78: A Way to Ungrade, Floop w/ Christine Witcher

What this episode covers

Today we're talking about ungrading with the EdTech tool, Floop, short for feedback loop,  found over at FloopEdu.com [http://floopedu.com/]. Now, we don't normally talk about specific tools and strategies at HRP - we get into the theory and pedagogy of progressive systems...but the most common question we're asked is: okay well, is it even possible to do any of these things? It seems like a ton of work and it'll be overwhelming, and everyone is against me! Well, one potential solution is Floop! In summary, Floop allows you to easily provide feedback to your students. You create dropboxes on the platform, students upload their assignments, and then you are given audio and text-based tools to comment on what they've done. You can assign feedback visually, through comment banks, see growth over past revisions, and you can see if students have read what you've said. I personally love that Floop is committed to ungrading - and you don't need to enter in any grade whatsoever. The company actively promote practices to distance ourselves from grades altogether. I, myself, started using Floop this year and I'm excited to share it. I think it's a great example of an ed tech company using their tools for actual education as opposed to maintaining the status quo, and it's affordable and ethical as you'll soon find out. Christine Witcher, a current middle school STEM educator and co-founder of Floop, founded in 2017. RESOURCES * Study: LMS, Grading, and Comments [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02602938.2020.1787331?journalCode=caeh20] * PD on Feedback-Driven Learning [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz3rk55MjFs] * The Floop Curricul [https://mailchi.mp/57cc83b498cd/floop-curriculum]um FURTHER LISTENING * Teach Better Podcast: 94: A Two-Way Conversation – Christine Witcher chats with us about the importance of feedback, and how to make sure our students are emotionally ready for it, and prepared to learn from it.  [https://www.teachbetter.com/podcast/christinewitcher/]