to show mastery of the essentials. So I think we really need to explore not only motivation but accountability. What are we holding kids accountable to? Getting work done or getting to a higher quality of work? And so, yes, does Reese need feedback on the fact that there are times he's going to have to do something, some things that he doesn't want to do. But that's different feedback than the grade. So I think we have to really explore what do we talk about when we talk about accountability and how do we hold kids accountable and how do we reduce teachers stress of always trying to chase kids to get work done and really look more at evidence of learning and then our grades can really reflect learning at any given moment in time. And I think I mean that's the other issue. Of course, with all this is certainly things about if kids get it faster, do they get a better grade? There's, like some, there's lots of issues with some of those pieces that have to be explored in terms of what kind of create, what kind of culture do we want to create? But yeah, I think there's like lots of different places, but that idea of grading, of motivation, is super important.

16:35
And then Tom Schimmer, my colleague also. He talks about giving kids credit for what they know. And so if they and I think that's where averaging becomes a really detrimental practice because if we are holding kids accountable to their initial tries at things and then we average the next try, and then we're not giving kids credit for what they know, and this is where kids will say how much is this worth? Oh, it's only going to be worth 10 percent. More than I'm not going to do it or I'm not going to put as much effort into it. More then I'm not going to do it or I'm not going to put as much effort into it. So we actually like, don't give ourselves credit as teachers. My colleague, cassie, used to say that, as we, when we inspire growth if we don't capture the most recent, the most frequent and the most consistent evidence in terms of kids learning.

17:23 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
So yes, wow, there's so much good stuff. I love that you're weaving in like tools and mindset things and just all of this. I so love it and it's making me think actually about like the A students who actually are doing school quite well and work, you know, apparently like it seems as if they are doing well in the system, but they are so hesitant to take risks, they are so hesitant to push the boundaries of what they could do, that their learning gains each year is so small that it's like this is also harmful to them. Yes, 100%.

17:59 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
In fact, I'm so glad you brought that up, because one of the things that I'm like you know what? Let's just take one unit and for one unit, don't grade a couple of the assignments and then see what happens. And I think people will say, well, if I don't grade it, they won't do it. And I'll say, yeah, if you don't grade it and you don't do anything with it, they absolutely won't do it. But if you don't grade it, and the next day you come in and you're like, okay, here's four ways you solve this problem. Or here's two examples of here's two examples of theme or claims, and okay, which one is yours? Okay, here we go. Let's let's revise. And if kids haven't done it, their consequence for not doing it is sitting down and doing it, so it holds us accountable to that kind of thing. Now, easier to say than do, but just the, the whole, like really thinking differently about our, our workflow is important and just like what we're choosing to do.

18:53 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
So, yes, I love that. I mean one of the other things I we were just talking a lot about, like big, big kind of shifts and thoughts and and one of the things that is probably the most memorable from your book for me was this idea that it's an assignment can be formative and summative for different students like the same assignment. Do you mind talking through that idea, because I bet that will blow people's minds.

19:16 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
No, I love it. We've been having so much fun talking about this because so many people are setting policies around. Formative is less percentage of the grade than summative and the theory is great, but the unintended consequences are that kids think that formative doesn't count as much, so they'll choose not to do some of the things because they again are thinking in terms of quantities. So we're messing with this notion of assessment and these are also my colleagues, tom and Cassie messing with this notion of formative. And summative is verb and action, not method. So no one can give anybody a formative assessment. There's, it's, it's has to be used by the teacher to reflect on what instruction worked, who understood, what were the misconceptions, and then it has to be used by students to say, okay, this means I know this, but this is my next step, so, so formative assessment has to be used in that way. Ok, this means I know this, but this is my next step, so, so formative assessment has to be used in that way. So then fast forward to your like, like your. That moment there is OK, so anything can be formative or summative, and teachers do this all the time if they give what they intended to be a summative. End of unit assessment and students don't do well, in that moment we're like, oh well, well, whoa, we've got to do another lesson, another instruction, a reteach and another opportunity. And in that same vein, if in a formative assessment, if, if, if we instead think about this when there's a quiz or there's some kind of assessment for the kids who show mastery, it is summative, it's evidence that helps us understand a level of proficiency. For students who don't show mastery on that assessment, it's formative because they're going to get some feedback and try again. And so if we remove these categories of formative and summative, we remove that.

21:04
Like when kids say, does this count? Then we say, okay, it's counts if you show mastery. And again, then it's not about, it's not about a method, it's about a level of understanding, and that motivates kids to say, oh, the only way I can be done with this at the most rudimentary thing is if I show mastery, so I'm only going to get a grade when I show mastery. And when and when we do that, that alleviates the teacher's workflow too, because they're not scoring it two times. Or, and reassessment now isn't about oh, another like stop everything, have to figure this out.

21:37
It's like, okay, more instruction and then, and then okay, when, when does it count? It counts when you show mastery, so you know whether you're using points or standards-based scoring. I mean, it works in both ways. But if we just think about it in terms of, yeah, mastery or levels of proficiency, that really helps kids who I don't know, I'm sure and I've experienced this too like kids who settle for so much less than what they can really do because it's enough for them and so on the most essential things. We're not going to do this on everything right. We're going to do this on essential skills and essential learning we want kids to have so that the workflow works. But for kids who settle when they don't get a grade, then it's like they're not going to settle for nothing, so it also pushes them to take that next level, that next step.

22:22 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I love that language. I just wrote that down so right. Like the idea like it counts if you show mastery is such a wonderful way to kind of weave in the system of like we're working within this idea that we do have to input a grade and like this is how you still focus on the learning within that system. I feel like it's such a tough tension to kind of weave and I think that that phrase hits it. So teachers should write that down Nice.

22:48 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
I'm wondering about oh, go ahead. Well, the only other thing I was going to say is, like people often ask me, how many formative assessments should we do, and if they're in collaboration sometimes they're using common formative or collaborative formative and I'll say only as many as you can respond to, Because that other shift of being over-tested and moving to balanced and informed is that sometimes we're collecting so much assessment information I did the formative assessment but I don't have time to respond. Well then, it's no longer formative. So I think that notion of the use of it as well as like that, helps teachers workflow and make sure that kids are getting targeted feedback that they can interpret and respond to.

23:30 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
For sure, I know. I think about all of the people who have said like you know, there's like stacks of essays on my desk from like a month ago and it's like well, was that like maybe we shouldn't have given that assessment?

23:40 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
Right, all of that.

23:41 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Not helping anyone, including you.

23:43 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
It's just adding to the pile.

