Thursday, October 22
Robin DeRosa (Executive Director, Open Education Network), “Money in the (Test) Bank: AI, EdTech, and the Value of Grades”
As an educator involved in shaping the field of open pedagogy, Robin DeRosa has long been an advocate for alternative grading strategies. In her own classrooms, she has found that “ungrading” has positively impacted the quality of her students’ work and shifted class dynamics in ways that cultivated vitality and collaboration. Over time, this pedagogical shift led Robin to explore how the apparatus of assessment is connected to deeper political and economic forces that constrain our educational ecosystems. In this presentation, Robin will focus both on how her personal trajectory around grading has influenced her thinking about educational systems writ large, and also on how the current moment requires all educators to think critically and creatively about how our pedagogies can reflect, resist, and reshape the contexts within which we teach.
Friday, October 23
Approaches to Alternative Grading
Join table discussions exploring different approaches to alternative grading. Participants will share what has worked, and what has been challenging, while hearing about others’ practices and experiences. This session offers an opportunity to exchange ideas, learn from fellow participants, and engage in conversation about the possibilities and practicalities of alternative grading.
Rethinking the Grade
Tony Mays, (Commonwealth of Learning), “Trust, AI, and Assessment”
This presentation will frame the crisis of trust surrounding generative AI and explain why assessment reform is now necessary.
Pam Kalas (Zoology), “Four Years of ‘Binning’ (and Counting!)”
What I have dubbed “binning” within my teaching context is an assessment practice developed for my upper-level biology course, pre-dating the advent of sophisticated generative AI tools in our classroom and the enthusiasm for alternative grading practice at our institution. Although it has characteristics of alternative grading, it was never intended as such, but rather as a less cumbersome, more useful and consistent way to assess students’ answers to test questions. My intent was three-fold: to reduce the time I spent marking quiz and exam answers, to crowdsource some of the work by actively involving the students in the assessment process, and to introduce a consistent assessment rubric for all test questions. I reasoned that actively involving students in assessing their own answers to test questions would help them develop the ability to evaluate how their work matches a set of criteria, a skill we try to cultivate in the course so that students can become more independent in their learning and in their work. Having a consistent rubric applied to all questions for every test should help students know exactly what is expected and valued in their answers, and more easily track their progress.
Binning comprises four major elements: the rubric itself (criteria used to decide the bin to which an answer belongs), the specific feedback provided to students, the collaborative process to decide the numerical equivalent of each of the six bins (for UBC grading purposes), and the students’ participation in deciding the bin into which each of their answers should go.
In this session, I propose to share these four elements in a participatory way, and present some of the surprises that came out of this assessment practice. Come find out how binning works and whether it could be a good fit for your class!
Calla Zhang (Liberal Arts, Yorkville University), “Making Learning Visible: Growth over Performance in Liberal Arts Courses”
Like many instructors, I have spent the past two years reconsidering an assumption I once took for granted: that a polished final product reliably indexes learning. When students can produce fluent, well-structured writing with minimal effort, the final artifact tells me less about the underlying cognitive work – the inquiry, revision, and synthesis that constitute genuine learning. My response has not been to retreat to exclusively timed, in-class writing; doing so forecloses the technology-integrated literacies students will need beyond the classroom, and misses the deeper question of what we are actually trying to assess. Drawing on Fei-Fei Li’s (2023) argument for human-centred, technology-forward approaches to AI, I began redesigning my courses so that the learning process itself becomes a visible, and gradable, object.
In this session, I present a case study from HUMN422, Topics in Technology and Society, where a single summative research paper is decomposed into scaffolded, formative components across a semester: a library research orientation, small-group discussions situating student topics within personal and disciplinary knowledge systems, instruction in paraphrasing and synthesizing sources, oral presentations, structured peer review, and individual instructor consultations. I will also share transferable activities from other courses, including role play, World Cafe-style presentations, and peer evaluation protocols that I have found ground assessment in authentic engagement rather than performance alone, consistent with evidence linking authentic assessment to improved student engagement and skill development (Sokhanvar et al., 2021).
Underlying this design is a shift I return to often, from a singular “first score,” assigned to a final product, toward a “second score” that credits students’ responsiveness to feedback and capacity for revision, a principle aligned with mastery-based, second-chance grading frameworks (Fernandez, 2021). Attendees will leave with concrete, low-resource strategies for scaffolding authentic assessment that resists AI-enabled shortcutting while remaining adaptable across disciplinary contexts.
