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 describes the moment that pushed her away from traditional grading and toward alternative grading and proficiency-based approaches. She also explains how the logistical burden of doing alternative grading well eventually led her and her students to build TeachFront, an LMS designed to make these practices sustainable in day-to-day teaching.

A moment many instructors will recognize

The turning point begins with a familiar interaction: a student asking for a grade-maximizing checklist. The request was honest, but revealing. It exposed how traditional grading can redirect student attention away from learning itself.

Dr. Valentine recalls a student explaining that they needed to know exactly what to do to get an A so they would not waste time doing more than necessary. That moment carried emotional weight, but more importantly, it forced a reckoning. It changed how she thought about grading, assessment, and her role as an instructor.

That single conversation sparked weeks of reading and reflection. As she dug into ungrading and alternative grading literature, everything began to align. Removing moral judgment from grades and reframing them as assessment, feedback, and growth fundamentally reshaped her teaching philosophy.

How alternative grading changes the conversation

One of the most immediate effects Dr. Valentine describes is how conversations with students change once points stop being the center of gravity.

Instead of negotiating for points, students begin asking questions about interpretation, clarity, and evidence. Disagreements become collaborative rather than adversarial. When a student believes something was misinterpreted, the response is no longer defensive or procedural. It becomes, “Okay, let’s fix it.”

She connects this shift directly to the classroom culture she sets from day one. Growth is expected, mistakes are normal, and revision applies to everyone, including the instructor. The work is not about being perfect. It is about responding thoughtfully when things go wrong.

Co-host Robert Bosley echoes this experience. Before changing his grading approach, nearly every student conversation revolved around points. How many were needed, how to earn extra credit, how to reach the next letter grade. After switching to alternative grading, those conversations became about learning itself. Students asked what they still needed to demonstrate and how to show it.

The reality: philosophy is not enough without the right tools

Even when the philosophy is right, implementation can be hard, especially at the beginning.

Dr. Valentine describes redesigning a course quickly while exhausted, caring for a four-month-old and a two-year-old, and running on far less than full capacity. Despite the difficulty, once she had that ethical shift, going back to traditional grading was no longer an option.

Improvising systems introduced its own problems. Using proficiency-based grading without dedicated tools meant inventing custom scales and encoding them into opaque numeric schemes. Students received grades that looked like four-digit numbers and were expected to interpret what they meant. It was confusing, fragile, and unsustainable.

Behind the scenes, the situation was even worse. Spreadsheets ballooned into hundreds of tabs, each one trying to calculate grades across dozens of assignments. The formulas were brittle and frequently wrong. Keeping everything aligned became a logistical nightmare.

Why TeachFront exists

TeachFront did not begin as a startup idea. It began as a wish.

Wouldn’t it be great if an LMS could actually support alternative grading? If students could see how their progress was being evaluated, and instructors did not have to reinvent infrastructure every semester?

They looked, and nothing like that existed.

So they built it themselves.

As software engineers, Dr. Valentine and her collaborators created a basic LMS that allowed students to submit work, receive feedback tied directly to objectives, and see their proficiency updated clearly and continuously. The goal was simple. Remove the operational friction so instructors could focus on teaching.

Even the name reflects that intent. TeachFront was imagined as beachfront property, a place where grading stress fades into the background.

Co-host Sharona Krinsky pauses to note how unusual this is. Many instructors rely on elaborate spreadsheets, scripts, and workarounds. TeachFront emerged because its creators decided to build an entire system instead of patching together fragile tools.

Iterative feedback and reassessment built into the workflow

A standout part of the episode is the concrete description of how TeachFront supports iterative feedback.

Students submit work and receive assessments tied to objectives and proficiency scales. Feedback and ratings appear side by side, making expectations and progress immediately visible.

Reassessment is not a button click. Students must explain what they changed and why they believe a higher proficiency rating is warranted. After reassessment, the updated evaluation flows directly back to the student.

Over time, students can see the full history of their attempts. It becomes a visual record of growth, with progress accumulating across revisions. That visibility matters. Students want to see their learning develop.

Flexibility matters because there is no single right model

The hosts highlight something most practitioners learn quickly. Alternative grading is not one thing.

Different instructors, disciplines, and institutions implement these ideas in different ways. TeachFront was designed to support that diversity rather than impose a single framework.

Instructors can use multiple proficiency scales, associate different scales with different objectives, and incorporate binary specification-style checks where appropriate. The system adapts to practice rather than constraining it.

Removing points is philosophical, not cosmetic

One of the most striking moments in the episode is Dr. Valentine’s stance on points.

Points, she argues, are insidious, not because numbers are inherently bad, but because of the moral weight we attach to them. Removing points was not a cosmetic change. It was a philosophical commitment.

TeachFront reflects that decision structurally. It does not calculate points. There are no hidden numeric conversions. Students are not pulled back into point chasing through backend math.

Conclusion

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

If you are exploring alternative grading or proficiency-based approaches, and you have ever felt like you were drowning in spreadsheets, this conversation is worth your time.

Listen to the full episode for the broader context, the nuance behind these moments, and a deeper discussion of tools, LMS limitations, and what sustainable assessment can look like in real classrooms.

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