23:47 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I'm curious to know. We've talked through many challenges that teachers kind of grapple with around assessment. Is there any that we've missed, like another challenge that you've encountered teachers facing or kind of grappling with, and what might any advice around that challenge be for folks who are struggling with that challenge?

24:07 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
Yeah, well, I think turnaround time to get kids feedback and information from the assessments is one and this is on a continuum, I would say in terms of making sure that the assessment design matches the learning to the cognitive assessment, to where people think students can achieve, and sometimes that's in direct alignment, but sometimes that's way below where we know that they can be. And it's all in good intentions. We don't want kids to struggle too much, but oftentimes that doesn't then push kids to really learn in deep and sustainable, transferable ways, sustainable, transferable ways, and so a lot of, I think, the idea around how do we design assessments that are really meaningful, engaging, but also really at grade level and allow kids to learn. That's been a challenge, and so sometimes I think we'll also say you don't have to assess anything below grade level when you get to that moment where you want kids to put everything together because you're doing all of those prerequisites and all of the other pieces along the way. So then you can create an assessment that's not so long because you're not having to see prerequisites alongside of the on-grade level pieces. And if you have a student doing something on grade level, whether it's a performance task or a multi-step problem or an essay. If they mess it up, you can see which prerequisite they don't understand. So you don't need to necessarily in most cases. There might be a few that you know. Of course that are exceptions, but so that helps, like save. And then the other thing or save time and save kids energy so that they're actually assessing at that piece, and I would say that that's also true for when we want to use something formatively.

25:52
Sometimes people only assess the small pieces and so then kids will do really well, or the simple pieces or the things, the learning that we can get quick data back from. So kids will do well on the formative, but they get to the end of unit or the time when it's intended summative and they don't do as well. And so then often there's not a match there between you know kids aren't practicing the right skill to get to the end. So we kind of, I think those two challenges that's where the assessment plan has been really helpful and it's nothing new like people have done backwards design before. So this is not like something new. I'm not even suggesting that. However, I think sometimes it's become so complicated that it's hard to like just what's the simple way and a deep way. Not simple, not necessarily just, you know, surface level. It's simple and deep where you take the standards or the learning goals or descriptions of learning that you want kids to do and you match up items or you match up tasks and just that simple process. Because then if you're using another resource and you're or you're using something has been designed for you, you can match it up right away and say, oh, this doesn't do it.

27:00
I recall a couple of weeks ago I was with a chemistry team and there was 50 questions and it was most of it like there's matching and all of this kind of matching terms and and it kind of built to a couple of the problems to solve. And they had listed the standards and they all were about describing. And we and so I'm like, okay, let's look at the item, so the first five are all matching items, and they're like, okay, that one goes to describe, and I'm like, but are kids actually describing? And he's like, oh, I get what you're saying. So there was just one and they completely changed the assessment and they've been giving this assessment for quite some time, and so it was just a very brief conversation that made that change, coupled with, I will say and I'm sure that this has been part of many of your conversations as well is just the role of AI, of your conversations as well, as just the role of AI.

27:52
And so when we were able to say, to help lift some of the cognitive load of thinking, okay, if not matching what I've been doing for all these years, what's another opportunity, what's another way? And so using AI as a shoulder, partner or something, or you know ideas, we put it in and they came up with some beautiful scenarios and we had to tweak, of course, and you had to make sure that it aligned to that piece. But they walked up feeling pretty like, okay, I think this might be possible. And I wasn't sure because, if and now, that's a one situation. But that whole notion of designing, both at the cognitive level and then design, and then being able to shift from how we've always assessed to where we want to, that kind of piece has been good.

28:35
And then when you put, when you are by learning goal and by standard, and you know exactly which items are lined up or what the criteria is for the task, you can more focus your feedback and you're not having to it's like, oh, I'm not going to score.

28:51
I'm not going to comment on every little thing that annoys me. I'm going to like I shouldn't say that, but you know, you look at it and you're like, oh, or the opposite, which I should take a strength-based view of, that is, I want to make sure they know that they should do this instead of that. But that is so. So when I ask kids about feedback, that's one of the things they say is that I get so much feedback I don't know where to start. Or the teacher writes all over my work and I don't know how they got from my wrong answer or my not so quality answer to where they were. So, without seeing the process, so yeah, so I think and here I go again like assessment design, that assessment plan alleviates, helps, can help a little bit, and then, and then it feeds into all the other parts of assessment as a process, feedback that helps kids focus on learning.

29:40 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
So oh, I love that. Thank you so much for going there, cause I think that really brought it home for people, too is like this is why we're doing this right, so we can give that feedback. Love the assessment plan approach, because I think that really brought it home for people, too is like this is why we're doing this right, so we can give that feedback. Love the assessment plan approach. I think that's super cool and and it's super practical. So thank you for giving so many tips throughout throughout this episode, and I and I kind of want to start to wrap us up by starting with like a kind of call to action, like a quick action step that people can do. Obviously, this work could be like incredibly transformative. People can be looking, looking at, like you know, assessment policy as a whole and, and all of that. I'm wondering if there's like a first step that you often suggest for people to to, to start with.

30:16 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
Yeah, the the weird and messy thing about assessment is that you know everybody's on a little bit of a different journey, so there might be different first steps and that's the five phases. That's where they're in a cycle, because you can start at different places based on where you're at. But if you're in the beginning of the journey, a lot of times what I'll say is just take one unit or one time frame and decide what do you want kids to learn and really take whatever way you're scoring and share it with students in a way that breaks down the learning, so similar to what I shared in that shift from quantity to quality. So that's a first step. Another first step, if that feels too big, or, and I will say that shift of like, really communicating differently in terms of the assessment and sharing.

31:02
Having a what I call a scoring scheme is coupled with, at the end of an assessment, asking students what their strengths are and their next steps. So what are their strengths and next steps based on that assessment information. And even young children can do this. I have a video of a student who had written a narrative on a turkey and he has a ladder of all the things to include in his narrative from events to temporal words, to theme, like he has the whole thing and he goes through and he's able to say this is what I have in place. This is my next step and I think that's what we want to do. So those scoring schemes and the self-reflection tools can be simple, but they really are a great first step to moving assessment to be more about the information, which also lays the groundwork for more meaningful and accurate grades.

31:54
And then, I guess, the only other well, there's a few others, but the one thing I would say too, the other thing is, is this, just this idea of using assessment formatively and really exploring all the different strategies? And there's so many ways. I mean, certainly there's so many people who are focused on that notion of how do we use assessment in ways that provide formative feedback, and so I think that aspect of it and I have a design quality and that design quality of action and purpose really go into. What does that mean in exploring what our current understanding of formative uses of assessment are and then trying a few things. And there's some strategies in the book and, of course, there's strategies all over the place, so most of it is like really short, like digging into the formative practice, because we know that's where so much of the learning takes place for students.