Miranda Meents, Megan Barker, and Cassandra Pereira (Science/Biological Sciences, SFU), “Ungrading as a Tool in Your Teaching: Lessons from Instructor, Student and TA Experiences”
In recent years, instructors across higher education have been experimenting with assessment approaches that move away from the traditional practice of instructors assigning marks to student work. One approach gaining traction at UBC and SFU is ‘ungrading’, where students use structured reflection and self-assessment to propose grades for some portion of their work in a course. To better understand what this looks like in practice, we conducted interviews, focus groups, and surveys with instructors, teaching assistants and students who had experience with ungrading across 17 different courses. Their stories revealed that this approach can be adapted to a wide range of assignments, courses and learning outcomes. Participants highlighted its particular value in contexts that emphasize skill development, personal growth, relationship building, creative work, and authentic projects. Across diverse experiences, a consistent theme emerged: implementing ungrading transformed the teaching and learning experience. It helped make space for meaningful learning, promoted stronger student ownership of learning, and fostered closer, collaborative relationships. At the same time, ungrading in institutions where traditional grading is the expectation also created points of friction, where alternative assessment practices intersected with existing systems, structures and norms. To help navigate these challenges, and design effective ungrading approaches, participants shared practical strategies for success. In this interactive workshop we will facilitate discussion of the key findings from the project, and help participants reflect on where in their teaching ungrading might be the right tool for the job.
Serene Rodrigues (Interdisciplinary Studies, Faculty of Science), “Instructor Experiences of Alternative Grading at the University of British Columbia”
Alternative grading (AG) is increasingly being implemented in higher education, yet instructor motivations and experiences remain underexplored. Existing research has been inconsistent and fragmented, often focusing on individual implementations without broader applicability and theoretical grounding. To provide transparency about AG and make it more accessible, it is essential to understand how instructors adopt AG practices, what motivates them, and what challenges they encounter. This study provides a definition of AG while showcasing its complexity and flexibility according to instructors, centering instructor voices to support others considering AG and help reorient future implementation research towards strong theoretical foundations and broader applicability. Using a phenomenographic approach, this study investigates post-secondary instructors’ experiences implementing AG at UBC through semi-structured interviews, a brief survey, and course syllabus analysis. Findings reveal that participants use diverse AG methods, mixing and adapting systems and practices to suit their course contexts. Motivations stemmed primarily from dissatisfaction with traditional grading and desires to emphasize student learning, reflection, and inclusivity. Instructors noted institutional barriers but found peer support combatted isolation. While instructors mentioned the ease of evaluation with AG and its ability to democratize the classroom, reliance on students’ agency could create potential inequities given the significant variation in students’ capacity for self-directed learning.
Alternative Grading at UBC: Lightning Talks
Richard Price (Political Science), “Lessons from the Experience of a Pass/Fail Course”
I have been running an undergraduate professional development course for a number of years now that has a pass/fail assessment structure. My experience has been that this has been very positive, well-received by students with a number of benefits that I am happy to share. A challenge is that given students need a certain amount of numerical grades, there are only so many pass-fail courses that one can take, which raises the issue of considering systemic structural change in grading practices.
Bronwen Tate (Creative Writing), “From Commonplace Book Self-Assessments to Revision Labs: Alternative Grading Experiments in Creative Writing with Applications for Other Disciplines”
This presentation features succinct concrete descriptions of alternative grading experiments from creative writing that may be of interest to colleagues teaching in other units, from commonplace books that bring students into active conversation with their reading (and are self-assessed using Canvas quizzes) to revision labs that direct focus on growth over performance.
When I joined UBC in 2020 as Educational Leadership faculty in the School of Creative Writing, I continued the experiments in alternative grading I’d begun as faculty at a small experimental liberal arts college in Vermont. I’ve iterated and revised approaches and methods involving contract grading, self-assessment, peer connection, and student-defined goals across large lecture courses of 250 students, intimate in-person workshops of twelve, summer intensives, and fully online asychronous graduate courses in our Distance Education MFA program. Since 2022, I’ve served as Undergraduate Chair for Creative Writing, leading pedagogy workshops and offering mentorship and support for colleagues as they explore new teaching modalities and approaches. In 2026, A Practical Guide to Teaching Creative Writing: Supporting Inclusive Pedagogy, a book I co-authored with colleague John Vigna, was published by Bloomsbury Academic. This book includes a chapter on Assessment and Grading that features interviews with Jesse Stommel, Asao Inoue, and John Bean/Dan Melzer.
Jerry Achar (Earth and Ocean Sciences), “Triangulated student performance review: Lessons learned from self, peer, and instructor evaluation”
It is increasingly important to consider approaches to student evaluation that focus on demonstrated performance rather than work output alone. Here, lessons learned from implementing a triangulated student performance review model in two undergrad Environmental Science courses (ENVR 205 and ENVR 305) are presented. Students first self-review their performance using criteria such as collaboration, participation, leadership, and problem-solving. Using the same criteria, they then peer-review their classmates’ performance, providing an external perspective. Finally, the instructor reviews each student’s performance against the same criteria before aggregating these three sets of evaluation into a final performance score, providing a more holistic perspective on student performance. While attention should be paid to issues such as methodological reliability and bias, this model remains a promising AI-resilient approach to student evaluation that emphasizes human observation, reflection, feedback, and accountability.
