Use this post as the site for your weekly questions and responses. That way, we can keep the discussion active, and we can see the whole arc in play here. As you label your post, make sure you announce the topic of your question. Responses can then be made to your questions.
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ReplyDeleteTopic: Ordering the WPA Outcomes
ReplyDeleteThe WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition (v3.0) clearly delineates the "writing knowledge, practices, and attitudes" that undergraduate students should develop in first-year composition courses. I appreciated the concise definitions, examples, and teaching strategies for each outcome. Immediately, though, I noticed that the outcomes were not numbered. I perused earlier versions online and found them to be the same. I then wondered if there was a reason behind the ordering--hierarchical, processual, arbitrary? It seemed to me somewhat processual, since Rhetorical Knowledge is the "basis of composing" and Knowledge of Conventions is contextual. I could not help but wonder, however, if the lack of numbering was intentional, meaning that all the outcomes are equal in importance.
The Association of American Colleges and Universities summarized the key findings of their report, "Trends in Learning Outcomes Assessment," earlier this year on their website (https://www.aacu.org/press/press-releases/higher-education-learning-outcomes-assessment-movement-moves-away-standardized). One of the key findings concerned research skills: "One area where institutions are placing more emphasis is in learning outcomes related to research skills and integrative projects. Institutions today prioritize not only broad knowledge and cross-cutting skills like writing or quantitative reasoning, but 75 percent of institutions report requiring all students to attain research skills as part of earning their undergraduate degrees." While this finding does not only concern English or first-year composition, does it have any bearing on the ordering of these first-year composition outcomes? Is one outcome more important than the others? Should one be more emphasized than the others? Or are all of equal importance for research skills and integrative projects?
Hello all! One topic that I'd like to explore this semester (though it really has nothing to do with my overall research interests) is the disconnect between high school and college composition. I've commonly heard comp instructors saying their students struggle with the applications of critical thinking and writing, and I'm curious what's lacking in high school curriculum that leads students to these noted deficiencies. With more states adopting Common Core, I decided to look at the the writing outcomes for high school juniors and seniors and compare them to the WPA FYC outcomes. One interesting difference I noticed between the two is that Common Core refers to their goals as "standards," while WPA refers to them as "outcomes." During Thursday's meeting, we explored how "outcomes" provide direction for writing programs, while "standards" determine "how well" those objectives were achieved. While this difference could be chalked up to an arbitrary choice in diction, it might provide us some insight to the disconnect between the two levels of writing (high school and college).
ReplyDeleteGiven those definitions and our understandings of the terms, how might framing the goals of high school writing as "standards," while framing FYC goals as "objectives" further the disconnect? Is the term "standard" too limiting? Or place too great an emphasis on mastery rather than critical consideration? Does the term "standard" remove local agency in order to achieve Common Core's established goals?
Lacy, I am so glad that you brought up this interesting topic of the language that surrounds the way that educators and administrators frame their goals for student performance.
DeleteThe language difference between Common Core and WPA (Standards vs. Outcomes) does seem significant. Using the word standard takes the onus off teachers and makes an evaluation sound more objective (although it is not). There are many times that I have sat in on parent teacher conferences and the phrase “your student is not meeting grade standard” comes up. It seems negative; because it doesn’t take into account the student’s learning process. A student may show significant improvement, but not meeting standard places all a student work in a negative light. When using “this meets standard” or “this doesn’t meet standard” form of assessment, essentially the assessor takes a snapshot of student work and judges it as it stands, not in a context of improvement.
The use of the outcome seems more inclusive of the student process. Outcome encompasses the concept that it takes work to improve student performance. As an educator, thinking of students’ work as an outcome of a process over time seems to be a much more constructive way to frame the assessment of a piece of work. For example, a teacher of English 101 can assess whether or not an individual writing assignment meets the “standard” that has been set out. However, a portfolio system like WSU has looks at the final paper as the outcome of a semester’s worth of work, which puts assessment in the context of where a student’s improvement from the start of the course to the finish.
