Hot take for Friday: All courseware and course documentation developed by faculty at public universities -- syllabi, exams, software, all of it -- should be required to be open-sourced and published under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license. #HigherEducation

Five years ago I would have strongly disagreed with most of this. But today, app and ad makers are so good at hijacking kids' attention that I'm tend to agree. Especially this: 'A good rule of thumb might be: If the activity is no different on screen or paper, use paper.'

Interesting (K12 focused) discussion here. I'm not in the K12 world except as a parent, but by and large the tech integration in my kids' schooling has been superficial at best. If that's how it goes, I think kids would be better off without any of it.

The narrative is that alt grading/ungrading 'removes the incentive' to cheat. Not totally true. It tilts the value proposition slightly, but the incentive to save time is ever-present. Especially if you procrastinate, which might even be exacerbated if revisions are involved. 2/3

PS: And it's ironic because one of the chief root causes of academic dishonesty is a culturally ingrained fixation on grades.

I'm finding that, even with an alt grading system in place where unsuccessful work can be revised and resubmitted all semester without penalty, students will still cheat on things. Why? Simple: Cheating saves time. 1/3

You all know I am firmly committed to alt grading. But it's no panacea and we need to keep expectations managed. Academic dishonesty is a whole complex of hard problems and no one thing solves it. 3/3

If anybody thinks alternative grading results in a loss of 'rigor' I'd like to set you up with some of my students to discuss whether *they* think my system makes it easy to slide by.

Chad Orzel We've got 17 case studies in the Grading For Growth book of profs who make this work in their classes, in different disciplines, class sizes, and instruction modalities. Takes creativity some times but they make it work. routledge.com/Grading-for-Gr…

Robert Talbert I’ve come to believe one of the key issues to address is whether the school system our students came from before they get to us is transactional or transformative.

If it was transactional, they’re used to thinking in terms of time v. effort v. expected result.

Since some of my kids' former teachers are on this platform, I need to emphasize -- my kids' most memorable learning experiences have been just that, *experiences*, enabled by human teachers who care. Tech was not at the center.

But I was assured that it was because my students were 'under prepared', that we didn't have high enough admissions standards, and that it's a conspiracy from the upper admin.

Robert Talbert Saving time? Sometimes. Poor time mgmt? Sometimes that also. But when I see what students turn in when they cheat, when or when they procrastinate then cheat, I also see confusion, anxiety, fear. They don’t know what to do, fear asking, and worry about the consequences /

Commenter makes the point that a lot of students in first/second years struggle to self-evaluate and so they 'win' with traditional assessment. Wasn't exactly what I was referring to but this is a very important point, and a major issue with ungrading.

Tyler Austin Harper Openness goes a long way here. If orgs like NPR or public universities make it easier for the general public to look in and see how things are being done and decisions made, it helps with both the trust building and the self-policing. We in public higher ed are not good at this.

Robert Talbert This is true, but also has to do with the LMSing of learning. Students are accustomed to treating their learning as tasks to be checked off in the LMS, not just from our course but all classes. We should reverse audit what it looks like from a student taking 16-18 hrs.

Robert Talbert we did alternative grading in probability course for 300 CS students. Received evaluations, positive in general. But they ask, why these letters, why not just add points like everyone else? Do you have this experience? How to give a student-centric answer?

my secret identity I mean no disrespect to teachers when I say, I think we all know what the answer to that question is in the vast majority of cases.

Robert Talbert That can make cheating look like an adequate stopgap.