Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:00]:
Today, on episode number 629 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, The Story of Grades with Luke Greene. 

Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:10]:
Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential. 

Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:20]:
Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I'm Bonni Stachowiak, and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our productivity approaches so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students. Luke Greene is the assessment coordinator and a Communication Studies instructor at St. Cloud Technical and Community College. In 2024, he was named the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Outstanding Educator. Recognized for confronting assessment myths and championing affordable course materials, including an award-winning e-textbook.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:13]:
In this conversation, Luke's going to help us explore a somewhat unexpected lens, the story of Santa Claus, to compare that to what grades actually measure, and what students absorb from them about who counts as a good student. We talk about the limits of GPA, what gets lost when we sort students by a single number, and what opens up when we start questioning our own grading practices. Luke Green, welcome to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Luke Greene [00:01:52]:
Thank you. It was absolutely an awesome opportunity to have this conversation, and looking forward to what we get to talk about today.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:57]:
I have been looking forward to it as well, ever since hearing from Josh Eyler, who recommended you for the show. And I have some sad news to report, though. This literally happened just about an hour before we were set to record. I got a message from my healthcare provider, and they told me that my patient report card had a key message for me. And let me just say that I don't wanna go on too big of a, of a thing here, Luke, but I have made major progress in my health after having neglected some aspects of it, receiving a diagnosis in July of last year, and really catching up on a bunch of stuff. And I'm feeling better than I have felt in years. And health-wise, I'm better than I felt in years. But the last thing that I really wanted was like a reminder that I'm being graded and that, and that I already know what it is.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:53]:
Like I'm supposed to go see an ophthalmologist. I think that's how you say that word. And so I like, I know, I, I get it, I get it, I'm on it. But like the idea of my patient report card, and I think the message was either literally flashing in my face, or I just remember it that way. But we see report cards all over the place, we see grades all over the place. And you are going to help us question some of that. But before we get into a wonderful metaphor, you're going to help us explore, I want to ask you about any recent or past experience you would like to share with grades in general, from your experience.

Luke Greene [00:03:31]:
Sure, absolutely. So, my journey into teaching, I've been a faculty member for roughly 15 years now, and when you start teaching, you kind of think, okay, well, specifically in higher ed, I really haven't got much training apart from student teaching as a grad assistant. And granted, people just kind of landed in your lap, and you didn't get kind of the control and power to kind of make some of these decisions. And so, my first couple years of teaching is okay, let's replicate the ways that I was evaluated that I thought provided accurate, fair assessment of my work; class policy, all these sorts of things kind of fell into place. And the end kind of output or product of an educator, besides obviously changing and impacting the lives of our students, is we're expected to then, kind of orderly, you know, rank our students based on the grades that we assigned. And one of kind of my personal philosophy beliefs is that each and every 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. And so for me, kind of in the way back machine, this happened to me in sixth grade.

Luke Greene [00:04:35]:
And at that time, I loved school, which is another fascinating thing about assessment. If you speak to a kindergartner, first grader, second grader, to a certain degree, they love school. Sometimes a little bit of boredom sets in; they're not being as active as they could be. But at the end of the day, they're excited to come home, share what they learned. This is a fun activity. But when we kind of have these moments where students are sold this bill of come learn, come develop, we're going to make you smarter, more talented, more capable, more insightful, empathetic, all of the things.

Luke Greene [00:05:02]:
But then, when you receive feedback like that, kind of like the situation you just described with your health, that doesn't either affirm that, then we kind of have to make sense of that. Do I reject the assessment that's coming in and stay true to my self-concept of no, I think I understand this, or in your case, I'm healthy, or is it, hey, this feedback actually is pretty impactful. I need to pay attention to this and act on, kind of this feedback that's being provided. And so, with kind of where the conversation, and kind of my angle comes in now as a slightly more experienced faculty member, is that ability to just ask simple questions. What are grades, and what purpose do we want them to serve? And in informal settings, in our faculty offices, in more formal division meetings, it's really, really tough to get a straight answer. Where grades and what purpose they serve. So I can say, oh, well, they're used to do X, Y, and Z. But then if you ask, well, what do they measure and what is their purpose? Obviously, everybody kind of has their individual way of approaching it.

