Luke Green uses the Santa Claus story to rethink what grades measure and the case for ungrading on episode 629 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

Quotes from the episode

What are grades, and what purpose do we want them to serve?

Each student at some point throughout their academic career is going to receive a grade, receive some sort of an assessment that is going to fundamentally alter how they feel about the classroom.
-Luke Green

The narrative that we sell to our kids is that these gifts are earned. The metric is, those who are good children or better children, you receive more.
-Luke Green

What are grades, and what purpose do we want them to serve?
-Luke Green

Usually, it’s a proxy of understanding a student’s overall experience. And GPA is even worse, because you’re putting all of your course grades into a meat grinder and spitting out one number.
-Luke Green

Resources

Luke Green, St. Cloud Technical & Community College
Luke Green Recognized at MinnState Board Awards
Grading for Growth, by David Clark and Robert Talbert
Unmaking the Grade, by Emily Pitts Donahoe
Learning About Grades from an Emerging Failure, with Emily Pitts Donahoe and Hannah Stachowiak
Campbell’s Law
Hood Politics with Prop
There Really Is a Santa Claus, by Glenn P. Crone