Woops! I just realized that I created a new post in response to Lacey's question, instead of replying here. My response is in the post below, dated August 31, 2016 at 1:23 AM. Sorry about the confusion!
DeleteHi Lacey,
ReplyDeleteI agree that as teachers of first-year composition it is important to look at our students' levels of preparedness and the reasons for perceived disparities between what students learn about English in high school and in college.
In "Are Advanced Placement English and First-Year College
Composition Equivalent? A Comparison of Outcomes in the
Writing of Three Groups of Sophomore College Students," (http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:4137/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/RTE/0404-may06/RT0404Advanced.pdf) Hansen et al. describe students' reported high school backgrounds in writing. While many claim to have been adequately prepared for college writing, "the actual experiences students reported having with writing seemed in many respects not well-matched with the genres of writing typically assigned in college courses" (481). While students did a large quantity of writing, students reported that their high school teachers taught grammar, spelling, and punctuation less and heavily emphasized literature. The most common assignments were five-paragraph essays, book reports, comparison-contrast papers, and questions about readings, and most assignments overall required three pages or less. Hansen et al. recognize that high school teachers' loads and purposes affect their writing assignments.
I found that my own experience teaching first-year composition corroborates those findings. Since these seem to be patterns of high school English instruction, I wanted to compare them with the English Language Arts Common Core Standards for Grades 9-12. I found that the ELA standards emphasized arguments, topic development, narrative techniques, grammar, diction, and the writing process. The standards also emphasize research and longer writing projects, as well as require drawing evidence from not only literary but also informational, nonfiction texts.
These educational standards, according to the Common Core website (http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/frequently-asked-questions/), "are the learning goals for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level" and are not a curriculum. The curriculum is instead determined by the schools, departments, and teachers themselves. I wonder then if the disparities are also an issue of practice, and not only because of Common Core.
Also according to the Common Core website, teachers, standards experts, and various organizations such as The National Education Association (NEA) and National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) were involved in drafting the standards. I would think that NCTE would have kept the WPA Outcomes in mind while drafting the standards. I would be interested in seeing a comparative chart showing how the specific ELA Common Core Standards align with or progress toward the WPA Outcomes.
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ReplyDeleteThe instructor who taught my “Teaching Writing” when I was in undergrad was a post-post-modernist who was in love with Jim Corder. We learned many different teaching tactics, but the class always seemed to turn into a misguided discussion. Eventually, the instructor knew they were going to get fired or quit because they got into an argument with the program director. The instructor didn’t care about the class for the rest of the semester. The instructor didn’t teach us anything about assessment. At the end of the semester, the teacher eventually pulled open the gradebook on the projector, ran down the roster giving everyone an “A”, except for the one person who missed class that day; she got “B”.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn’t until I was in graduate school when I was properly introduced to what seems to be an infinite amount of research on assessment. Specifically, I became interested in how service-learning projects were graded. Canonized scholars in the field – Linda Flower, Ellen Cushman, and Candice Spiegelman – spoke to the importance of students to learn of rhetoricians’ effect on social change. Service-learning was a basis in university writing programs and continues to be used in programs across the country, but my interest was in how one went about grading a service-learning experience. In general, the person administering the service-learning looks at a combination reflective narratives, student reports, and the employer’s report. Although it is a very specific interest in the field of assessment, assessing service-learning seems like a complicated process I’d like to further explore this semester.
On a more general scale, I’m also interested in learning about the gamification of the first-year writing (FYW) classroom. Although I don’t know much about the way these teachers come up with the syllabus so points add up more like a game than it is anything else. As we saw in the Guba-Lincoln piece, assessment has evolved over the past 100 years. While some may argue that the gamified classroom is much like the “scientific mode that has characterized virtually all evaluation carried out” (43), we continue to see more programs resort to gamification in FYW as budgets are cut, classroom sizes are larger, and assessment needs to be efficient.