Luke Greene [00:06:00]:
But if we keep digging, keep digging to what are the fundamental assumptions and beliefs that we think are served by assigning grades, that's where there's a really powerful conversation to be had.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:06:11]:
Thank you for sharing that example, and that it came so early in your educational experiences. I'm going to hearken back to a conversation I had with our daughter, and I actually captured it on air. And then Emily Pitts Donahoe got to come on, and we broke down what she heard in our daughter's story. And our daughter and her friend at school had made up a grade, emerging failure, which completely cracked me up. But when you were sharing your story, it reminded me so much of that, just how early these things can happen and how much they can then shape our sense of identity and shape our motivation. And I would say, Luke, my experiences, most of the time, people don't realize it. I don't think people out there are wishing to inflict some of these harms on people. And that's why I'm so grateful to get to talk to people like you, where you can help us think more critically than perhaps we have in the past.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:07:13]:
You and I both want to give a little bit of a warning right now. Our family does celebrate Christmas as a holiday, and I know that we're also a family show, and we, we want to keep it that way. And so you're going to give us a little bit of a disclaimer just in case we're listening in the car or out in places where the kinds of metaphors you're going to be exploring might not be the best. So go ahead. And it's time for the dun, dun, dun. Time for the warning. Here we go.

Luke Greene [00:07:48]:
Yes. So thank you for the opportunity to offer this content warning. And so with this, we're going to be exploring Santa Claus and kind of the role that he plays in the lives of millions and millions of Americans and kind of the role that Santa has assumed within American culture. And so, whether you are a celebrant of the holiday, whether Santa doesn't stop by your house, it still informs kind of the conversation because we're not taking a look at the kind of traditional Christian based understanding of Santa Claus, but much more so how Santa Claus has morphed and evolved into the character that he is today, and starting to then kind of unpack of what is the story of Santa Claus, what are the metrics that we're using to measure children and, and kind of what impact is now created as a result of creating this myth in the system, within a society. And it is kind of multi-layered, multifaceted. But because it's something that permeates our culture, everybody has kind of this touch point, and this fundamental understanding of here is a myth's truth that is shared widely. But we don't ever fully go back and unpack. Okay, well, what possible consequences or effects kind of come from the introduction of this type of myth into a society?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:09:00]:
So this is our final warning that if you are listening with people around, that you would not wish to hear about unpacking the story of Santa Claus. This is a great time to turn off the show, and otherwise, Luke, I guess this is a great time to invite you to tell us a story.

Luke Greene [00:09:17]:
Sure, absolutely. And so Santa Claus, much like grades, isn't something that is planned into our formal education. Right? So when you first receive a grade, it might just kind of be that very basic A's mean good kids, C's mean kids that are trying but aren't quite there yet, and then F equals, you know, some bad, naughty children. And so that's where kind of the Santa metaphor can be helpful, because imagine yourself kind of back in that second-grade classroom. Perhaps you come from a culture where Santa, you know, isn't a known character.

Luke Greene [00:09:48]:
And you land yourself in a public elementary school classroom, and everybody's starting to get excited, it's late November, and. Hey, Luke, are you aware that Santa Claus is watching? Nope. Brand new to the school, brand new to this part of the country. I have no idea what you're talking about. Well, so get this: Here's the rules of Santa Claus. There is a man who you will not see, who is watching you constantly to see if you're, quote unquote, a good boy.

Luke Greene [00:10:11]:
If you behave, if you listen to your teachers, if you do your homework, if you brush your teeth, if you do all of these things, you will be rewarded with the gift that you want come Christmas morning. And so inquisitive young me would be like, okay, cool, like, so he watches this everywhere. Like, my parents said that if somebody's watching, yes, we should tell an adult, like, no, no, no. Like, they're on board with it. This is totally cool. But we know that when you wake up Christmas morning, that's the metric. That's the measurements. If you wake up and there's gifts under your tree, you are a good kid.

Luke Greene [00:10:37]:
And again, if you wake up with coal or just a pack of socks, you're a bad kid. And, of course, this, in a sense, the magic of Christmas; there's all sorts of positive upsides to it. But where it becomes potentially problematic is when that myth kind of gets built on top of each other. The narrative that we sell to our kids or that these gifts are earned, right? The metric is, those who are good children or better children, you receive more. Those who are bad kids, you got coal, you have less gifts coming your way. And so then, if asked, hey, why do we do this? Well, no, it's celebrating the Christian spirit. And then you can get all sorts of different variations of what that means. And what's it serving? Do we tie it back to the more traditional Christian roots, or is it more of the secularized, commercial version of Santa Claus that we have today? Then the other element of myths that are kind of built in here, too, is that we already have a system to discredit anybody who speaks up or even questions the premise of what we're talking about.

