This article is based on a podcast conversation featuring Dr. Stephanie Valentine, Founder and CEO of TeachFront.

Summary

In this episode of The Grading Podcast, Dr. Stephanie Valentine shares the moment that pushed her from traditional grading toward ungrading and mastery-based approaches. She also explains how the logistical burden of doing alternative grading well led her and her students to build TeachFront, an LMS designed to make alternative grading sustainable day-to-day.

A moment many instructors will recognize

A pivotal moment begins with a student asking for a grade-maximizing checklist, an honest signal that traditional grading can pull attention away from learning.

“I remember specifically one student saying they needed to know exactly what to do to get an A so they don’t waste their time doing more. And I had a lot of feels in that moment. But statement really changed a lot of things for me.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

That moment kicked off weeks of research into ungrading and a reframing of what assessment could be.

“So that night I looked it up and I read for weeks, and suddenly everything just snapped into place. Like the idea that we could remove the moral judgment from grading and turn it into just assessment and just feedback and growth. It completely changed how I see my role as an instructor.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

How alternative grading changes the conversation

One of the clearest outcomes Dr. Valentine describes is how student instructor conversations shift when points stop being the center of gravity.

Instead of negotiating for points, students focus on clarity, interpretation, and evidence.

“That conversation has shifted immensely. So now they say, I think this might have been misinterpreted. I think that I did this instead of what you said I did. I’m just like, oh yeah, okay, we’ll fix it. And it’s so much less combative.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

She ties this to a growth mindset classroom culture where mistakes are expected and fixable.

“Something that’s important to me in my classroom is that I say from the start, it’s a growth mindset classroom, and that means that we are going to grow through the class. We’re not gonna be perfect. And I say, that includes me. I’m going to make mistakes. You’re going to make mistakes, and we’re just going to deal with them when they come and learn from them.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

Co-host Robert Bosley connects that shift to his own experience moving from point chasing to learning-focused discussions.

“My conversations were always around grading. How many more points do I need to get this next grade? Can I turn in these extra assignments to get these extra points? It was always about the points. It was always about the grade. When I switched to alternative grading, it became, what do I need to show you about descriptive statistics that I haven’t already?” Robert Bosley, Co-host, The Grading Podcast

The reality is it can be hard without the right tools

Even when the philosophy is right, the first implementation can be messy.

Dr. Valentine describes redesigning a course quickly while exhausted and still choosing not to go back.

“At the beginning it was a lot. And at that time in my life, I had a four month old and I had a 2-year-old and I was tired, so I wasn’t coming in at a hundred percent for sure. But after I had that sort of ethical epiphany, I couldn’t go back.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

She also shares a concrete example of how confusing grading communication can become when you are forced to improvise systems.

“I was using standards grading at the time so I had created my own number system. Like we had a four level, we call it mastery level schemes. A scale. Yeah. So I would give them their grades back as four digit numbers… and they would get a grade like 6,032, and they needed to understand what that meant. It was a mess.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

Then comes the operational reality that many instructors will recognize immediately.

“I was drowning in spreadsheets… There’s about a hundred assignments for my course, and that means that my spreadsheet that took or tried to calculate their grades was it had at least 100 pages to it or 100 worksheets on it.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

The result is grading logic that becomes fragile, hard to explain, and easy to break.

“Trying to keep track of that and make sure that my, like equations that were calculating it with 100 different pieces, that they weren’t wrong and they were wrong all the time. It was just a logistical nightmare.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

Why TeachFront exists

TeachFront did not start as a startup idea. It started as a practical response to a missing tool.

Dr. Valentine describes the original wish list plainly.

“Wouldn’t it be great if Canvas could just do this? Wouldn’t it be great if there was a tool that could just calculate these grades for us and show students how their grades are being calculated and let them keep track of things? But we looked and there was nothing like that out there.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

So Teachfront was created.

“We decided that...okay we’re software engineers, right? We’ll just build it for ourselves. And I started, so I built a basic LMS where students could submit assignments, we could give them feedback and it would calculate grades and keep them up to date.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

And the origin story is as human as it gets.

“We called it TeachFront at the time because what we wanted was a beach front property. We just wanted to take all of the stress out of grading and just sit on a beach.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

Co host Sharona Krinsky pauses the conversation to underline how unusual this is compared to the usual workaround culture.

“We’ve talked to so many people. We’ve seen Python scripts and we’ve seen the Google Scripts and we’ve seen Excel spreadsheets. You built an entire LMS system. To deal with this.” Sharona Krinsky, Co host, The Grading Podcast

Iterative feedback and reassessment built into the workflow

A standout section of the episode is the practical description of how TeachFront supports iterative feedback, something many instructors struggle to manage inside traditional LMS tools.

Dr. Valentine explains that reassessment is embedded right where students receive feedback.

“Students get to submit their work and then it gets assessed for the first time based on the objectives and the scale that’s being used. And then they get their feedback and on the same page, they get their feedback right next to the little icon that shows them their proficiency.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

Reassessment requests are not just a button. They require reflection.

“The students do have to explain what it was that they changed and why they think that they should receive a higher rating now than they did before. After the instructors reassess, that goes back to the student.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

And students can see growth over time visually.

“You can see the full history of all of their attempts at their work, all of the next to each other, getting more and more colorful and beautiful over time… They just want to see it at full in full color.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

Flexibility matters because there is not one right model

The hosts point out something most practitioners learn quickly. Alternative grading varies widely by teacher, class, and context.

Dr. Valentine's approach is to support multiple grading styles, not force one method.

“It’s very flexible for whatever your flavor of alternative grading is because as we’ve done interviews with people all around the country, there are a lot of different ways that alternative grading can be implemented. And so we’re trying to make room for all of that and to support all of that.”Dr. Stephanie Valentine

She also confirms that instructors can use multiple mastery scales and even binary spec style checks.

“You can have as many mastery scales as you want, and you can associate any of your mastery scales with the standard that you are including… We’ve just added the ability to have those check boxes for specifications.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

Removing points is philosophical, not cosmetic

One of the most quotable moments is Stephanie’s stance on points and what they do to learning.

“Points are insidious to learning and they have just been poisoned by the morality that we have attached to them. And so removing that was something that was very important to me.” Dr. Stephanie Valentine

TeachFront was designed to avoid pulling students back into point math.

“TeachFront is not going calculate those as point values… there are no numbers anywhere.”Dr. Stephanie Valentine

Conclusion

This episode is equal parts origin story, practical implementation talk, and a candid look at the operational barriers that stop good grading practices from sticking.

If you are exploring mastery based grading, ungrading, standards based grading, or any alternative approach, and you have ever felt like you are drowning in spreadsheets, this conversation is worth your time.

Listen to the full podcast episode for the complete story, the context behind these quotes, and the deeper discussion on tools, LMS limitations, and what sustainable assessment can look like in real classrooms.

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