Jessica Kalra (Pharmaceutical Sciences), “Labour-Based Grading in Undergraduate Science Courses”
David Oliver, Marcia Graves, and Kirsty McIntyre (Microbiology and Immunology), “Specifications Grading in a Molecular Microbiology Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience”
Since 2001, the UBC Department of Microbiology and Immunology has offered an upper-level course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) in molecular microbiology. The course was traditionally assessed using points-based rubrics and examinations. However, student feedback that this approach seemed “out of step” with the spirit of a research course prompted us to adopt a portfolio-based specifications grading model. In this model, students iteratively reflect on their learning throughout the research experience and ultimately assess their own course grade against clearly defined specifications aligned with the course learning outcomes. Since implementing this approach, we have surveyed successive student cohorts about their perceptions of learning, stress, and motivation, including comparisons with courses using traditional points-based grading. Students report reduced anxiety and a greater focus on learning and the research process rather than performance outcomes. They also describe increased self-regulation and responsibility for their own learning. However, some students report increased stress resulting from uncertainty about how their performance compares to quantitative grading standards. Similarly, while the model appears to enhance autonomy, project ownership, and willingness to take risks without fear of failure, these benefits can be moderated by uncertainty about progress and workload expectations. Overall, the transition to portfolio-based specifications grading has been associated with a shift from “chasing grades” toward “doing quality research.” Students also report greater motivation to collaborate and function effectively as research teams in the absence of individualized grading signals. We continue to use student feedback to iteratively refine the specifications and address areas of ambiguity that may affect student stress and motivation.
Being Alternatively Graded
What do students think and feel about alternative grading? How do they manage the challenges and temptations of AI in a context of uncertainty and anxiety? What motivates them in the classroom, and what turns them off? What importance do they find in grades and GPAs? What value do they place on trust, or do they find themselves thinking cynically about higher education? This panel brings together students from across the campus who have taken courses that feature alternative grading at UBC. We have asked them to speak freely about both the good and the bad of their experience. This is their chance to help shape the conversation.
Alternative Grading and the Institution
Are the priorities of alternative grading and the university aligned or at odds? To what extent are instructors dissuaded from experimentation with the grade, because they are unsure about the attitude of the institution? How does alternative grading intersect with institutional demands for equity and consistency across courses and units? What are the implications of alternative grading for accessibility and accommodations? What about calls for grade distributions or caps on high grades? Who “owns” the grade and the credentials that the university hands out? Is grading a matter of academic freedom or institutional realism? Bringing together administrators from across campus and all levels (department, school, faculty, and senior administration), as well as representatives from the Center for Accessibility and the Faculty Association, this panel asks how well alternative grading fits (or should fit) within the institution, and how much it could become part of a strategic response to the challenges that universities face today.
Lessons in Trust: Two Provocations and a Conversation
What are the key issues right now for alternative grading proponents? How can we rebuild and reclaim trust in the classroom and society at large? What is the role of alternative grading in the age of AI? What are the questions and issues that instructors, institutions, students, and staff have to confront in their classes and beyond? Prepare to be challenged and inspired. In this session, two of the most prominent and thoughtful advocates and theorists of alternative grading will give brief and provocative position papers, followed by a conversation about the state of the university and the place of alternative grading today, trading ideas and responding also to questions from the session moderator and the audience at large.
Saturday, October 24
Student Choice, Voice, and Motivation
Louise Oliver (Liberal Arts, Yorkville University), “Moving from Judgment to Student Dialogue: Student Voice, Choice, and Assessment in the Age of AI”
Increased adoption of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education has prompted issues around academic integrity, trust and a renewed questioning of the purposes of assessment. Within this context, this presentation explores how this situation has exacerbated ongoing limitations in assessment practices, where monomodal written assessment and an overemphasis on grading and compliance over authentic assessment practices. Across different educational contexts, students embrace different modalities, but institutional policies often restrict assessment innovation beyond written artefacts, limiting instructors’ ability to implement student-centred approaches.
Drawing on my work within an undergraduate Liberal Arts course at a private Canadian university, this presentation demonstrates how specific multimodal assessment options can maintain learning outcomes and standards while promoting learner ownership. This qualitative autoethnographic practitioner research provides insights into alternative multimodal assessment practices.