Luke Greene [00:11:29]:
So right now, people might be saying, Luke, why are you doing this? You're such a Grinch. Okay, the guy who at the end of the book is Harker three times. He's the biggest ambassador in Whoville for Christmas. You're such a Scrooge. So, again, if we're going to think critically about this, Scrooge at the end of the book learned his lesson, changed his ways. And again, much like the Grinch is one of the most charitable celebrants of Christmas in their town. And so, within this, these different systems kind of bake things in place. And again, kind of a content warning for educators as we continue to dive into this.

Luke Greene [00:12:02]:
You can unsee this, but you're participating in the same game as Santa Claus. And so what happens when kids get back after winter break is, it's not just Christmas happened in a vacuum, and we move on to talking. It's, hey, Sarah, how was your Christmas? Oh, Christmas was amazing. I was such a good girl this year: I got a new iPad. I got a North Face coat. I got all of the different toys I could have ever wanted.

Luke Greene [00:12:25]:
It was an amazing Christmas. And then we see around the table, Billy's a little bit quieter. Hey, Billy, how was Christmas? Billy doesn't want to talk about it. Hey, I got some socks, got a leftover coat. So within this, obviously, as adults, we know that the metric of what results in gifts under your tree is your parents' level of disposable income and interest in consumerism. Right? But we don't tell that to kids. What they're told is, if you have that PS5, if you have all those electronics, when you wake up Christmas morning, you're a good kid. So it doesn't matter if Sarah back talks to her parents.

Luke Greene [00:12:57]:
Her teacher is just kind of, you know, a bully on the playground, and Billy is the nicest kid in the world. What those children then need to do is rationalize why did this metric evaluate me this way? So, for Billy, who again might be the kindest best friend on the playground, listens to his teacher, helps his mom out because life's a little less comfortable than some of his peers, he thinks back to, oh, shoot, I really wanted an iPad, but why do I only get socks? That's right, I spilled milk on the counter, and mom said that money was tight that month, and I messed up. Next year, I'll try harder, I'll do better next year. And so that's the impact that this has. It's not the intended impact, but it does. And so, if we take a look and kind of connect that to grades, we do the same exact thing. Who's a good kid? What's our metric? Well, the narrative is, is that grades are finely calibrated, finely tuned tools that can adequately measure and sort and organize our students to say, who are the good kids that deserve to get into your AP classes, who get into your honors program, who receive admission to college programs, and who are the bad kids? You're not smart enough, you're not college material, you're not those sorts of things. And so what's sometimes lost in the wash of the myths that we have around grades is that the metric is, those with A's are good, smart, talented, bright, potential future, and those with bad grades are not.

Luke Greene [00:14:14]:
What's missing, similar to that of the Christmas metaphor, is what's your home life look like? If you're a college student who's caring for two children and you have this arbitrary midnight deadline on your online class to get a submission in, but your kid is sick and crying, do you pick up your kid and offer them the comfort that every parent shouldn't even need to pause and question? Or do you ignore the cries of your child, let them be, because you need to prove that you're a good college student? And so that type of approach, that's the impact of certain policies and grades. Grades are not the same. And so in my institution, we serve a lot of PSEO students, so post-secondary education option, high school students, kind of in our classrooms, and for them, they're usually top-performing students versus some of our more non-traditional type students who are coming back. And again, if you're being evaluated on how much you can jump through hoops, play Simon says, in school, and these sorts of things, yes, I would hope that if you have no real responsibilities apart from attending my class and turning in this work, you're going to do pretty well, versus but the problem is you're competing in a marketplace for a both seats in a program against somebody who does not necessarily have that. And so for grades, this is just kind of one of those elements or issues that's within it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:15:25]:
That was really helpful. I was thinking about, while you were sharing, the sorting aspect of it too. So with our Santa metaphor, it isn't just, were you good or were you not? But as it relates to grades, were you good and better than the other people who happen to just arbitrarily show up in the same course or courses as you? So the sorting mechanism often is where I have experienced that what I have had ingrained in me about what grades can or can't do for us, and what I've witnessed other people do, where things kind of fall down, it's like, "Well, no, they measure learning". But do they? If especially at those institutions or within those departments that require an arbitrary amount of A's, for example, an arbitrary amount of B's, et cetera. And then, you also were just getting to another really big point having to do with how much time someone has to spend on the class. So not, not just how equipped I might have come into it, but am I needing to work three jobs and have all these other things pulling at my time and attention? Are we really then able to measure the same thing without having some sorts of critical thinking around the grades, and then approaches that might better achieve our aims? Any thoughts on what I just shared about sorting or about the time availability to people as well?

