Welcome to the Intentional Teaching newsletter! I'm Derek Bruff, educator and author. The name of this newsletter is a reminder that we should be intentional in how we teach, but also in how we develop as teachers over time. I hope this newsletter will be a valuable part of your professional development as an educator.
Reimagining Grading
Reimagining Grading with Sharona Krinsky and Robert BosleyThis past December, I had the honor of being a guest on the Grading Podcast ("reimagining grading as a tool for student success") hosted by Sharona Krinsky and Robert Bosley. We had such a great conversation that I thought I would return the favor and invite Sharona and Boz on my podcast. Sharona Krinsky is the executive director of the Center for Grading Reform, a non-profit that hosts an annual conference on grading, among other things. She’s also a math instructor at California State Los Angeles. Robert Bosley, better known as Boz, is director of programming for K12 at the Center for Grading Reform and an instructional coach in the Los Angeles Unified School District. In our conversation, Sharona and Boz share why they named their podcast the Grading Podcast and not the Alternative Grading Podcast. They also share the state of the grading reform movement here in 2026 (including their work on the Grading Conference) and talk about the barriers that teachers face when trying to adopt alternative grading practices. And they have advice for centers for teaching and learning on supporting grading reform on their campuses. You can listen to my conversation with Sharon Krinsky and Robert Bosley here, or search "Intentional Teaching" in your podcast app. |
Intentional Teaching with Derek Bruff
Welcome to the Intentional Teaching newsletter! I'm Derek Bruff, educator and author. The name of this newsletter is a reminder that we should be intentional in how we teach, but also in how we develop as teachers over time. I hope this newsletter will be a valuable part of your professional development as an educator.
Teaching Civic Engagement Back in 2024, I asked political scientist and faculty developer Bethany Morrison on my podcast to share some strategies for teaching in U.S. presidential election year. She had so many resources to share that I then invited her to curate a collection of resources for the University of Virginia Teaching Hub on the topic of teaching for democratic engagement and civic learning. Once that collection was posted, a former Vanderbilt colleague and current English professor...
Around the Web This is the part of the newsletter where I link to things that I find interesting in the hopes that you do, too. This week, this is the entire newsletter! Education as the Lighting of a Fire: Personal Connection Strikes the Match - This is a preprint of a study by Steven Most and Nathan Clout of the University of New South Wales Sydney. Two groups of participants heard the same recorded lecture. One group was given a "relatable" backstory about the lecturer, the other was told...
How well do you know the law as it applies to teaching? This week on the podcast, I talk with Kent Kauffman, author of Navigating Choppy Waters: Key Legal Issues College Faculty Need to Know. I invited him on the show because of all the stories we've seen in the last year about college and university faculty being accused by students of teaching something the student didn't the instructor should be teaching. These incidents have a lot of instructors worried about teaching controversial...