As I noted in the previous paragraph, the Guba-Lincoln reading goes over the history of assessment and offers “Constructivist methodology”, which is about using “active techniques” to push students to write for “the real world” (not the MTV show). Students are supposed to show growth in their knowledge base and understanding by questioning themselves, their strategies, and reflection. In this method, one can start to see how one learns to learn through reflection. This model is also linked to service-learning and service-learning assessment. Thus, my discussion question is what do service-learning and Constructivist Methodologies take away from the first three generations of assessment?
Hi Ed,
Deletethe words to articulate my initial reaction to what happened in your class are probably inappropriate. In addition to not learning in that class, it's a crazy kind of thinking for what matters most, picking your battles, etc. It seems like in a lot of ways the picking your battles and being prepared for said battles is what this class will help us with.
As for gamification - it is so interesting! I'm not the person to talk to. I'm a fan of game theory and multimodal projects in the classroom but haven't really got comfortable with implementing them in my classrooms. Matt Frye does quite a bit with game theory and is generally awesome to talk to.
I think that game theory potentially combines the positive and constructivism -- there is both a, "you did it or you didn't" and choice in terms of how some assignments help you 'level up' in the class. I think the ways of assessing this learning process necessitate constructivism approach, however. So there's a lot of fun to be had there but also a lot of work which is why I haven't quite incorporated it yet.
If you have any specific ideas I'd love to hear what you are thinking. Or, if like me you are still exploring, maybe we'll have some awesomeness to relay to each other down the line.
Thinking about the readings on automated writing assessment, I wish I had brought up Weigle’s article during class rather than being cranky about reading articles published by the ETS, because it reminded me of some discussions I had while earning my MATESOL degree. We discussed some of the strengths/weaknesses between the TOEFL and the IELTS (the British test of English language ability). The IELTS uses human raters for the writing & speaking portions of the exam. I’m not sure of what WSU’s English requirements are, but I’m curious for those of you who have taught English courses, what do you think about non-native English speaker writing ability in your English classes? Aside from grammar ability, do you think their writing is comparable to the native speakers in your classes? (I’m curious about those elements that are harder for a computer to assess: organization, idea development and style.) I’ve never taught native speaker writing, only non-native speaker writing which often lacks the linear thought development of English writing. I’m not sure what to think about writing ability.
ReplyDeleteGuba and Lincoln explain the pervasive problems with the first three generations of evaluation, and one immediately caught my attention: "failure to accommodate value-pluralism" (Guba and Lincoln 34). In particular, I was intrigued by their assertion that "every act of evaluation becomes a political act." While reading the articles from Assessing Writing, I started to think about the debate over the use of Automated Essay Scoring situated within the inherent politics of that type of evaluation. In the development of an "objective" instrument involved in value judgments, there emerges the question of *whose values* (Guba and Lincoln 34). Deane claims that "disjuncture is due to the contrast between models focused on 'text quality,' measured in the end product, versus models focused on 'writing skill'"--basically models assessing the text product versus models assessing the student's skills and processes (12). Privileging one over the other is, to me, a political statement. What do you suppose is the political statement behind the use of Automated Essay Scoring in placement testing? That a student's product is more important than her/his process, regardless of how unreliable the product is in predicting a student's college success? That the time and funding benefits of AES outweigh the value of adequately and appropriately assessing a student's writing skills?