Luke Greene [00:16:51]:
Yeah, absolutely. And so it's not just kind of the metaphor of, what are we psychologically doing to our children by throwing them into these competitive educational environments, but you can find any assumption that is made about grades, and just, dig a little bit. Right? So with kind of this sorting of students at Harvard with their big release of, hey, we're giving out too many A's. Well, let's go back to the question of what is the purpose of grades? Are we truly supposed to all get on board with, look, grades only serve as a way to rank who is my top student down to my bottom, versus more of A, can the person do what we want them to do? And so another kind of metaphor that I enjoy is every Summer Olympic time they kind of compare and contrast what gymnasts have to do in 1930 to win a gold medal versus the crazy limit pushing things that we're seeing now in 2026 of our gymnasts. And so grades are kind of that same thing. So if all of our students are starting to get A grades at Harvard, maybe that's because the generations of students that are coming through had wonderful preparatory programs that have gotten them up to this level. And so then if the idea is we need to collectively move the benchmark because we're having a ceiling effect, are we using grades as a way to understand what our students are getting at, or are we just trying to set up obstacle courses and then just kind of whoever makes it to the finish line first, we afford them the jobs or whatever, these sorts of things.

Luke Greene [00:18:11]:
So the other work that I kind of take a look at is the problem of using GPA. And so with that, that is just grades compounded by grades. And so, usually it's a proxy of understanding a student's overall experience. And GPA is even worse, right? Because it's basically you're putting all of your course grades into a meat grinder and spitting out one number. And in doing so, you're going to lose a tremendous amount of nuance. Right? And a core element of kind of my practice and approach on this is taking a look at what, again are we wanting to do in education? What are some of those philosophical beliefs of, what role we serve as educators? Because a core one in every institution I've been at is this idea that the purpose of learning is growth, development, and improvement. So if you take a student who, let's say was told they weren't college material, didn't go straight from high school into, you know, a bachelor's program or even a two year program, and after years of being in the workforce, they say, hey, I'm going to give it another go, because somebody said, look, there's an opportunity to do this. You would be a good fit.

Luke Greene [00:19:11]:
So when those students kind of come back, that first semester adjustment period, I imagine, is tremendously rough. If you've been away from online learning platforms, learning management systems, even though your math skills are good, because you're going to get hung up on some of that technology, first semester is going to be kind of rough. But what's great is that colleges have a lot more services. So you will work with your tutoring center, you will work with your advisors, you will work with everybody as a team, collaboratively, to get you through that first semester. And if you pass all your classes with the C, everyone pats themselves on the back. That student was able to be retained, they were able to be successful by getting that passing grade. And so then the next semester, that same team is kind of pushing that snowball down the hill, turning the students who has kind of lost that first semester into somebody who's really getting their bearings as a college student who starts to do really well in his or her classes. And then semesters three and four, they're 4.0 students.

Luke Greene [00:20:00]:
And the problem then becomes, is what GPA will do to them when they apply to their program. So at our campus, one of our most competitive, which I hate that word in education, programs is our Sonography program, where we have 12 seats each fall cohort and usually 85 plus applicants trying to vie for those positions. And so of the students admitted, 3.9 was the average GPA of admitted students. So if we take that student who, again, all of our student services, all of our support that we had for them is applying, they're at a 3.7 because of that first semester. So, the longitudinal use, we say it's fair because it's representative of all things. But then, if you again get down to the course level, all grades are tremendously, tremendously subjective. And so many, kind of say, hey, quant, quant world, that's what should drive decisions.