In this presentation, these assessment practices are positioned as essential at pedagogical and social justice levels. By offering structured assessment choices and letting students provide input to grading criteria, assessment power is shared more equitably. Furthermore, students are encouraged to explain their choices in assessments using AI or not in their own voices. They are also encouraged to reflect on why certain modalities and formats represent their learning. In this context, assessment becomes a conversation about learning rather than merely a judgement of performance. It is also evident that such transparency has the potential to strengthen assessment literacy, ethical use of AI and building of mutual trust,
To conclude, this presentation advocates for a more nuanced view of grades and proposes a paradigm shift towards assessment as dialogue which fosters meaningful student participation. Participants attending this presentation will leave with practical strategies towards more inclusive and multimodal assessment practices that are relevant in an AI context.
Katja Thieme and Michael Schandorf (Journalism, Writing, and Media, UBC), “Specifications Grading and Epistemic Trust: Teaching Writing, Communication, and Media Studies”
In this research project, we argue that specifications grading is an approach which can be used to foster epistemic trust (Dahlgren, 2018; Fellows, 2016; Grasswick, 2010; Whyte & Crease, 2010). We will review existing research on this grading approach in order to highlight how, in relation to the writing and communication practices of academic communities, specifications grading conceptualizes trust within a classroom community, between students and instructors, as well as beyond. In knowledge-making contexts, the adjudication of trust hinges on questions like: “by which typified or intentionally varied textual and multi-modal signs do participants assess whether a situated document communicates good will, honest knowledge claims, and expertise that is backed by community” (Thieme & Amell, 2025, p. 184)? When instructors clarify specifications for passing/satisfactory/complete assignments within this alternative grading system, they are not only asked to describe how students can demonstrate their learning but also how students can participate in maintaining trustworthy conditions for doing so. Research on specifications grading emphasizes the benefits of such explicitness, finding that “specs grading clarifies expectations for students” while also motivating them to “take responsibility for their own learning” (Graves, 2023, p. 2). The explicitness that is required from instructors can also be “leveraged to engage students directly” with relevant writing technologies and tools in ways that help facilitate trust (Graves, 2023, p. 3).
This analysis draws on our experience with specifications grading in two different UBC courses (WRDS 151 and WRDS 250). We discuss how the combination of explicit assignment specifications plus students’ choice in assignments foregrounds the conditions that are necessary for epistemic trust to build and develop. Through the flexibility that students have, and by allowing initial failures to happen while lowering the associated risks, specifications grading directs students’ attention toward fuller integration of multiple aspects of learning. Previous research suggests that students’ conversations, work, and response to feedback can result in richer performance on assignments while becoming freer from grade anxieties (Blackstone & Oldmixon, 2019; Elkins, 2016). We argue that through specifications grading students’ work can also become more trustworthy.
María Eugenia de Luna (Modern Languages, University of the Fraser Valley), “Between Grades and Learning: Process, Agency, and Trust in the Age of AI”
My interest in alternative assessment began with a question that has shaped my teaching for years: why should evidence of university learning so often be limited to exams and essays? Drawing on my undergraduate teaching in language and linguistics, I reflect on a combination of practices that support more holistic and varied ways for students to demonstrate learning and participate in assessment while still working within a conventional grading system. These practices include multimodal and interactive projects, student choice in topics and formats, self-assessment, complete/incomplete activities, and staged assignments that create opportunities for feedback and revision. I do not see any one of these practices as a replacement for grading. Rather, I use them together to make assessment part of the learning process, encourage sustained engagement, and give students greater agency in how they work with course material and demonstrate what they know. At the same time, I have not abandoned numerical grades, which creates tensions I continue to negotiate. Grades can provide structure and accountability, yet an excessive emphasis on points can shift attention away from learning itself. This raises questions about how much structure is useful, when it begins to limit agency, and what it means to trust students while still encouraging meaningful participation. Generative AI did not prompt these changes, but it has made these longstanding questions more visible. Rather than treating AI primarily as something to police or attempting to make assessment “AI-proof,” this narrative reflection considers how varied assessment practices, feedback, student choice, and responsible AI use can help keep learning at the centre of assessment. The questions it raises are not limited to any single discipline.
Claire Hay and Michael Corman (University of the Fraser Valley), “Reflections on Adopting Alternative Grading at a Teaching Intensive university”
The decision to adopt alternative grading in a course is not something to take lightly or without deep reflection. It is a decision that reflects individual teaching philosophies and influences, course outcomes, program expectations, and institutional contexts. The implementation of alternative grading requires careful scaffolding, ongoing assessment and grading conversations, and trust. As we reflect on our experiences, we have realized the importance of clearly understanding and articulating our ‘how’ and ‘why’: to students, to department colleagues, and to administrators.
In this session, we will reflect on our experiences with adopting alternative grading in our geography and sociology courses at a teaching intensive university. We will reflect on our educational values that impacted our decision making such as decolonization of our practice, emphasizing kind and learning-centred practices, and our focus on trust and reciprocity. We will present the ways we implemented alternative grading in our courses recognizing the importance of aligning evaluation methods with other pedagogical approaches and offer ideas for engaging in alternative grading conversations with colleagues and administrators. Finally, we will discuss the ways our privilege has allowed us to follow this path.