32:43 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I love this encouragement to try something too, because it's sometimes that's what it takes to just unlock our brains from the way we've always done things. It's like let's just try, let's just see what happens, and like maybe our guesses would be proven wrong. Actually, this is really going to work very well for students.

32:58 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
And then if we don't try to change, it's like not thinking about we're going to change the entire system. We don't have to change the entire system before we try one of those things or practice. Just try a practice and then notice what its impact is on kids learning and their confidence and the teacher workflow. That's what I like. Those are the lenses you're looking at when you try anything for just a little bit.

33:19 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I love those lenses. I'm going to make sure I note those. Thank you for that. So the final two questions, just to close. This one's for fun. It can be professional or personal. What is something that you've been learning about lately, ah?

33:31 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
nice. Um well, I um I well like, totally personal, I love to sail so I am diving into and I've sailed as a little kid but I'm diving into sailing lessons and I'm going full on in my small little lakes in Minnesota and then maybe I'll transfer out there, out into, or maybe I'll transition to bigger places later.

33:54 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
But I love that so much. Thank you for sharing that. That's incredible. I love it, and then that's awesome. I think we'll link to the book, of course, in the blog post, in the show notes, but I think a lot of listeners and audience folks will just be really eager to connect with you, follow your work and book and beyond, and so I'm curious where can people find you, or you have an online presence, or how could people get in touch with you?

34:17 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
Absolutely so I am. I don't even know all the different names of all the things, but I'm at Nicole Dimich on all of them. So LinkedIn is probably where I'm most active right now. But of course there's there are other social media Instagram and X and all the things. So I haven't haven't ruled out anything yet, but I'm at. Linkedin is my primary piece. So Nicole Dimich at Nicole Dimich.

34:44 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Awesome, and we'll link to that too in the blog post and everything. Thank you, nicole, this has been absolutely wonderful. I so appreciate this conversation.

34:51 - Nicole Dimich (Guest)
I am so grateful for you and thank you so much. I'm um. Yeah, it was an honor to be here, thank you.

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5/5/2025

209. Standards Serve Institutions; Expectations Serve People: Antiracist Assessment with Dr. Asao B. Inoue

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Listen to the episode by clicking the link to your preferred podcast platform below:

In this episode, we talk to Dr. Asao B. Inoue, a researcher, writer, and professor committed to student-centered learning and innovative, antiracist grading practices.

We explore dimension-based rubrics that focus on personalized feedback, encouraging students to engage critically with texts and their own writing processes. Additionally, the episode highlights labor-based grading systems in K-12 settings, which involve collaborative agreements with students and parents to foster a fairer and more engaging learning environment.

The Big Dream

Our guest's big dream for education—both K-12 and post-secondary education—is to let go of the standards that colonize us while maintaining high expectations that foster rigorous, meaningful, and joyful learning experiences. The aim is to create an educational landscape that prioritizes students' experiences and serves people rather than institutions.

In Dr. Inoue’s words, “standards serve institutions, but expectations serve people.” So we can maintain expectations while releasing institutionalized standards, encouraging a world that is complex, diverse, and rich with different ways to understand and experience things.

Mindset Shifts Required

One key shift for educators is to move away from standardized American English as the gold standard, recognizing that while it may offer some advantages in our current racist and patriarchal world, it also carries limitations and perpetuates inequalities. Educators should interrogate these standards—how are they limiting us? What is it orienting us to in the world?

Action Steps

Educators can make the shift away from institutionalized standards by implementing these action steps:

Step 1: Try dimension-based frameworks when it comes to providing feedback. Using writing about and understanding a text as an example, Dr. Inoue shares how dimension-based frameworks allow students to share their personal experiences. This is much richer to gauge their understanding than focusing on what’s “right” or “wrong.”

Step 2: Shift your perspective as an educator: it’s not your job to tell writers (students) what to do next, but allow students to receive information and make decisions. Foster a classroom community where students write from their experiences, listen to others, and offer feedback before moving forward. Use this to determine the next steps in your classroom setting from there, walking alongside your students in their journey.

Step 3: Initiate labor-based grading in your classroom. This system is based on making a set of negotiated agreements with students (and perhaps their parents) regarding what labor will equal what grade. Collaborate with the students to create these standards and ensure everyone is on the same page.

Step 4: Ensure you create space for self-reflection. They collect feedback from their teacher and peers, but it’s important for them to self-reflect independently on where they are and how they’re doing. This builds self-reliance in their own learning journey.

Challenges?

One challenge educators may face is student confusion when transitioning from traditional grading systems to new approaches like labor-based grading. Students are accustomed to receiving grades as indicators of their progress, so educators need to provide clear explanations and support as students adjust to these changes.

One Step to Get Started

One step educators can take to get started is to prioritize a framing conversation at the beginning of class. Get clear, together, on this question: what are we really trying to learn in this class? Draw on your students’ lived experiences and knowledge, other fields of study, and interests in the class to map out where you are going with this class.

Stay Connected

You can find more from Dr. Asao B. Inoue on his website.

To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my Staff Meeting Agenda series with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 209 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

Quotes:

3:21 “A lot of education, a lot of teaching, a lot of what we have to do because a school or a university or program requires it, confines learning and it confines students.”
11:08 “When they [students] know and they feel that they are being institutionalized through things like standards and other practices in our classrooms, then they become less engaged.”
20:19 “All you’ve got to do is ask yourself, ‘How magical do I think my feedback is? Do I really think that what I tell my student is going to change their way of languaging that they’ve acquired over how many years from family members, loved ones, churches, the neighborhood? … I’m the one who’s going to save you from your language problems? Instead, I’d rather be another soul on the road of your language journey.’”
31:34 “The emotions and the feelings are wonderful to have, but they’re really not the main ingredient in a class for compassion. It is, ‘Let’s figure it out.’”

If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below:

TRANSCRIPT

00:02 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
So welcome to the Time for Teachership podcast.

00:05 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
Thank you, great to be here, honored to be here, thanks.

00:08 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I'm so incredibly excited for this conversation. I've been like telling everyone. I know that I get to talk to you today, so I'm curious to know you know, beyond the kind of professional bio, is there something you want listeners to either know about you or just kind of keep in mind as we enter our conversation today?