Luke Greene [00:20:51]:
So, quantitative data is what we need to tell students apart. But if you go upstream one step from there, how did we arrive at that quantitative metric? And so with it, you can have the same student, and if they take the same intro to Biology course with three different instructors in one institution, there's some variance there. But we're going to make this assumption that no, a 3.85 is not the same as a 3.9, and that 3.9 is a better student, despite the fact of all of these uncontrolled variables throughout that are altering, ultimately, how that student shows up on paper.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:21:21]:
That is incredibly helpful. You're reminding me of conversations with David Clark and Robert Talbert in the past, as well as Josh Eyler, who we mentioned earlier. And even just this idea, I think about it so much, especially as I get to the end of a term or a semester, and what information is actually being represented in the grade that most of us are indeed required to place into some kind of a learning management system, or with the school's registrar in some way. And we, if we haven't thought about it critically, we're unable to really suss out the extent to which it might be representative of some sorts of health concerns that might have caused assignments to be turned in late. And if there's any kind of a punitive structure around things being turned in late or those sorts of things, then we start to see really, really, really messy data, I think you use the word arbitrary. To that end, as we wrap up this part of the conversation, maybe we could end with a little bit of hope or perhaps just some action.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:22:25]:
What are some ideas that you want to share with people for how after we have really wrestled with some of the barriers to how we might be measuring, either as individuals or we're certainly working within systems often that measure these things in ways that perhaps weren't designed with the kind of criticality that we would like, what sorts of suggestions do you have for us to, now that we know better, do better? To use an overview, trickiest cliche.

Luke Greene [00:22:53]:
Yeah, absolutely. So within my own courses, I've adopted some different approaches from traditional grading practice. So I do a form of ungrading in my public speaking class, which works very, very well with that discipline. And so each discipline is obviously a little bit different. There might be disciplines out there that this current traditional approach works really, really well for them. Awesome. Keep doing it. But with it, to kind of apply that same pedagogical approach to all disciplines creates issues, and with kind of this ray of hope, and have conversations with your students about this.

Luke Greene [00:23:24]:
What are grades? What is your fundamental understanding of grades? How does the concept of grades being ever-present in your academic experience impact your approach to the classroom, what you care about, how you complete that work, and these sorts of things? There's sociologists, Campbell put out Campbell's Law. And I think that is something that educators, as a first step, by starting that and kind of understanding what Campbell's Law is, which is anytime you take a quantitative metric, or any metric at all, and apply it to a sociological situation, it's going to corrupt whatever you're taking a look at. And grades are kind of that quintessential thing where, look, if I'm just trying to grade hack and get the smallest amount of points for the biggest amount of grade, I'm no longer learning in as much of an authentic way as I can. And so I think it begins first with individual instructors in the classroom. Go through kind of your grading policy, go through kind of how your course is set up, and ask questions of why things are as they are.

Luke Greene [00:24:18]:
Every once in a while, you run into those instructors that are so proud of their grading algorithms, and they say, I never round up if a student has an 89.9, nope, I am not bumping it up. And so just kind of start asking those questions and be vulnerable. Like, have I double peer tested this algorithm for measuring student attainments? Or is this just completely arbitrary? And so it's subjectivity that gets laundered into objectivity because, well, everybody knew that quizzes were worth 30 and tests were worth this, and assignments are worth that. And what kind of gets us to hope is when we get enough individuals able to kind of see this lack of agreement between what we are trying to do in education and how it's actually playing out as a result of these grading policies, that's where I think we start to have honest conversations of, yes, the system is here, but the system is broken. And so much like reform in anything else, there is no magic wand that we flick or wake up on Christmas morning, and it's magically gone. This is something that is kind of long, sustained work. But there are educators out there who have done this many, many decades and generations before I have arrived.