ReplyDeleteTabitha,
DeleteYour comment about assessment being a ‘political act’ from Guba and Lincoln, and then taking that idea to automated evaluation systems reminded me of a course I took last year on epistemology for education research. The first few weeks we read about the “paradigm wars” that took place in the late 80’s and 90’s as newer researchers were justifying a constructivist epistemology as opposed to the post-positivist view (Gage, 1989; Barone, 2001; Pallas, 2001; Mayer, 2001; Crotty, 2003; and Seigel, 2006 (just to name a few)). In the cited articles, (along with others advocating for additional epistemologies such as critical race theory and post-modernism), the authors argue that academia has been limited by only accepting the positivist paradigm for scientific reasoning along with the pushback of post-positivist academics. I think part of the answer to your question lies within the paradigm that evaluator is coming from. If the evaluator (or evaluation system) is coming from a more positivist view of evaluation they may have less difficulty about AES because evaluation has to be objective. However, if an evaluator is coming from a more constructivist point of view, where there can be multiple truths, they may have a greater problem with AES. I believe that assignments and assessments stem from the ideology/epistemology of the person writing/designing the activity. Often times I do not think the person is even aware of what is driving their decisions. In the case of the political statement behind AES, I think the driving reasoning has more to do with a business model approach than anything else. Sadly, it seems that higher education is being driven more and more by a business model in varying degrees (related to our class discussion as well as the diminishing number of tenure-track positions at universities). Thank you for your question because it has caused me to think about ideas that have only been half-formulated in my mind as I ruminate on all the new information I have digested in the past year and apply it to my work experiences.
Thanks for your thoughtful response, Anna-Karin! I agree that a business paradigm is often applied to education, and it is important to be critical of how this affects all stakeholders.
DeleteIn the reading by Guba and Lincoln, they suggest that the success and sustainability of responsive evaluation hinges on our capacity to engage in a rather involved process by which evaluators collaborate with others in an effort to locate, represent, and welcome a wider and more nuanced range of stakeholders. In this sense, any and all theories, practices, and heuristics of evaluation are determined in and through perpetual negotiation and collaboration with stakeholders whose values and needs may or may not necessarily be represented in a given evaluation. Ultimately, Guba and Lincoln extol the virtues of setting the stage for recycling the evaluation, a move that locates evaluation in a rather tenuous and/or fluid position (41-42).
ReplyDeleteIn reading Guba and Lincoln, particularly the sections in which they are articulating the prospective terms of "fourth generation evaluation," I couldn't help but wonder at the scope and context of these iterative and reiterative processes. Which is to say that it wasn't entirely clear whether this sort of responsive evaluation takes place at the level of program assessment between and among administrators and instructors, or whether it might realistically be undertaken in the more narrow contexts of classrooms themselves between and among instructors and students. As Guba and Lincoln suggest, "every act of evaluation becomes a political act" (35), so I guess I am wondering about the role(s) we currently play in responsive evaluation, and how we might become more active in not only helping to set the "agenda for negotiation" but also doing some of the work of negotiation itself. As we ourselves encounter and are embroiled in contexts that reveal new agents, beneficiaries, and victims, all of which are stakeholders in evaluation, I find myself intrigued (and perhaps dismayed) by the prospective shape and tenor of our own contributions as instructors (namely, graduate student instructors) to responsive evaluation.
Mark, if you would humor me for just a moment, I'm curious how much thought we should give the term "political act." If assessment is a political act,is there a way in which we can account for possible biases in our methodology? Do we want to?
DeleteMark,
DeleteI have also wondered about how much we can actually contribute to responsive evaluation. Like you, I wondered how this framework can realistically be applied to evaluation within a district, an institution, a program, and a classroom. As fourth generation evaluation encourages collaboration among a range of stakeholders, I do wonder how much stake I can actually have in the decision-making at these different levels.
I suppose if I think of the purposes of assessment within my classroom, it makes conceptualizing my position more manageable. As a stakeholder in evaluation, how can I benefit? In what ways can I shape assessment to fit my needs within my classroom? Apart from programmatic goals and external pressures, how can I use assessment purposefully for my own contexts?
In navigating my own position, I referred to the CCCC Position Statement on Assessment (http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/writingassessment). The first point is that writing assessment is the primary means of improving teaching and learning. This primary purpose governs design, implementation, and the generation and dissemination of results. Thus, evaluation is not just for my students but also for me as the teacher. How can I use results to better teach and learn, and also foster my students' learning?
