A Fairer Assessment Approach

I’ve written before about my ongoing journey toward a gradeless classroom, and after years of trial and error, I’m more convinced than ever that this approach truly empowers students. By focusing less on the pressures of traditional grades, we open up space for genuine learning and growth to flourish. The shift isn’t just theoretical for me—it’s a daily reality that reshapes how I teach and how students engage with the material.

One of my favorite sources of inspiration has always been the insightful Terry Heick over at TeachThought. Every time I dive into their work, it feels like they’re tapping directly into the same frustrations and aspirations I’ve had as a teacher. Terry’s recent article, "How I Eliminated (Almost) All Grading Problems In My Classroom," was no exception. It was one of those pieces that made me stop and think, “Yes, this is exactly what I’ve been doing—and here’s why it works.”

I want to highlight two key ideas from the article that have had the biggest impact on my classroom. If you're trying to find ways to lessen the grading madness while still pushing students toward meaningful learning, these are the ideas worth considering:

1. Choose What to Grade Carefully.
Terry breaks assignments into two categories: measurements and practice—what most teachers would recognize as summative and formative assessments. This approach helps students realize that not every piece of work needs a grade slapped on it. It’s about learning, not just box-checking. When I first implemented a similar system, before I was nudged back toward more traditional grading practices, the shift in student attitudes was immediate. By focusing grades only on measurements, students stop seeing assessments as a gamble. Instead, they begin to internalize the idea that steady practice leads to better performance when it really counts. Less stress, more learning—what’s not to love?

6. Teach Through Micro-Assignments.
This is the heart of building a classroom environment where assessments aren’t intimidating but expected. Terry’s idea of micro-assignments aligns perfectly with the atmosphere I try to create. Frequent, low-stakes opportunities to demonstrate learning give students a clearer picture of their progress. It moves them away from seeing success as the result of one-off moments of brilliance (or luck) and toward understanding that growth happens incrementally. This method fosters confidence and builds the kind of growth mindset we’re all striving to develop in our students. It’s about changing the narrative around assessment—showing students that it’s part of the learning cycle, not the end of it.

If you’re overwhelmed by the thought of radically rethinking grading in your classroom, I get it. But these two strategies are perfect starting points. They won’t solve everything overnight, but they will create a pathway toward a healthier, more learning-focused environment—one where students feel the freedom to explore, grow, and truly engage.

Add water to the list of resources that AI is using at record levels

Naturally, we need to temper the excitement about AI's benefits with an understanding of the downsides. We know that AI companies are using huge amounts of electricity to run their servers, but I had not considered the impact on water supplies especially in some of the drought-impacted places in which these companies are expanding.

This article tells the story plainly: https://www.context.news/ai/video/forget-jobs-ai-is-coming-for-your-water?s=09

Student AI Use leads to dependence. So what?

This research article has been making the rounds, so I figured I would chime in with my two cents. I use AI tools myself and I teach my students how to use them productively as a lever to enhance their learning.

As the authors state in the abstract from the research paper, "Results of the experiment suggest that students tended to rely on rather than learn from AI assistance. If AI assistance was removed, self-regulated strategies could help fill the gap but were not as effective as AI assistance." In other words, students who were given access to AI tools (like personalized tutors) did learn more, but if the AI was taken away, they ended not gaining any ground over kids without AI.

I struggle with this conclusion because I don't think that most teachers see AI as helping to close learning gaps. I certainly don't use it that way. I think that it can make the work of students more efficient, which often boosts engagement and reduces academic fatigue, but that's not really the point either. The real idea here is that AI truly is the new calculator.

No math teacher thinks that kids with calculators learn faster. No one suggests that giving calculators to struggling math students will help them build skills that will lead to them not needing the calculator any more. The calculator is a tech tool that acts like a step ladder. It lifts students up to a place where they can reach more. But they still have to reach up and grab those higher things.

The true power of AI in education is that after students learn basic writing or research skills, they can use it to do the low-level draft work, freeing them to learn the higher order skills of proofreading and editing. Tomorrow's adults will be able to write even more and read even more because of the AI assistants.

Perhaps some students who would not have had the basic writing skills to do normal tasks in the past will now be able to do those tasks with the help of AI assistants. In the mid-1970s, one college professor said of calculators, "I have yet to be convinced that handing them a machine and teaching them how to push the button is the right approach. What do they do when the battery runs out?” 

Now, we laugh at the idea that anyone would be without a calculator at any point in today's world. In a few years, we will feel the same way about AI tools. They will become an indispensable ever-present tool that helps with the basics so that we can do the more complex things.