Luke Greene [00:25:22]:
So doing our best to kind of dive in, kind of figure that out so we can improve our own backyards and our courses, then advocating kind of at the division program level, and eventually we'll get up to that system. People love grades because of its ease of the perceived transferability, that if I take a high school student in Minnesota compared to a high school student in California, that same 4.0 system can be equated. And so the quicker that we can realize that's just as much of a myth as Santa Claus delivering gifts in the morning, the quicker that we can go about fixing education for the students that we serve.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:25:52]:
This is the time in the show where we each get to share our recommendations, and mine is a book. I had some critical thoughts at a very early age. I can remember being in my mid to late teens and being concerned that if I decided to have kids someday, this whole Santa Claus thing- I grew up celebrating Christmas, and our family does still celebrate it today. This really seemed like maybe not how I would want to talk to my someday kids about Santa. And we- I didn't have, I didn't grow up in a family that really wrapped a lot around the idea of Santa Claus. So I didn't have a big, I don't have any big story to share, like "the day that I found out that..." you know, this. And part of it was because we had a book that talked about a person who actually lived, who had a lot of money and who distributed gifts in their community to people that had less than he did.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:26:49]:
And I was able to get that book again, well before I was married, well before having children. And that book still lives on every Christmas time we have it out displayed among our other Christmas time books. And I, I just would want to recommend if any of you have young children and maybe you wanted to explore, if you are a family that celebrates Christmas and you wanted to explore a way of celebrating the good things that are in that story and the historical basis for what, as Luke shared earlier, can sometimes really bring out our, our more consumer oriented selves as a society. I just want to recommend it. It's a beautiful tale based on a history and, and I just think it's lovely, very age appropriate and I thought what a perfect time to share, you know, because we're here, for many of us in the world who listen to this podcast in the dead of summer and while it's really hot, you've got, you know what, six months or so to prepare to get yourself ready for, for the conversations to come. So that's what I wanted to recommend today. It seemed like if I wasn't going to do it now, talking to Luke, it's probably never going to happen again. That an episode could be so, so closely aligned with a book that has meant a lot to me and to my family.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:28:04]:
So I'd like to pass it over to you, Luke, for whatever you'd like to recommend now.

Luke Greene [00:28:08]:
Yeah, so just a quick follow-up. That's beautiful. Right? And so the Christmas spirit, whatever that means, and however you celebrate it, is a won whole thing, and it should be promoted. And the fact that there are parents willing to grind and grind and grind just to put a smile on their kids' faces, that's amazing. Right? But why can't we let the child know that hey, this is what mom and dad did for you as an act of love and whatever. But then also kind of ask that question of how else can we be charitable? How else can we serve our communities in kind of that role model state of the book that you describe? So, yeah, absolutely. Getting back to kind of that core of what are we celebrating?

Luke Greene [00:28:41]:
Why are we celebrating? And kind of what does it mean as well. So that's wonderful. The recommendation that I have for us today is a podcast called Hood Politics with Prop. He is a former elementary school educator who would be an absolutely amazing instructor to be in his classroom. He's able to kind of channel real-life experiences and kind of allow students to understand more complex situations. In the context of the podcast that he offers, he uses kind of hood politics from his time growing up in Los Angeles to kind of explain how international politics works, beyond all kind of the partisan spin and kind of everything they might see in your mainstream news media, but kind of connects it in a way that, okay, it does make sense why this move would be happening or the power dynamics and these sorts of things. His commitments to his community, his commitment to kind of education, and kind to, trying to democratize access to that type of information is something that I think each of us would benefit from a list of listening to.

Luke Greene [00:29:39]:
And so kind of his tagline that he says is, these people aren't smarter than you. You know, if you understand hood living, you can understand politics. And in our very much politics is in our face type thing, I think there's an opportunity for us to realize that a lot of the language being used to kind of spin things in partisan ways can easily be undercut if we just kind of use a different metaphor for understanding them.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:29:59]:
Thank you so much for this opportunity to explore a metaphor that has shaped a lot of people's imaginations in this world, and for helping us think more critically about grades. And it's been just a delight to get to know you a little bit through this process. And thanks for your generosity in coming on the show.

Luke Greene [00:30:16]:
Excellent. Thank you for having me and everything that you've done as well with your platform.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:30:22]:
Thanks so much to Luke Green for joining me and for the generous and surprising way he invited us to rethink what grades really tell us. You'll find links to everything we mentioned, including Luke's recommendation and mine, in the show notes at teachinginhighered.com/629. What I really hope you'll do is head over to teachinginhighered.com/subscribe, where you can sign up for the Field Journal. That's where each week I send out to you what I wondered, what I needed noticed, what I noted, and all kinds of other observations about learning and teaching from the week. Thank you so much for listening, and I'LL see you next time on Teaching in Higher Ed.