The Position Statement furthermore describes how this assessment can be applied at different levels: in the classroom, for placement, in programs, and among school administration. Within the classroom, assessment is "part of the highly social activity within the community of faculty and students in the class"—all stakeholders, all contributing.
Maybe if I can use assessment effectively in my own classroom, then I can also have greater stake and greater insight in developing responsive evaluation in larger contexts, as well.
Apologies for here (as well as class log) for the delay - my computer had to get an overhaul.
ReplyDeleteMy question is from a different reading/project I've been looking at coupled with my own biases: how to we find the positive in assessment?
I figure from the syllabus that we will get there but so far I'm having a hard time seeing assessment as a good thing. But I think really what I struggle with is the positive-oriented assessment, because of course I value feedback, therefore assessment, of my writing as part of the writing process.
So my other question: how might peer review in our classroom be directed towards assessment, given a validity toward assessment?
I want to accomplish this both to make peer review more useful to my student and to help me think of assessment in new and different ways.
Fred Kemp used to grade only the peer responses students wrote in his class, instead of the essays. His goal was to make students work hardest at seeing how to make writing better, and of course on how to communicate their insights. So ALL of a student's grade was based on their performance on peer review. I'm not saying that's what we should do, but one way to make peer review count is to grade it. In our case, having students put a couple of their written peer reviews into their 101 portfolios would give that work some weight.
DeleteThat is a compelling and also somewhat horrifying idea based on some of the peer review comments I've coaxed out of my students so far. Here's hoping tomorrow goes better -- more on that in class if it's relevant. Or, I don't know, I could post it here.
DeleteBut in terms of analysis and "reverse engineering" that I use to teach in English 101...that's actually kind of a great idea. I don't know if it would gum up the data/observations on peer review I want to get but it might be cool to work towards that and do it for one of the peer reviews... mMmmhhh. Yes. I think more on this tomorrow after my first round of facilitating peer review.
In both our past readings and class discussions, we've explored the roles of various stakeholders. For example, Guba and Lincoln identify several possible stakeholders within any given assessment. We've also explored how assessments are often politicized based on the reviewer. To emphasize the local, Guba and Lincoln note, "To substitute relativity for certainty, empowerment for control, local understanding for generalized explanation, and humility for arrogance, seems to be a series of clear gains for the fourth generation evaluator" (48). Automated essay scoring programs, then, often reflect standards that are removed from unique social context those being assessed occurs. My question is: Does the emphasis on relativity based on local context change an evaluator's understanding of each stakeholder? To put another way, how might the conceptualizations of students, administrators, and instructors change from ETS to the WSU Writing Center?
ReplyDeleteLacy,
DeleteYou're raising a lot of interesting and important questions here about the extent to which our conceptualizations of different stakeholders (students, administrators, instructors, etc.) might change depending on the local context(s) in which evaluation takes place. I would argue that this emphasis on relativity ought to be indispensable to any understanding of evaluation writ large. I think there is a great deal of risk in assuming that evaluation is comprised of any "controlled variables," so to speak. Which is to say that there really are no stakeholders that are not transformed in some way by local contexts and histories.
Say we were to assume that students are the only stakeholders that change and/or vary from context to context. That implies that our (and perhaps even students') conceptualizations of administrators and instructors ought to remain the same regardless of context. In making these sorts of assumptions, though, couldn't we be confusing and/or conflating outcomes (the "what") and standards (the "how well")?
What gets lost, I feel, in this squabble over outcomes and standards, is the fact that evaluation and the local contexts that temper evaluation, transform all of the stakeholders involved. Evaluation is more than just an exercise in inviting (read: compelling) students, as stakeholders, to transform and adhere to standards; it is a more fraught and complicated process in which administrators, instructors, etc. are (read: should be) transformed as well.