00:27 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
I don't know. I mean knowing that your listeners are probably mostly K-12 or secondary educators. I mean, obviously, I'm a college professor and I don't teach in the public schools or in secondary. Of course, I've worked with lots of secondary teachers over the years and I have a really close affinity with that work, knowing that it's probably three times as hard as my work as a teacher. But anyway, I don't think so.

00:57
I try very hard in all that I do in my scholarship and research and my teaching, to always try to be, as student centered and thinking about students experiences rather than thinking about and I know that this can be touchy rather than thinking about a teacher's labor and needs. That is important, it is absolutely important, but that's usually my priority. Important, but that's usually my priority. And it may come out in what we talk about, which is, I think, first, what are the students' experiences and how can I afford them as much rich experience as possible? And then, what does that mean in terms of my workload and my labor? And I'm fortunate in my profession that I don't have a heavy, heavy load of students to teach every semester and I have generous enough breaks in the academic year and year to be able to think and reflect upon my teaching and so forth. And I know not everybody gets that. In fact probably a lot of most teachers don't get that, those luxuries, so I know I'm very lucky to do that, have that.

02:03 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
That is really. That's very like self-aware as a college professor to name that, because that's not common.

02:09
Thank you for proving that for us and I think so much of your work is going to. I'm really curious to hear your question here, but I think it comes through in your work. I mean your answer here is the idea of freedom dreaming. I love starting grounding conversations in this. So Dr Bettina Love describes freedom dreaming as dreams grounded in the critique of injustice. And so, considering that, considering your work, considering all that you do, and what's that big dream that you hold for the field of education, If we're thinking about I'm gonna use the field of education really large, so not just secondary but post-secondary also.

02:45 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
I kind of feel like there's, you know, brother and sister or something, siblings in a house, in an academic house, um, so I'm gonna think large.

02:53
Um, I think my uh dream for education is that we is, that we somehow try to let go of the standards that colonize us, while hanging on to the expectations that teachers have and students have, that create rigor and meaningful and joyful learning experiences and make a world a bigger and better place.

03:21
I think a lot of education, a lot of teaching, a lot of what we have to do or required to do because a school or a university or program requires it through outcomes and other things, confines learning and it confines students and relegates some students to certain places and others and really tries to create little cogs that all kind of look and sound and do the same things. That's really great for a corporate machine, it's really great for a society that has all these things neatly put out, but that's not the way the world really works and it's certainly not an interesting and joyful one. That's complex and offers lots of different ways to understand things, experience the world, et cetera, and language. So I think that's what I'd like to see. Is this letting go of institutionalized standards, that is, standards really serve institutions whereas expectations serve people, and I can have my expectations as a teacher. A student can have their expectations for their learning, but those are not necessarily the same things as institutional standards.

04:28 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I love this so much. Okay, thank you for this grounding. This is really helpful because it isn't just like we're releasing the challenge or we're releasing the expectations right, we're keeping those because the standards serve institutions. Okay, this is really helpful. This is really helpful. I am curious, I think, with often very, very common challenge for me in coaching around grading, assessment rubrics, any of the kind of assessments habitus. I guess, as you described right, it's like there are some mindset shifts that we have to overcome before we can even get to the thing of like how do we do the thing, and so I'm curious to know are there mindset shifts that you have either coached on, helped illuminate, had yourself? That's really like kind of a foundation for what you eventually like help people to do?

05:20 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
Well, I mean, of course, I'm a. My center, my research center, is language and teaching, writing and communication in the college setting. So of course, language is at the center of some of the mindset shifts that I would that I would call those things. So, for instance, when I'm working with teachers, college teachers or whatever, one mindset shift that we have to to to to try to figure out how to make that we have to try to figure out how to make and we each do it differently because we all have different relations to this is to that standardized, edited American English that tends to be like the gold standard. This is how you succeed, this is how you're going to get taken seriously, this is how you get your A's, this is how you get your scholarships.

05:59
And all those things are not untrue. There's an element of truth to them. But, like all misinformation, that element of truth hides other stuff that is so untrue and so bad for us. And that's the shift that we have to make, which is that, just because we can have an element of truth to say, oh, standardized American English, there's some good things that that can offer somebody in a world that's racist and white supremacist, but that in alone should tell us that it carries with it a lot of bad stuff. So I'm not one to say, oh, we should never teach that it should not be in our classrooms. I don't think that's true.

06:37
I think I get read that way a lot, but that's only because I'm critical of that and I'm not going to just simply let my students blindly reproduce it.

06:47
I'm going to certainly ask them what their goals are around it and then we're going to interrogate those goals and that standard so that we can understand better where it comes from, who it benefits, what happens when we put other kinds of languaging next to it and try to figure out a wider sense of criticality.

07:06
That is, I don't think you can be critical of a dominant English without some other kind of English next to it to help build criticality. That's how you create distance right. It's like trying to work on a ship out in the ocean while you're using it and while you're on the deck and the engines are pumping and you have to get off that ship and you have to look at it from another angle to see what is it really able to do? How is it limiting us? What is it orienting us in the world? To see and understand. And then we realize, oh, there's so much other stuff out there, so other ways to be oriented. Again, not to say it's bad, just to say that's a mindset shift that I think we can make. And then, once we start making that, all kinds of other ideas start to come up for teachers, I think pedagogy-wise as well as assessment-wise.

08:03 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
You're naming what's happening in my brain right now, because I'm like, oh right, because if we need to create the distance and put things next to each other, how do we lift up student writing and like individual student voices in our classrooms, as well as things out in the world and bringing those in? There's so many pedagogical moves you can make. Once you oh gosh, this is so good. Okay, thank you for that. I really appreciate that. And then I also just love I wanted to just make sure listeners heard that the idea of asking your students what their goals are, because I've certainly had students the last four years I taught. I worked at an all. It was a newcomer school, so it was all students who are new to the country and new relatively new to the English language as high schoolers, and there were many students who were like I need to get into college.

08:59 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
And so I need to write this way and I need to. You know what I mean, like all of these things. And I was like, okay, how do we do this? And be critical. And so I really appreciate that you can invite students to name the goals and then you can help interrogate the goals and create that space for the criticality.

09:07
You mentioned that particular teaching context because you know most, I think I should say many students, depending on the group that we're talking about, like that group, very specialized kind of group, so they have touch or contact with only certain kinds of ideas about the English language.

09:19
So that is going to limit in many ways what goals they might want to have or think they want to have, and so I think part of my job also is to help them explore what wider range of goals might they have. For instance, could we not investigate the history of the English that you think you want and whether how it gets read and understood in other parts of the world? How it gets read and understood in other parts of the world I mean most of the English spoken in the world today are not the standardized English that we speak in the United States or in Great Britain or in Australia or in other major English-speaking centers. They are other kinds of Englishes and they're being used quite communicatively and they have all their power and all the things they do and they're usually hybridized and multilingual in terms of like drawing on other linguistic resources. So and that makes them different in some interesting ways, and why would we not want to not look at those we can if that's available to us in a classroom?

