Firas Moosvi, PhD
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firas.moosvi.com
Firas Moosvi, PhD
@firas.moosvi.com
780 followers 220 following 120 posts
Lecturer at UBC. Physics PhD, interested in Alternative Grading, STEM EDI initiatives, SoTL, learning analytics, science communication and data science!

Website: https://Firas.Moosvi.com
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firas.moosvi.com
Congratulations to Serene (my first grad student) for defending her masters thesis today 🥳🤩 !

Thesis: Instructor Perspectives on Alternative Grading at UBC ☂️!
Four adults posing for a picture after a Master defence presentation. From left to right: Dr. Silvia Bartolic (second reader), Serene Rodrigues (MA student!), Dr. Firas Moosvi (Co-Supervisor), and Dr. Marina Milner-Bolotin (Co-Supervisor).
June 14, 2025 at 12:49 AM
firas.moosvi.com
Certified BlueSky Elder 😂
——
Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #324,285!
September 19, 2024 at 1:43 AM
firas.moosvi.com
Yes! I’m also happy to talk !

A year or so ago I asked my students what they think they deserved on the course (self assessed) and calculated what they actually scored with traditional grading.

Here are two results…

Super curious if this is what you found. #AlternativeGrading
On the COSC 111 final exam, I asked my students what they think they earned in the course (ignoring the syllabus) 25 overestimated by >5%, 29 underestimated by >5%, 53 were close enough, and 38 did not answer On the COSC 123 final exam, I asked my students what they think they earned in the course (ignoring the syllabus) 17 overestimated by >5%, 19 underestimated by >5%, 65 were close enough, and 23 did not answer
December 16, 2023 at 5:27 AM
firas.moosvi.com
New research from UMichigan analyzing 30M Canvas records “reveals widespread sequential bias and system-induced surname initial disparity in grading”.

Credit: Full credit for the pictures to @sarahbana.bsky.social - hard to share content from Twitter on here, luckily they’re on here!
New research from UMichigan analyzing 30M Canvas records “reveals widespread sequential bias and system-induced surname initial disparity in grading”. Slightly hard to read graph that shows a downward trend in scores the later the submission is graded.
October 17, 2023 at 5:15 AM
firas.moosvi.com
Woohoo! The book has arrived 🤩!

I co-published (a book chapter)! 🥳
Open book with the title “Effective Teaching in Large STEM classes” and Chapter 5: authentic and inclusive (summative) assessments by Firas Moosvi and Simon Bates Book cover with the title “Effective Teaching in Large STEM classes” edited by Anna K. Wood by IOP ebooks.
October 16, 2023 at 11:28 PM
firas.moosvi.com
I just tried Passkeys with GitHub and 1Password, and it’s *amazing*.

This is indeed the future…and I am here for it!
Screenshot of 1Password and GitHub using pass keys to sign in.
September 17, 2023 at 8:40 PM
firas.moosvi.com
Part 1657 of my mandatory Workday Onboarding tasks: A refresher course on Privacy and Information Security.

Mostly good content and good review, but oof - I gotta say, this question hurts a tiny bit. I understand it... but still...
Question as part of a Canvas quiz for onboarding: "Records that you create as part of your job ________." - are your property - "Correct Answer" > are the property of the University - neither belong to you nor the University - "You Answered" > belong to both you and the University Clarification: Records that you create as part of your job are the property of the University. They do not belong to you.
September 7, 2023 at 5:52 AM
firas.moosvi.com
I resisted the urge for sooo long but today, I needed to install Lockdown browser today for a course I’m helping (but not teaching) 😭.

It still feels so wrong … 🤢
September 7, 2023 at 4:38 AM
firas.moosvi.com
Phew - made it to Vancouver after voluntarily evacuating ourselves from Kelowna this afternoon!

We weren’t under an evac order, but the smoke was only going to get worse. And our nerves were frayed after the entire UBCO campus got emergently evacuated - the landfill beside the campus caught fire!🔥
Just a short video of West Kelowna forest fires burning and smouldering from our apartment in downtown Kelowna.
August 19, 2023 at 5:15 AM
firas.moosvi.com
Here is my blanket 48-hr grace period:

https://firas.moosvi.com/courses/cosc123/2022_WT2/about/unsyllabus.html#what-if-i-have-to-miss-a-deadline-because-of-a-wedding-birthday-funeral-religious-holiday-or-personal-event
What if I have to miss a deadline because of a wedding, birthday, funeral, religious holiday, or personal event ? No problem! There’s not even any need to tell me, or ask for permission to miss deadlines. The course is designed to give you maximum flexibility: Every deadline has a 48 hour grace period that is automatically applied. There is no late penalty if you use the grace period You can use the grace period an unlimited amount of time in the course (though if it happens every week and for every assignment, I might check in with you and gently encourage you not to leave things to the last minute) If you miss a deadline by more than the grace period, the general course policy is that you will not be able to get full credit for it, and in many cases, may even get a 0 for it. In the cases of Tests, it is not possible to get partial credit, or complete it at times other than within the scheduled window. In some cases, I reserve the right to grant an extension or make alternate acco
August 8, 2023 at 5:24 PM
firas.moosvi.com
Anyone else seeing “Unable to render code block” on @github.com for Jupyter notebooks more and more?

It’s happening with almost every notebook now ! Did something change?
Screenshot of GitHub’s attempt at rendering Jupyter notebook. There’s a red dialog box that says “Unable to render code block”. The file is 17.7 kB and only 595 lines.
August 7, 2023 at 2:38 AM
firas.moosvi.com
Just got @dccmath.bsky.social Robert Talbert’s new book in the mail, “Grading for Growth” - super excited to dig in!!

#AltGrading
Picture of the cover of a book titled Grading for Growth by David Clark and Robert Talbert.
August 1, 2023 at 10:16 PM
firas.moosvi.com
Gotta love to see this!

This is giving the Twitter failwhale vibes from the good old days!
Screenshot of Bluesky app on iOS with a red banner that says “Not enough resources” when loading the “Following” feed and messages below indicating the following deed is empty.
July 31, 2023 at 12:46 AM
firas.moosvi.com
For an alternative point of entry, you could consider saying what Ungrading isn’t. I sometimes use this quote from Jesse Stommel:
“Ungrading is not as simple as just removing grades. The word “ungrading" suggests that we need to do intentional, critical work to dismantle traditional and standardized approaches to assessment.”

Source: Jesse Stommel, https://www.jessestommel.com/ungrading-a-bibliography/
July 29, 2023 at 5:36 PM
firas.moosvi.com
I’m leading a workshop today on “assessments” with folks at my institution doing a “Course Design Intensive”.

I’m a bit nervous about it - one of my activities is to transform one of THEIR courses to use Alternative Grading, LIVE on the spot 😱.

Instructional Designers don’t come at me 😂
Slide with two tables side-by-side. The left table is a traditional course with the first column for course elements like: homework, labs, midterms, and finals. The second column is the weight (all empty at the moment) and the third column is “comments”. The idea is to fill this table out with a course live with audience participation and then transform it to use alternative grading on the right.
July 26, 2023 at 7:05 PM