The Grading Podcast 137 - Mild, Medium, Spicy: Gamifying Mastery in Grade 7 Math with Gabriel Despatie
Grade 7 math teacher Gabriel Despatie (Ontario) shares what happened when he tried to “overlay” standards-based grading onto nine years of refined tests—and why he ultimately scrapped his assessments after realizing they were packed with filler that measured rounding, formatting, and test-taking more than the actual learning goals. Gabriel walks through the system that finally clicked: a weekly “Learning Carnival” where students work one standard at a time with three backwards-compatible performance levels (mild/medium/spicy), two questions per level, and unlimited retakes that count as mastery whenever they happen. The conversation dives into practical logistics (tracking sheets, retake flow, managing chaos), the surprising motivational impact of gamified mastery markers (smiley faces and fist pumps), and what changed when he temporarily hid percentage grades—only to see retakes drop as soon as the numbers returned. Along the way, Gabriel connects alternative grading to Building Thinking Classrooms, shares how Open Middle tasks improved assessment quality (without punishing reading comprehension), and reflects on why meaningful grading reform takes time, iteration, and community support.
Links
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- Building Thinking Classrooms, by Peter Liljedahl
- Modifying Your Thinking Classroom for Different Settings, by Peter Liljedahl
Resources
The Center for Grading Reform - seeking to advance education in the United States by supporting effective grading reform at all levels through conferences, educational workshops, professional development, research and scholarship, influencing public policy, and community building.
The Grading Conference - an annual, online conference exploring Alternative Grading in Higher Education & K-12.
Some great resources to educate yourself about Alternative Grading:
Recommended Books on Alternative Grading:
- Grading for Growth, by Robert Talbert and David Clark
- Specifications Grading, by Linda Nilsen
- Undoing the Grade, by Jesse Stommel
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Music
Country Rock performed by Lite Saturation, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.