Local contexts and histories are valuable insofar as they provide unique and personalized cues about how, specifically, evaluation practices can remain fair and balanced according to the social, cultural, political, and material conditions in which it is carried out. If we ignore the extent to which our understandings and conceptualizations of all stakeholders are transformed and in constant flux in and around the evaluation process, though, we may risk blurring the lines between outcomes and standards, a move that may certainly invite perpetual re-assessments of standards, yet foreclose opportunities to do the same for outcomes if we do not also re-assess the unique roles that all stakeholders play in this process.
A quick question about the involvement of stakeholders. Guba and Lincoln state that “in the first phase, stakeholders are identified and are solicited for those claims, concerns and issues that they may wish to introduce. In the second phase, the claims, concerns, and issues raised by each stakeholder group are introduced to all other groups for comment, refutation, agreement or whatever reaction may please them.” (pg. 42)
ReplyDeleteThis idea well great, seems somewhat idealistic, how logistically could this take place within a reasonable time frame? Especially if victims are stakeholders (pg. 41)—how much input can a victim or beneficiaries have prior to the assessment? Is it only post assessment feedback that we look for from these groups?
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ReplyDeleteDuring class on Thursday, we just briefly touched on the subject of attendance requirements for college classes. I know there are arguments on both side of the issue. Some instructors feel that students need to make their own decision about whether attendance is worthwhile, others believe that since research shows that class attendance improves grades, monitoring attendance should be a requirement.
ReplyDeleteA scathing article in the New York Times was thought provoking—it deals with the idea that over-management damages student learning.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/magazine/fortress-of-tedium-what-i-learned-as-a-substitute-teacher.html?_r=0
I am interested in hearing some of your views on attendance requirements. I am new to teaching at the collegiate level, where there is (thankfully) more flexibility on this topic than in secondary schools.
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DeleteHi Annie,
DeleteThanks for sharing that interesting NYT article. I am definitely intrigued by the School Without Walls and wonder if the idea is suitable for a variety of contexts. Self-reliance is an important life skill, and perhaps some of the ways to instill it is by believing in students' self-regulating abilities and providing opportunities for them to be responsible for their own learning.
Attendance is definitely a complex issue, as I learned firsthand while developing my syllabus and then developing the Unified Attendance Policy for my English department on Guam.
I had been tasked with developing the "Unified Attendance Policy" ("unified" because "standardized" was a dirty word in our department) to be included in all the composition courses' syllabuses, each with different student learning objectives and student demographics (EN 085 and EN 100 were developmental, while EN 110 and EN 111 were FYC).
I began by surveying what my colleagues were doing in their classrooms and found that they ranged from really flexible (e.g., no regard for absences, as long as student kept up with assignments) to more rigid (e.g., three absences is failure, with no difference between excused or unexcused). I tried my best to synthesize these varied policies with research. Here are some of the articles I found seemed to apply to my English department's particular contexts:
- http://www.chronicle.com/article/A-21st-Century-Attendance/147693/
- https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/12/17/essay-unusual-approach-classroom-attendance
- http://dgcaristi.iweb.bsu.edu/attendance.htm
- http://faculty.washington.edu/sharon/St._Clair_1999.pdf
While it was a daunting task, I gleaned a lot from just looking at what my colleagues were doing. I also think that when talking about an issue like attendance it's important to consider the demographic of students and how an attendance policy can aid them in attaining the student learning objectives of their courses. Like we learned in Lincoln and Guba about responsive evaluation, it's important that a policy isn't simply punitive and authoritarian, but rather considerate of the different stakeholders. The policy I drafted was adopted last Fall, so I'm interested to hear about how it's been working out now that it's been implemented for a year and whether revisions are needed.
Tabitha,
DeleteI really like your point about considering student demographic. I received my BS from a school that had a comparatively high non-traditional population. In fact, many of my peers within the English and communications departments were married, had families, and often had part- or full-time jobs. I understand and (to an extent) embrace attendance policies; however, is there a way we can systematize exceptions to our policies based on individual students, especially non-traditional/returning students? Do we want to do that?