The Technologies of Alternative Grading: Lightning Talks
Jeffrey Meyers (Criminology, Kwantlen Polytechnic University), “Building Student Interest and Rapport in Online Teaching Using Oral Exams and Incentivized Office Hours Attendance”
I teach undergraduate criminology students online in an async format. Two strategies I have developed to curtail over reliance on AI and to foster deep student engagement are online oral examination and mandatory office hours in which attendance is incentivized by automatic marks for the first two sessions. Both the midterm and final assessments are done by way of oral exams using the same marking rubric which students are invited to complete and submit for a bonus mark. A choice of midterm and final assessment questions are provided to students on the first day of class along with the marking rubric. Choice is offered to students for the express purpose of discouraging cramming and memorization in favour deeper understanding arrived at in conversation with their instructor. By providing the marking rubric in advance to students it makes criteria transparent and less subjective. Similarly, by inviting students to complete the marking rubric themselves and submit it to me for a bonus mark prior to my finalizing their grade, it builds trust and agency. Over the years I have found that the grade students give themselves is often identical or very close to the one I give them. To my mind, this demonstrates success. Similarly, by incentivizing students to attend office hours via the allocation of marks for simple attendance, I am able to reward students for simply engaging. Meeting with me in office hours without the requirement of performing in any way prior to oral assessment also helps to offset student nervousness or intimidation around oral examination. Over the years this has deepened by relationships with individual students, given students an opportunity to improve their communication skills and build confidence. Talking about what you are learning with a subject matter expert also aids student retention of course materials. During the presentation I will share sample assessments and marking rubrics.
Kaitlyn Watson (Transforming Inquiry into Learning and Teaching, SFU), Meshack Achore (Hofstra), David Anekwe (UBC), Kristy Hancock (UNBC), Belinda Jin (Calgary), Emmanuel Lawani (Kampala International University), Chuan Liu (Western), Thuy-Anh Ngo (Guelph), Christiana Okyere Folson (Brock), and Jessica Pace (Sydney), ”Alternative Grading in Fully Online Courses: Preliminary Findings from a Scoping Review”
Traditional grading systems have been a central feature of post-secondary education justified by assumptions that grades measure learning accurately and motivate students (Cain et al., 2025; Riggs et al., 2025). However, traditional grading can reduce student motivation, heighten stress and anxiety, and create inequities for students from marginalized backgrounds (Cain et al., 2025; Riggs et al., 2025). The rapid growth of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic amplified existing concerns about assessment, learner autonomy, and academic integrity (Jones et al., 2025; Concina, 2022) leading to increased interest in alternative grading approaches.
Although prior reviews of alternative grading in STEM, health professions, and ungrading demonstrate its capacity to enhance learning (e.g., Asaale, 2024; Espiritu et al., 2025; Hackerson et al., 2024), the literature is limited by disciplinary and assessment type siloing, with a noticeable gap in online contexts. This presentation shares preliminary findings from a scoping review of alternative grading practices in fully online post-secondary courses, guided by Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) framework. A librarian searched five databases: Web of Science, Academic Search Complete, Scopus, ERIC, and Education Source. Two team members independently screened studies in two stages: title and abstract, followed by full text. We included English-language peer-reviewed empirical or conceptual publications examining alternative grading practices (e.g., mastery, specifications, and contract grading) in fully online post-secondary courses, across any discipline, institution type, or geographic location. We excluded studies set in face-to-face, blended, or hybrid courses; studies in K-12 settings; studies of Massive Open Online Courses or microcredential programs; and studies that did not substantively discuss alternative grading. Of the 395 articles identified, 72 moved onto full text review which is now underway. The presentation will summarize the alternative grading practices identified, their contexts and demographic characteristics, rationales for implementation, perceived benefits and challenges, and reported impacts on student outcomes.
References
Arksey, H., & O’Malley, L. (2005). Scoping studies: Towards a methodological framework. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 8(1), 19–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/1364557032000119616
Asaale, S. (2024). Ungrading as an alternative assessment method in higher education: A comprehensive review and analysis. Antistasis, 14(1), 158-166.
Cain, J., Farland, M., Dupree, L. H., Fox, L., Kleppinger, E. L., & Lockman, K. (2025). The Case for Specifications Grading. American journal of pharmaceutical education, 101863.
Concina, E. (2022). The relationship between self-and peer assessment in higher education: a systematic review. Trends in Higher Education, 1(1), 41-55.
