The signature event featured a keynote speaker, a poster session, and recognition of excellent teaching at Georgia Tech. Through this event, we aim to foster community among all educators who share in the mission of creating engaging, challenging, and supportive learning experiences for their students throughout the year.

Poster Session

Each year, Georgia Tech educators showcase their teaching and learning work in a poster session, offering a glimpse into their classrooms. Attendees explore projects created by innovative and entrepreneurial colleagues across campus and have the unique opportunity to share teaching ideas and inspiration. Learn more about the 2025 posters.

Recipients of Thank a Teacher notes, Student Recognition of Excellence in Teaching: CIOS Honor Roll, and Student Recognition of Excellence in Teaching: CIOS Award from the previous year are recognized during an honors luncheon.

2025 Recognitions:

• 2024 Thank a Teacher Recipients
• Spring, Summer, and Fall CIOS Honor Rolls
• 2024 Student Recognition of Excellence in Teaching: CIOS Award

2025 Keynote: “Grading for Growth: Toward more humane, authentic, and trustworthy ways to evaluate student work”

Grading as we know it is significantly broken. The traditional approach involving one-and-done assessment, points, partial credit, and averaging is demotivating for students, demoralizing for faculty, time-consuming, disconnected from science, and of questionable statistical validity. But it is changeable, and in fact there is no better time than now to explore alternatives that prioritize student growth and align better with how humans learn. In this talk, we will explore the history and issues of traditional grading, propose a framework for “alternative” grading practices, and see how to implement alternative grading without massive requirements of time or energy.

About the Speaker:

Robert Talbert, Ph.D.
Professor of Mathematics and Senior Faculty Fellow for Learning Futures
Grand Valley State University
talbertr@gvsu.edu / rtalbert.org / @RobertTalbert

Keynote Description

Grading as we know it is significantly broken. The traditional approach involving one-and-done assessment, points, partial credit, and averaging is demotivating for students, demoralizing for faculty, time-consuming, disconnected from science, and of questionable statistical validity. But it is changeable, and in fact there is no better time than now to explore alternatives that prioritize student growth and align better with how humans learn. In this talk, we will explore the history and issues of traditional grading, propose a framework for “alternative” grading practices, and see how to implement alternative grading without massive requirements of time or energy.

Biographical Sketch

Robert Talbert is a Professor of Mathematics at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. He holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Vanderbilt University. Through over 25 years of being a classroom instructor at small liberal arts colleges and regional public universities, Robert has experimented with and advocated for research-based, student-focused innovation in teaching and learning. He was an early adopter of computer-based learning in mathematics and helped to pioneer the use of flipped instruction at the college level. He turned these experiences into a blog, _Casting Out Nines_, in 2006 which catalyzed a global online community around instructional innovation.

In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Robert holds the position of Senior Faculty Fellow for Learning Futures at Grand Valley State, where he works on behalf of the university president to coordinate institution-wide pedagogical innovation projects. He is the author of _Flipped Learning: A Guide for Higher Education Faculty_ and the co-author (with his GVSU colleague Dr. David Clark) of _Grading For Growth_, and gives keynote addresses and workshops to faculty groups throughout the US and abroad. His continued writing projects include the _Grading For Growth_ Substack (gradingforgrowth.com) and _Intentional Academia_, a Substack publication about productivity and purpose in higher education.

Robert lives in western Michigan with his wife, teenage children, and three cats. On weekends and evenings, you can find him playing bass in one of four bands he belongs to in the Grand Rapids area.

Save the date for our Celebrating Teaching Day: March 31, 2026. Interested in learning about past Celebrating Teaching Day speakers or poster presentations? Email Carol Subiño Sullivan, assistant director of Faculty Teaching and Learning Initiatives.