143 - Barrier or Breakthrough? Course Coordination and the Future of Grading with Deb Carney

About this episode

The episode discusses the role of course coordination in alternative grading practices with insights from Deb Carney.

In this episode, Sharona and Boz are joined by Deb Carney to explore the complex role of course coordination in the adoption of alternative grading practices. What emerges is a nuanced tension: coordination can act as a barrier when individual instructors lack autonomy, but it also offers one of the most powerful levers for large-scale change when coordinators embrace reform. Deb shares her journey into outcomes-based grading and reflects on how collaboration, community, and shared structures made that shift possible. The conversation highlights the importance of communities of practice, either through formal coordination or PLC-like structures, as essential spaces for sustained instructional change. Ultimately, the episode argues that meaningful grading reform is not just about individual instructors making different choices, but about building systems, support, and collective momentum to make those choices viable and scalable. Links Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates links. Clicking on them and purchasing through them helps support the show. Thanks for your support! Mastery-Based Testing in Linear Algebra: An Entry Point to Alternative Grading , by…

People in this episode

Hosts: Sharona Krinsky, Robert Bosley

Guest: Deb Carney

Topics covered

• course coordination
• alternative grading practices
• outcomes-based grading
• communities of practice
• instructional change
• collaboration

Keywords

• grading reform
• course coordination
• educational practices
• collaboration
• instructional change
• alternative grading
• community support

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education Conference, Project EMBER

Books & works: Mastery-Based Testing in Linear Algebra: An Entry Point to Alternative Grading

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