Espiritu, E. W., O’Connor, A., Blass, S., Dambrino, K. L., & Clauson, A. S. (2025). Alternative grading approaches in health professions education: a scoping review protocol. JBI Evidence Synthesis, 23(11), 2301-2306.
Hackerson, E. L., Slominski, T., Johnson, N., Buncher, J. B., Ismael, S., Singelmann, L., … & Momsen, J. L. (2024). Alternative grading practices in undergraduate STEM education: a scoping review. Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research, 6(1), 15.
Jones, A. R., Bray, L. A., & Jones, P. A. (2025). Using specifications grading in a BSN honors program to promote engagement and competency. Journal of Professional Nursing, 58, 68-76.
Riggs, W., Hood, S., Gerrits, R., & O’Malley, C. (2025). Adventures with Alternative Grading. HAPS Educator Journal of the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society, 29(4), 32-43.
Jane-Frances Agbu (Commonwealth of Learning), “Lessons from Commonwealth of Learning Practice”
This presentation will reflect on COL’s existing research, capacity-building and professional learning initiatives relating to authentic assessment.
Alex Samur (Teaching and Curriculum Development, Langara College), “Not Ready to Rethink Grades? PAIRR as a Bridge to Alternative Assessment”
Many instructors are intrigued by alternative grading but are not always able or ready to fully redesign how they grade. Institutional expectations, program requirements, student assumptions, and workload constraints can make approaches such as ungrading, contract grading, or specifications grading feel difficult to adopt all at once. This session introduces PAIRR (Peer & AI Review + Reflection) as a practical bridge between conventional grading and more process-oriented, feedback-focused approaches to assessment. PAIRR is a structured writing and revision framework that invites students to engage with peer feedback, AI-generated feedback, revision, and reflection before submitting their work. Rather than positioning generative AI primarily as a threat to academic integrity or something to be detected, PAIRR uses AI feedback as one part of a broader learning process. Students are asked to compare feedback sources, make decisions about what to accept or reject, revise with intention, and reflect on how their thinking and writing have changed.
My teaching and learning context is a multidisciplinary assessment pilot at Langara College that integrates PAIRR into assignments. The pilot explores how instructors can support students in using feedback more critically while making the revision process more visible. While PAIRR does not require instructors to abandon grades, it helps make the learning process more visible and assessable. Instructors can use PAIRR alongside traditional rubrics, single-point rubrics, labour-based grading, specifications grading, or ungrading approaches. This work has emerged through faculty development conversations about writing, assessment design, academic integrity, and generative AI literacy.
Drawing on examples from the Langara pilot, this talk will introduce the PAIRR framework and invite participants to consider how it might be adapted in their own teaching contexts. Participants will leave with a practical model for integrating peer feedback, AI feedback, revision, and reflection into assessment design, as well as a way to begin moving toward alternative grading principles without requiring an immediate wholesale redesign of their course.
Carellin Brooks (Forestry and Environmental Stewardship/Wood Science, UBC), “How Did it Go? Self-Grading Experiments in a Small First-Year Academic Writing Course”
In 2022, several instructors in NRES and LFS 150 (Scholarly Writing and Argumentation in Forestry and Environmental Stewardship and Land and Food Systems) formed a reading group to discuss Asao Inoue’s book on contract-based grading, Anti-Racist Writing Assessment Ecologies. We subsequently adopted a range of approaches to bring self-grading to the first-year writing course. Spoiler alert: mine mostly failed. I’ll discuss the different approaches I tried, what I think went wrong, bring student voices into the conversation if possible, and end with where we are now. I have taught NRES 150 since 2021, am a lecturer with a longtime specialization in writing courses at UBC and elsewhere in the Lower Mainland, and now teach courses on writing and communications at the undergraduate and graduate level in the Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Stewardship.
Firas Moosvi (Computer Science, UBC), “Alternative Grading at Scale using ORCA”
ORCA is the open resource centre for assessments, a new centralized service at UBC that aims to help instructors run digital assessments at scale. Assessments are critical to the teaching and learning mission of UBC, but innovation in this space has stagnated in recent years, in part, due to much-needed investments of time, effort, and energy to teaching innovations inside the classroom (such as embracing active learning). Traditionally, instructors use a variety of assessment modes in their courses to provide students with feedback on their progress. Lab reports, assignments, worksheets, quizzes, midterms, tests, and exams are all just examples of different assessments. Regardless of the assessment type, all types aim to give students the opportunity to demonstrate their learning and give the teaching team the ability to provide feedback while the learning is happening. In many cases, even exams are opportunities for students to learn and grow their knowledge and understanding. However, not all assessments have the same effect and benefit. Frequent testing promotes (by design) much better student behaviours such as distributed practice and retrieval practice. Distributed practice is the act of partitioning one’s learning over multiple sessions while retrieval practice involves repeatedly, actively, and deliberately recalling information [@Gagnon:2019] to improve long term learning and retention. Adopting these philosophies requires a paradigm shift and requires a rethink of how courses are structured.