10:22 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Absolutely. I mean, I think that also speaks to the idea of engagement, right, when we say, oh, students are disengaged or whatever, like here's exactly how to bring in the engagement while doing critical thought and criticality and all of the things. I mean that it's like a twofer, like yes, let's do that.

10:37 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
I'm glad you mentioned. I'm glad you mentioned engagement, because I feel like one element this is not the only thing I think, but about engagement, but I think one crucial or one, one dynamic I've noticed about student engagement, and this is granted, this is college students are not, so they've already gone through 12 years perhaps of of public schooling or some kind of schooling to before they get to me. So they're, they're indoctrinated in certain ways, um, but I ways. But I feel like from my observations that oftentimes students are, when they know and they feel that they are being institutionalized, that is, through things like standards and stuff like that and other practices in our classrooms, then they become less engaged because it feels panoptic, it feels like they're being manipulated, because they are, and it ceases to become about what is inside me that I want to learn about here, or what do I get energized about, or how do I grow and develop alongside my colleagues next to me? How do I help them in their learning?

11:46
It's not about that. It's about follow this standard, achieve these things here that we've already listed for you, and that's the. And they what didn't require them to be there to figure those things out? And I think all learning requires students to be there to figure out what we're going to do and how we're going to, why we're going to accomplish it, and that's really hard, I know, to do in systems that have so many students and that you don't have a lot of time. But that in itself is an institutional problem that I think we could solve. But it's a problem created by institutions that have certain kinds of regulations on oh, here's when things start, here's when they end, and all of that stuff.

12:21 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
So yeah, absolutely, and it makes me think about, like, the difference between standardized based grading and dimension based grading, which you I don't know if I can't know for sure if that's a term you coined, you can tell me. But I loved it because I was just like this. I've never been exposed to this language. This is exactly it, and it divorces kind of the things you've described. Right is like the standards for institutions and the idea that expectations served us and our students. I'm curious about kind of this idea of like what the difference is, but then also this idea of the reader-writer dynamic and the interplay that you describe. I think it speaks to kind of what you're saying. Right is like you have to be here and I as the reader am important and my understanding of the writing is important, and that makes kind of the dimension. I don't know if I understand that right. I'm gonna let you talk.

13:16 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
Yeah, no, you got it. So the biggest difference between, first of all, dimension-based rubrics and standards-based rubrics. So I got my. I didn't realize I was doing this for like about a decade until I turned around and realized, oh wait, my rubrics aren't rubrics. They're not the same as the rubrics that when I see in books or other places, a rubric or whatever, like a value rubric or you know, whatever they were dimension-based, whatever they were dimension-based, and that came out of naturally, out of my pedagogy, out of the work I'm doing. But so then I started to frame well, this is really, these are dimensions, they're not lists of expectations that a student has to meet like a little outcome, a tiny outcome.

14:02
So I then, when I was doing that work, I found some work in secondary ed that looked at that coined single point rubrics I'm sure some of your rubrics. So it's kind of like a single point rubric, the dimension based rubric, but they're really dimensions that get readers to ask a question about some aspect or dimension of the writing in front of them, the languaging in front of them, as opposed to standards-based, which I'm sure everyone knows. They're often in grids, they often have points or letter grades attached to them. This is an A, here are the characters, here's a, b or whatever, and then they're going to be divided by the whatever dimensions that are being looked at decided upon. So I find that there's certainly some advantages to those two standards-based rubrics, but and I understand how some teachers may have to use them because of departmental or school requirements and such but there may be ways to critically analyze and critique them with students. That would be meaningful.

15:09
You know academic and learning activities, but for me, dimension-based frameworks are much more powerful when it comes to providing feedback, because they stop judging students and their writing in the ways that students are used to, that is, you did this right or do this. Instead, instead, they ask for the reader's rich experience of the text. So what was my experience along this dimension? And now my feedback to the writer is much more about my languaging habits and how I'm interpreting this, what I'm bringing to this text and what I'm not, and what I expected and what I didn't get or what I did get, and so forth. So of course you're saying this is confusing, because I thought you were going to tell me this thing up front and you didn't tell that to me, but you told it to me on page 10 or seven or whatever. So those things come out in that.

16:06
But really the main thrust of what I find useful for feedback from dimension-based rubrics is the reader's experience, that sort of rich, thick kind of commentary on it. And I do this through a kind of Lectio Divina kind of exercise with students where we read one or two pages depending on how long it is. Let's say it's a three-page piece that they're going to give feedback on. They read one page, they pause for five minutes and they write what did I just hear in that last page? What was the most salient or important things that I thought was in it? What am I confused by and why? And it's the whys in all those that really matter, because that's what pulls out the readers' habits of language, their training. And I tell them if you have a model in your head and mind, a particular author, a particular text, a particular lesson, say it. Don't hide it with abstract terms. Just tell us.

17:04
I'm thinking about George Orwell here because I only read Animal Farm. That's all I know and this is what I'm looking at and this is what I'm comparing. That is really meaningful information to a writer. So it's that those things help bring out. And that's where I find the most important thing about judgment, which in classrooms, which is we got to find a way to divorce it from somehow this idea that assessing a piece of writing or giving it feedback whether it's peer or teacher is somehow this exercise in determining whether the student is right or wrong.

17:36
And what does the student do next? That is not my job as a teacher, nor is it a peer's job to tell a writer what to do. Our job is to give them our responses, our reactions to their language. Their job is to figure out from that rich information what do I do next. Because only I know what my purposes are, only I know what I think I want to do, only I can feel oh, I learned something new from that reader. I want to do that now. I don't want to do my original thing. So I can't tell them what that is, even though I may have some ideas about it, but I don't. I don't know what it is and I don't want to know. I want them to tell me and show me what that stuff is.

18:15
So for me, my first year writing classes, for instance, they always start with, like you know, a couple of truisms about the word, the writing and the feedback that we do, which is good. Writers don't take orders, they receive information and they make decisions. They don't take orders, they make decisions. So that means good readers who give feedback, good readers. They don't give orders, they provide a rich experience of the text. That's it.

18:45
And once we can figure out how to do that better, then all of a sudden all kinds of magic happens and we get to take advantage of the Englishes and multilingual languages in the classroom and we get to have that critical distance that I was talking about. We get to see oh, look what the limitations of this is, look what the limitations that. Look at what this affords us, look what this one affords us. And then, what do you want to do? What's the next step for you?

