What might the future of grading look like? Find out with our expert panel
Wednesday 14 October at 2.30pm
CRADLE Seminar Series 2026: Seminar #8
To conclude CRADLE’s 2026 International Symposium, join our expert panel for this thought-provoking exploration of what lies beyond grades in higher education.
Reimagining how student achievement is recognised in higher education
This year’s CRADLE International Symposium, ‘Beyond grades: Reimagining how student achievement is recognised in higher education’, seeks to pave the way for innovative approaches to showcasing what students have learned. As a pivotal highlight of the Symposium program, we are pleased to invite you to an interactive public panel event.
The panel will discuss how the future of higher education might look if the sector was to rethink grading. If we were to reassemble how student achievement is institutionally represented, what might grades – or whatever emerges after them – look like? Numerical and letter grades have been critiqued for a long time, not least because they provide one-dimensional and ‘flat’ representations of what students can do. Yet despite widely reported criticism, grading systems persist in most higher education contexts.
What kinds of novel theories, concepts and ideas could help us move beyond grades towards more meaningful ways of recognising student learning?
Facilitated by CRADLE’s Dr Juuso Nieminen, the panel discussion features three eminent higher education researchers: CRADLE’s Professor David Boud, the University of British Columbia’s Professor Rola Ajjawi, and Deakin University’s Associate Professor Lauren Hansen. The panel will reflect on what the future of grading might look like in higher education, with each panellist offering a provocation on reimagined grades:
‘The absence of grades can be normal: A personal reflection’
David Boud
‘Rethinking student achievement and the work of grades’
Rola Ajjawi
‘Beyond selection: Grades & employability in higher education’
Lauren Hansen
Join us in person at Deakin Downtown or online at the special time of 2.30pm for this thought-provoking panel discussion to close CRADLE’s 2026 International Symposium.
About our panellists
David Boud is Deakin Distinguished Professor and Foundation Director of CRADLE at Deakin University. He is also Emeritus Professor at the University of Technology Sydney. He has been a pioneer in developing learning-centred approaches to teaching and in new conceptions of assessment and feedback. He has published extensively on teaching, learning and assessment in higher and professional education, and is the most highly cited scholar internationally in the field of assessment in higher education.
Rola Ajjawi is Professor of Medical Education Research at the Department of Surgery and Scientist, and Associate Director (Research) at the Centre for Health Education Scholarship, University of British Columbia, Canada. She studied physiotherapy and became a clinical teacher before completing a PhD in health professions education at the University of Sydney examining how clinical reasoning is learned and communicated in practice. She is an international research expert in workplace learning, including researching clinical supervision, feedback, equity in assessment and belonging.
Lauren Hansen, SFHEA, is Director of Graduate Employability at Deakin University, where she leads the University’s strategic graduate employability agenda. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability. Her research and practice focus on the intersection of identity, education, and employment, supporting students and educators to develop their professional identity and practice.
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