A centralized testing facility like ORCA aims to be an innovation hub for new assessment paradigms and serves as an incubator for faculty members to rapidly iterate and implement novel ideas. Already, the existing computer-based testing facility from the computer science department has unlocked the ability of instructors to implement repeat and second-chance testing, alternative grading systems, mastery-based learning, supervised exam reviews, as well as weekly assessments for large enrolment undergraduate courses. In this session, we will describe specifically how ORCA can be used to implement alternative grading systems at UBC courses.
Beyond Grading
Celeste Leander and Maia Palka (Botany/Zoology, UBC), “How Ungrading Increases Student Agency”
Traditional grading practices in undergraduate science education have been criticized for emphasizing compliance and performance over authentic learning and scientific inquiry. Although ungrading has gained attention as an alternative assessment strategy, evidence from upper-level STEM laboratory courses remains limited. Here, we evaluated a fully ungraded assessment model in a third-year project-based biology laboratory course at a large Canadian research university. Grades and point-based assessments were replaced with formative feedback, student-generated learning goals, reflective practice, and end-of-term self-assessment. Qualitative responses from 93 students were analyzed using inductive thematic coding. Students most frequently reported decreased stress, increased enjoyment, greater focus on learning rather than grades, increased motivation, and a safer environment for experimentation and risk-taking. Comparisons with traditionally graded laboratory courses similarly emphasized reduced anxiety and greater engagement with learning. To assess academic outcomes, 20 final manuscripts from the ungraded cohort and 20 from previously graded cohorts were evaluated blindly using a 16-variable scientific writing rubric. No significant differences were detected in manuscript quality or final course grades between graded and ungraded cohorts. These findings suggest that ungrading can improve student experience and foster intrinsic motivation in upper-level biology laboratories without diminishing learning outcomes. See the blog post, “Decolonizing Assessment”
Erin Woodford (Indigenous Studies, University of Lethbridge), “Building Learning-Continuums for Student Self-Assessment”
This presentation introduces a learning-continuum approach to assessment that supports students in evaluating their own learning. We will work through a simple process for turning a rubric into a continuum of developing performance. We will also briefly consider how to introduce the rubric to students and build confidence and consistency in self-marking.
Over the past decade, I have re-created my courses with paced modules (in person or online) where students learn through relationships, learn by doing, learn over time, learn from place, and learn from multiple forms of knowing. Through this, they also work through a continuum and self-assess 40% of their overall grade.
Miranda Burgess (English Language and Literatures, UBC), “Content and its Discontents”
The rapid purchase so-called Gen AI has gained among all kinds of scenes of writing has been particularly damaging to text-based fields of academic study where the texts in question have conventionally been demarcated “literary.” In the past 50 years, as John Guillory has demonstrated, contemporary “lay reading” has come to operate at the level of “ephemeral distraction” (when it is engaged in at all; see the sobering statistics that preface Gen Z journalist Rose Horowitch’s otherwise pearl-clutchy and technodeterminist report on “the end of reading in the August 2026 Atlantic.) (Guillory, Professing Criticism, 333). The “cultural capital” that accrued in the World War 1, 2, and Cold War periods to professional and business persons’ familiarity with what were once–in reverent language imitating that of the church–called “canonical literary works” has declined even into mockery (Guillory, Cultural Capital, x and passim). At the same time, whether from self-protection in the face of decapitalization or from missionary sense of pedagogical responsibility, or both, English departments have often engaged in practices of pedagogy and assessment that emphasize what Guillory calls the mimetic mode: the capacity to “imitate a mode of writing. . . recogniz[able]. . . as ‘official’”: “a fetishized writerly” mode (Guillory, Professing Criticism, 309). These practices have two streams. The first is compositional instruction, an instructional mode that is, as Guillory points out, disengaged from reading, or content. The second plagues literary instruction, in which departments respond to university mandates and make a bid for university toleration based on the presumed expertise of professional readers in the teaching and assessment of writing, in an institutional context in which the capacity to write “fluently” about reading stands for and edges aside the practice itself. In so doing, they unwittingly confirm the assumptions of I.A. Richards that writing self-evidently and independent of process or content performs its own excellence, and of his student Marshall McLuhan that content (here perhaps including documentation of a practice of thought) is “like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind” (Richards, Philosophy of Rhetoric, 31; McLuhan, Understanding Media 19).
