When students are anxious about grades, what do we point to? Them, as though it’s a personal failing and not a systemic problem? Or do we take responsibility for the system we’ve built in #edu that turns grades into a currency and pits students and teachers against one another?
Start by asking yourself if the role of teachers is to encourage and support student learning or to police student learning. If we can agree the (primary) role of teachers is to encourage and support learning, it becomes much easier to adapt policies, assignments, and assessment.
That "finally submitted that R&R after way too long and btw did it on my busy day of the week, during a pandemic, in between teaching hyflex classes" feeling. W00t.
I spent 15 years trying to explain/defend mastery learning and never came close to making the philosophy and practicality as clear as it is in these three comments.