19:09
And this is where, if we have an institutional standard now, I got to say you got to do this, I don't want to do that. It's like putting a big juicy cake on the table and saying doesn't that look delicious? What do you think it tastes like? And then go. You can't have it. I'm going to eat this cake because I'm I'm the only one that can qualify to eat this cake. You can't eat the cake, but I can eat the cake. You can watch me eat the cake, you can appreciate how I eat the cake, but you don't get to have any cake yet. You guys couldn't take about five more years of schooling before you can have some cake.

19:42 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Oh my gosh, this is mind blowing to me. This is so good. I'm like taking furious notes. This is the idea. I think the biggest aha for me in all of that is like that it is not our jobs to tell writers what to do next. It is that like made me pause and just rethink everything. I know that's the teacher, so thank you for that. I love that. I love that analogy to the cake too.

20:08 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
Yeah, and I think the best thing that a teacher can do is be really honest with themselves about their feedback, that they give and I'm not trying to criticize anyone because I put myself in the same category and I would say all you've got to do is ask yourself how magical do I think my feedback is? Do I really think that what I tell a student is going to change their way of languaging, that they've acquired over how many years from family members, loved ones, churches, other, the neighborhood? Why do I think I'm that? Now, I'm not saying I'm not powerful in many ways I certainly am as a professor or as a teacher, but I don't want that. I don't want to wield that kind of power Like I'm the one who's going to save you from your language problems, like, instead, I'd rather, I'd rather be another, another soul on the road of your language journey and you meet me and you can. You take what you can take today and you walk, continue to walk on that journey, on that road, and find out what else you can learn from the next person.

21:09 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
So, yeah, I think it speaks to like such a like an inquiry based type of teaching. Like I mean just this idea that I mean I'm imagining, right, if I were to go back in the high school classroom, which now you're making me want to just like give me a class again. I want to try to be better as a teacher. This like journey is such a cool concept because I imagine you get the feedback from the rich reading experience. Right, and it's. It's. Here are the things that I have in my brain of things that I want to do based on what I already know, but then also maybe that I want to explore in other writers or people in my community. Like, oh, I really like how my mom has this like languaging around this like thing. I want to try to bring that in, or something right. Like I think there's avenues for further inquiry in the spaces that kids already inhabit, people already inhabit. I think that would be so fun to play with.

21:57 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
Yeah, I, for years I in first year writing courses, I would. I changed my practice from having a portfolio at the end of the semester where it was a combination, it was a compiling of their best stuff, and then a reflection on well, what did I, what did I learn here, what I still got to work on, what did, and all that, which is, I don't nothing wrong with that kind of a portfolio, it works very well. But I moved to let this portfolio be your illustration of your journey of learning in this class and then let the letter of reflection sort of help us understand what that journey is. Maybe you give us a metaphor for the journey, maybe you walk us through what that journey was. So I was really trying to get them to.

22:41
I realized that the metaphors can be limiting for some students who don't think temporally, like day one, day two, et cetera, or spatially. For me, journey is a spatial metaphor more than a temporal one, although I know it's both of those things. But so for me, I like the idea of geography, topography, spaces, so that is what was interesting to me about it and that's what I share with my students. So I would get a lot of this and it was really actually kind of very meaningful and actually I enjoyed reading those portfolios more than I did reading the other ones that were more about okay, what did I learn? And here's my reflection on this class, which, again, not bad and there were certainly wonderful things there, but I just wanted to hear what they thought their journey was, and that was it was better for me.

23:32 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
That's awesome. I love that I do. I do totally think selfishly as teachers. It's like do the thing that you have fun engaging in, reacting to.

23:40 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
Right, that's a card. That's my cardinal rule. Like I'm not going to sign anything I don't want to read. That's my cardinal rule.

23:45 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Like I'm not going to sign anything I don't want to read Totally, so I think switching gears a little bit here, I think all related. Of course, this idea of labor-based grading is one that was brand new to me when I read your work, and so I'm curious to know, like especially thinking about the K-12, like maybe it's completely the same in terms of the? I know you've worked with a lot of secondary teachers, and so I'm curious to know what that might look like in K-12 spaces, or secondary spaces particularly, and any advice you have for teachers who are interested in implementing something like this.

24:18 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
Yeah, I think it really depends on where you're at in that K-12 space. So I think so I've worked with middle school and high school teachers. Obviously, the farther in that journey you get, the older the students are, the more they're able to negotiate a little better, and so it's easier, I think, in that way from there Again, depends on your context. I think some schools have really engaged parents.

24:45
And those parents have very particular ideas about what you're supposed to be doing with their students, with their students in your classrooms, despite the fact that probably most of them don't have any degrees in education or in college. But it's their students, I get it, it's their kids, they, they, they have a right to be a part of that. So I would say, like, so that caveated, I would say that Labor-based grading is really about making a set of negotiated agreements with students and perhaps with their parents, about what labor will equal what grade. So this can be done in a number of ways. I use a contract system where we get to use the contract as a way to sort of say here is what we're trying to do and why we're doing it, and then here's how the grade gets figured out. That has worked very well for me and it's only about labor. Now you can do hybrid contracts where up to a certain grade which in the past when I did them, it was up to a B and then after that it was determined by a collaborative agreement between the student, a few peers and myself about whether they exceeded expectations along several dimensions. That I found ultimately to be unfair to students, because I'm saying all the way up to this, do your thing, you don't need to please me. And in the end you kind of have to please me. End, you kind of have to please me. So in the end I moved to a pure labor base where the default grade is an A plus. It's the highest grade possible in whatever system you have. And then if you don't do work, if you turn stuff in late or whatever, then that starts to go down, based on what we've agreed or negotiated in the contract.

26:33
Usually there's two points of negotiation one at the very beginning and one in the middle or near the, depending on how long the semester is. At the near the end or middle end of the semester, so that you know they get a second chance. They realize oh wait, now I know what this is about. Let's. Is this still fair enough for us? Okay. What do we need to do to make it fair? Let's. Is this still fair enough for us? Okay. What do we need to do to make it fair? Let's vote. All votes of any changes on my contracts are for a super majority, which means not one. One student can't dictate or determine the, the, the. You know the destiny of all the students in the class, so it's gotta be two thirds agree to it.