Scholars who took seriously Guillory’s early, trenchant argument that the class politics of the institution matters infinitely more than the content of the canon, and that critique of the institution forms part of an ethically engaged response to class and capital in intellectual life (see Cultural Capital, 1-83), responded by shifting their attention in assessment to process (to quote my own instructions to students: process, process, process), reflection (the exhortation to students to think on paper and to think about their own thinking, however knotted or potentially erroneous), collaboration (the design of pedagogies that prompt students to learn from one another), and good faith (imbricated with lateral modes of classroom communication and the production of rubrics that actualize and render reliably quantitative and contractual these pedagogical principles and expectations.) Gen AI has set the cat among the pigeons. I knew this when a classroom of students engaged in a collaborative response assignment, involving the transcription of ideas generated in conversation, used Gen AI in the classroom to produce their responses. This paper argues that the crisis brought to a head by Gen AI is not, then, just or even chiefly about assessment. It’s about students’ apparently unshakeable, and growing, sense of the primacy of form, and its roots in twentieth-century pedagogical practices (for which I.A. Richards and Marshall McLuhan, interwar and Cold War anxieties may bear as much responsibility as the decline of literary and institutional capital in the neoliberal 1980s and after.) Remedies must focus on process as content, and on the revolutionary potential of (especially collaborative) human thought in a world of burgeoning technodominance, in which, as Matthew Kirschenbaum argued last month at a symposium in Passau, intellectuals risk reduction to the role of overhearers in a vast conversation among robots.
Hessam Dehghani (Asian Studies, UBC), “Decentering the Grade, Decentering the Standard: Community-Accountable Assessment in Persian Heritage-Language Education”
Generative AI has intensified concern about whether submitted work represents a student’s own learning. Yet efforts to detect AI use can reproduce an assessment model centred on isolated, polished products rather than visible processes of inquiry, interaction, judgment, and revision. Research showing that instructors may misidentify both AI-assisted and original student work further demonstrates the limits of authorship verification as a basis for trust (Kofinas et al., 2025, pp. 2522, 2536). This presentation draws on a three-year program of research and curriculum development in Persian heritage-language education. The teaching context includes heritage learners whose linguistic repertoires, family histories, cultural knowledge, and familiarity with regional or diasporic varieties may not be adequately recognized by assessments organized around a single standardized form of Persian. Critical Language Awareness shows how seemingly neutral standards can reproduce linguistic hierarchies and subordinate community varieties (Leeman, 2018, pp. 345–351), while critical heritage studies demonstrates how institutional definitions of heritage can privilege authorized expert narratives over lived, contested, and community-based knowledge (Smith, 2006, pp. 11–12).
The presentation examines community-based projects in which students engage with Persian-speaking community members through interviews, cultural inquiry, collaborative documentation, and critical reflection. Building on critical service-learning, these projects treat communities as contributors of knowledge rather than as sites from which students extract information (Leeman et al., 2011, pp. 297–300).
From this work, I propose community-accountable assessment: an alternative grading framework that evaluates preparation and ethical participation, application of linguistic and cultural knowledge, responsiveness to feedback, and critical reflection on representation and revision. AI use is disclosed and critically evaluated rather than automatically prohibited. The framework shifts the central assessment question from “Who produced this text?” to “What evidence demonstrates that the student can inquire, interpret, revise, and assume responsibility for the knowledge produced?
Donna Chowdhury (Business Administration, Yorkville University), “Decentering the Grade: A Verification Framework for Student Self-Assessment in the Age of AI”
Generative AI has deepened a crisis of trust in assessment. Many instructors respond by policing student work — detection tools, AI-proof assignments, suspicion by default — while students worry about being blamed for using tools now embedded in everyday life. This session offers a different starting point: rebuilding trust by decentering the grade itself, and handing students structured responsibility for judging their own work.
The presentation centers on a framework I developed for critical AI literacy in business and analytics education, built around four questions: Verify (is this accurate?), Validate (does the reasoning hold?), Value (what does this contribute?), and Voice (where is my own thinking in this?). I adapt this framework here specifically for alternative grading. Rather than an instructor auditing student work for AI misuse, these four questions become the structure students use to self-assess before a grade ever enters the picture.
My teaching context spans graduate and undergraduate HR, organizational behaviour, and project management courses, where I’ve seen firsthand how AI anxiety on both sides — instructor suspicion and student fear of accusation — erodes the relationship assessment is supposed to support. This presentation draws on that context, alongside my ongoing work in AI literacy and institutional AI strategy.
What Next? Roundtable Session and General Discussion
What did we learn in this workshop? What are the key themes, concepts, and approaches that emerged? Where are the areas of consensus and what are the ongoing points of disagreement or dispute? We conclude our event with a free-flowing roundtable conversation, whose aim is to sum up and build on the discussions of the preceding couple of days, and to start looking towards the future. Panelists, including our invited guests, are asked to start the conversation with their own reflections, but we hope that everyone feels free to add their own thoughts and perspectives. In a workshop about assessment, this is our moment of self-assessment, but with a stress on ongoing process rather than finished product.