27:10
I, at this point, in my classes, at least at the college level, we don't get a lot, hardly any changes, because my contract has been changed so much by students that it's kind of, at least right now at issue. It's settled a bit in the classes I teach and students are like I don't have anything I can change here. I like like it, let's try it. And then, um, the only thing that might that has like shifted a little bit, is like number of late things or something like that. Uh, uh, but hardly ever, like just so rare, and the movement is like okay, one more late, like for to get to get this grade, okay, and then we vote and then I change it and then we we move on and finish the semester.

27:53
So so how that would look in a in a high school setting or in a middle school setting, for instance, I think I'm going to guess, given what I know about past teachers and also you know just my sense of things, and I could be completely wrong. I think that parents ought to be a part of the process if they want to be and if that's appropriate, for I think that there should be a very a period in the beginning. So if the teachers are gonna be a part of the process, then they ought to also be a part of the learning process too. That is, my students have to learn what grading is, the history of grading, why we're doing what we're doing, what things have been institutionalized in grading and how harmful they are. That's a little bit like two ounces of research and then they read that, reflect on it, and I would expect the parents to do the same.

28:54
I would say there's just no way you can be a part of these negotiations if you're coming in with no knowledge of what we're negotiating. It doesn't make any sense. So you just gum up the works too much. You're just uninformed. So here's how to be informed. Here's the stuff we're looking at. Please look at it and then we you can engage also with it, and I would encourage you to do so. That's how I would do it if I were in in a, say, a high school or middle school, and I've had a few uh, uh teachers in the past who did that, who did that kind of stuff with with. Now I have, uh, you know, I put together on my website a number of resources that I ask students to look at that are student facing, and I think they probably would be appropriate for high school. I don't know about middle school. Maybe the teacher you know teachers would be more, um, uh, more apt to figure that out if that's, if it's uh, you know, doable, maybe walking through some of it, but they're like podcasts and blog posts that are that are the same, that so, and they sort of just walk through these things and then we, along with that.

29:56
I think it is for me these days vital that my negotiations with students are also coupled with parallel activities in which we negotiate our charter for compassion, how we're going to work with each other on all the work in the class, including the contract, but also our feedback, also the activities in the class and outside the class, and it boils down to a set of practices compassion practices that we agree to try to do, and then we revisit those with every assignment and identify two that we're going to try to focus on in that assignment and then say a few words in each assignment about how well we thought we did when we did it, so that keeps reminding us structurally in the class. Oh, we're trying to be compassionate. I'm trying to find compassion in my practices and I try to really reinforce, with some literature from different disciplines on compassion, that compassion is not a feeling. Don't mistake thinking that you have to feel good to somebody or you have to feel empathetic towards someone to be compassionate.

31:00
Compassion is an action. It's something you do. You end up feeling empathetic after you've done compassion for a while. So it's all mixed up, we get it all mixed up. So it's we. Just it's all mixed up. We get it all mixed up.

31:17
Um, in some ways I'd say it's the same as love.

31:18
We don't you.

31:18
You can, we can have feelings of love towards somebody immediately for all kinds of biological reasons, but real, long-standing, sustainable love is something you build every day with somebody and it's through the experiences and the things you do and commit to each other, and that is actions.

31:31
So for me, the emotions and the feelings are do and commit to each other, and that is actions. So for me, the emotions and the feelings are wonderful to have, but they're really not the main ingredient in a class for compassion. It is let's figure out, what can we do and notice in others when we can say oh, they're being trying to be compassionate. I'm trying to be compassionate regardless of how we feel about each other or what we feel about it. So that has been a really big game changer for me, because it means we get such a wide table to work on, because we're so generous with each other, because we know we're all trying to be compassionate and we're working on it with every assignment. So compassion practices, along with the contract itself, really work together in my classes, or with the contract itself really work together in my classes.

32:13 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
That's amazing and I can see the interplay between having the charter for compassion and the labor contract and the dimensions, like having a dimensions-based kind of system of feedback, because if the dimension system is clear, then people are able to put in the labor and see like my writing is growing, I'm doing the writing that I want, like I'm a richer writer and readers are having richer experiences and I'm not like fearful of the feedback and I'm leaning into the feedback because the charter for compassion is in place, right Like I can see all of those working together really nicely.

32:49 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
Yeah, and that you remind me one thing that that I do think is important for teachers, who who haven't done labor-based grading before but want to do it, and who haven't done, say, dimension-based rubrics but I've used standard ones but want to do it. When they do it, students will get confused. They're going to because they're the things that they are used to that tell them how well am I doing, am I on the right track? What's my grade? And they're gone, but they're replaced with other things. So one of the things I found has really helped, especially around that feedback thing, because they're still going to go like OK, so what grade would this get if I like? Wait, I don't know, I have no idea what I'm not thinking in those doors. We don't know. I have no idea what I that's I'm not thinking in those doors. We don't have a rubric, we don't. So I can't tell you that. And this sounds like I'm being evasive, right. So the best way I've found to to to uh allay a lot of those anxieties for students is to to include an activity at the end after feedback. They get all their feedback from peers and me and I want them now to send me a letter. All I want is this letter is going to be designed around, say, two, three or four, depending. You can decide what the capacity of your students are comments from all the feedback that tell them something about their writing. So I'm basically asking them tell me, describe these three, two or three, four things that you got from feedback, what they're telling you about your writing, what you think you want to do next, and then what does that tell you about how well you're doing and developing in this class as a writer? So what do you think you're? Where do you think you are now? So I'm really just trying to build some muscles for them to figure out on their own how well am I doing in this and be a little more self-reliant on themselves to figure that out. They get information from me and from their peers, so it's not like they're doing it by themselves. But they need to realize that they should have been doing this all along. They just didn't have any opportunities to do it right.

34:52
Just because you get a grade from a teacher on a paper or whatever doesn't mean that you know how well you're doing on the learning. You know how well you're doing in the class, but that is not the learning right? That's not. You know, as I like to say. You know that don't build a good bridge. It's the learning in the class that may build that bridge, but it's not your A or your B. It's not going to build no bridge. So what is it? You tell me what you think you're learning, and then I get to have a conversation with them. I can respond because it's a letter, right? So I respond back oh, here's what you said, here's what I'm noticing. I don't try to tell them they're not. My point is not to correct them this is revolutionary.

35:40 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I love this. I love this concept. It's really good, and I think it almost is like a doubling down on self-assessment, like we, we ask students to self-assess, but we do it usually with like a standards-based rubric, and so it's like it's still in that vein, so this is so cool. Okay, I recognize our time is almost up, so we're going to shift to kind of some final questions and we'll just do kind of a lightning round, if that's okay with you, for sure. So this is all super big, transformative kind of practice that we've been talking about. I'm curious to know if someone's ending an episode like listening to this episode walking into a school building about to teach their high school class, right, what's something that they could maybe do, or start to do in a small way, like today, how do they get the ball rolling on some of this stuff?

36:24 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
Well, I think it depends on what they do. They want to try to transform their grading practices, if they can. Do they want to try to transform their feedback practices, if they can? Or do they want to try to transform the conversations they have about language and standards? So those things I've heard us talk about in this, you know, in the last 30 or so minutes. So I think it really depends on what those are. What is the lowest hanging fruit, do I think Again, I think it may depend, but I think that third one conversations about that is framing what it is that we're really trying to learn in this class.

36:57
If it's a language class that standardized English, so the first thing that they should do is not go in there and start talking about what they think they know about it, especially if they haven't done any research on what it is and where it comes from and what. I think that's the first thing they should, folks should really do if they haven't already done that. I am still I've been doing it for like 25 years I'm still studying the English language, so so I think it's important that we can keep doing it, and because we can, we learn new, new stuff all the time and I think it's important to to get to draw on a number of fields. So not just education, not just linguistics, not just rhetoric and composition, not just those kinds of of things, but also history and sociology and psychology. Those are the places I draw on on a lot these days because they say so much about, about how we understand language and what language has been used for and what, what we know about it. So, so that's the first thing.

37:55
I would say that if it's low-hanging fruit, if it's something that they're they're really unsure about, then maybe, um, they start by getting some information about what they, how they want to frame that standardized English, and then ask students about their experiences of it. That's where I always start. I just say, when I've set up on the first day, if I think that a class is going to be unsure, anxious about labor-based grading, my first activity, before we talk about the contract and look at the preamble of it, to talk about its philosophy, and then, before we look at those podcasts and stuff, I ask them to just do a little bit of writing about one experience that deals with grading that they've had in their schooling. What is it? Tell me about it. I say nothing more than that, and what I find is eight or nine times out of 10, it is a negative experience, it's not a good experience, and so I'm like interesting, hmm, why do you suppose? What do we think? So we just start making some pattern recognition in the class together.

38:56
All we gotta do is look at four or five who are willing to share, and we find out that we're pretty, it's pretty common, and it doesn't matter if high performers, you know, people in the middle of the room or whatever you know, they're all they have. They all can share some similar similarities. And so then I share some of the research on grading and why you are not abnormal. This is absolutely the what, what happens in grading. This is what grading does to people. So I start with students, I ask them their experiences of language and grading, and that often gives us so much to work with, and all you've got to do is have some things in your back pocket to be able to pull out. Well, here's some research that shows this. Here's Paul Dietrich, and he talks about how unreliable grading is and all that stuff. So I think those, those kinds of things, can be really easy to do quickly.

39:47
I mean, I'm always surprised by, not by what I learn about, what students know about language from their education, but what those experiences have been for them. That's what I'm surprised about that in this day and age we can still have the kinds of really negative and deeply problematic language-based experiences in schools. It shocks me. I'm just I'm shocked and I want to go. I'm so sorry that you've been treated this way and that your language has been treated this way. It should not be. Our language is one of the most precious things we have, and we get it from all the people who love us and even some of the people who don't, and so even the people who hate us or don't like us still give us these gifts of language. So I think it's a really wonderful, paradoxical thing that we ought to pay more attention to and be real tender with you know I mean it's, it's a, it's a, it's a careful thing.

40:44 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
I love all of that so much, this idea of the language being so important, the grounding in students' experience and then having that research to be able to say you're not alone. Brilliant, I love that. Okay, two more really fast ones. One one thing you've been learning about lately or I know you're writing a new book, something that you've been like writing about lately feel free to answer.

41:08 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
I've already mentioned one of the things I've been learning about recently, which is the, which is I go out in different fields to find stuff and and I I've only up until this last year and a half, two years I've only dipped my like two toes into racial linguistics, the literature and racial linguistics, and but I've done more so in the last two years and I'm not learning new things. I'm learning that the stuff I know from rhetoric and composition as a field, from educations that talk about how standards and such can be racist when used in assessment ecologies, match very tightly to racial linguistics, and so now they're not thinking in pedagogical terms, they're thinking just in linguistic terms and so forth and sociological terms. But it matches very tightly to that. So it's this cognate field that sort of is paralleling in many ways and we should know as writing teachers and so forth, we should, I think, know more about it, those things. But what I'm working on is actually just a guide for college and high school teachers who want to have anti-racist orientations to language in their teaching. So it is a monster book that I've been working on for over three years, four years now, really.

42:21
That has currently 11 chapters. That's like, oh my God. It's like so big. None of those chapters are small chapters. I mean it's completed, but I'm working through it again, thinking did I do? Was I doing the right thing? It started.

42:41
This started out as a book on anti-racist how to teach anti-racist grammar Cause I got that question so much like okay, so, but I have to teach grammar and I so how do I do it in a way that's anti-racist. And I started writing that book and a year and a half later I scrapped half of that draft and said I can't do this. This is not the thing I'm interested in. I can't, there's no. So I, and now that ended up being one chapter which I'm actually really, really proud of.

43:07
It's it's anti-racist grammaring and it's a. It's a big, thick chapter. That ends the book, but it's not the heart of the book. The heart of the book is thinking about what is the? What does a teacher of language, whether they're high school or college, what do they need to know and consider in order to have an anti-racist orientation? To languaging and its teaching of it? And so it goes through theories about language and race and judgment and Marxist theory and the history of taxonomies of race and then the languaging of race from Black and Latin and Asian and Oriental and white, and then it looks at habits of white language and white language supremacy and then ends with anti-racist grammar. That's what I'm working on.

43:54 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Oh my gosh, I cannot wait for that book to come out. Thank you for doing all of that work, and so, in addition to people looking that up when it comes out, where can people connect with you online or kind of follow your work?

44:05 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
Oh, my website has a lot of that stuff there and the podcast and things that a lot of information that supports teachers who use or trying to use and learn about labor based grading. So that's just my name, Asal B Inouye, at or dot com, and you'll find it right there. And then there's a whole page that that I you know build that gives resources for teachers and students around labor based grading template contract, as well as some the philosophy there is I'm only going to archive open source stuff that's free and available. So stuff that's in a journal that's got a paywall, I don't tend not to put up there, but things that are available, that are free, then I can put those up there and feel good about it.

44:59 - Lindsay Lyons (Host)
Amazing. We'll link to that in the blog post and the show notes and everything so people can grab that link. Thank you so much. This has been such a wonderful time. Thank you for going over our time.

45:08 - Asao Inoue (Guest)
Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you, Lindsay, for asking me and for all of your good hard work, so thank you.

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