Lacy,
DeleteThere was actually a lot of resistance from the faculty in unifying an attendance policy, so I had to make sure that I included that, ultimately, it was up to the discretion of the instructor to determine how to treat exceptional cases. For example, military service, medical conditions/emergencies, pregnancies, etc. all entailed a certain level of consideration. I think as long as attendance isn't imposed punitively and encourages dialogue between students and instructors, I think it can actually benefit the student's progress in a course.
I think of unified attendance policies as an attempt to standarize, to make "one law for the lion and the ox," in Blake's terms. There are probably some things we need to standardize, but we probably go overboard in most cases. Why NOT treat each student as an individual? Well, because our basically Fordist system (See Jim Berlin) demands assembly-line standardization. However, is that the system we want? Shouldn't we resist standardization of the experience, unless we find it unavoidable (e.g., students must register for a class, so they must have an ID number, etc)?
DeleteBill, I think yes to resisting standardization of the experience. I think it becomes tricky to not standardize while also being a lazy- ahem - efficient teacher in regards to grading. I just did a rubric versus a short letter-style of feedback on the first two writing assignments for my 101 students. I only sometimes use rubrics. I made mine off of the 101 portfolio outcomes categories. So far the feedback on the feedback from the survey has leaned toward the paragraph-style feedback which surprised me, or, maybe I was hoping the rubric would be favored because it took half as long to feedback that way. The assembly-line is meant to be efficient after all, though not individualized...
DeleteI've been thinking about some of the assignments Bill mentioned in class yesterday specifically assignments that address the rubric. Some of Bill's comments about using the right kind of rubric for the student environment were challenging and have caused me to think about how I've taught writing in the past or used writing assignments in the past. I wonder how I would address writing in my classes from now on. Has anyone else tried this an assignment that address the rubric before? If so, what was your experience?
ReplyDeleteHi Everyone,
ReplyDeleteI am sad that I missed what I'm sure was an exhilarating class because you all were describing your assessment projects. I look forward to hearing about them soon.
While I wasn't in class, I was able to read over Dr. Condon's PowerPoint of Assessment-Friendly Assignments. I appreciated, most especially, the examples that were provided because they allow me to see how these different types of assessments occur in real classrooms.
When I did my teaching college composition class during my masters, one of the most contentious issues was collaborative assignments (referenced in slide 9 of Dr. Condon's presentation), and the discussion included horror stories and vehement skepticism. When I taught FYC and literature courses at my university on Guam, we were *highly* encouraged to do collaborative assignments as part of an assessment overhaul at the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in preparation for our upcoming WASC visit, but I never really felt confident in my training for these types of assignments. From an assessment standpoint, I had difficulty determining parameters that were not too constrictive, and it was difficult for me to really know who did what in the group. Despite my best efforts, one student in the group always emerged to take on the majority of the work and/or groups would meet with me to complain about that one member who "did nothing" or barely showed up to class. With these considerations, I then fumbled my way through determining grade distributions: Do all members get the same grade? Or should the grades be relative to their contributions, determined by post-reflections? How can this assignment simulate the collaborative work they will encounter in higher education and the workforce?
What do you find to be the most difficult aspect of collaborative assignments? What aspects of collaborative assignments do you feel are most worthwhile? Basically, what are some collaborative assignment best practices?
Tabitha, I sympathize with your descriptions of collaborative assignments going bad. I too, have "horror" stories of trying to determine grades of who has done what and how to help students come to a place of working together. I once had a group where after all the students signed the cover sheet agreeing that the work was their own, one of the group members identified one student as having only done 10% of the work. I then needed to meet with the whole group to try and figure out who did what. I don't think any of us enjoyed the conversation. I appreciated some of Bill's stories about giving students 200 points that could lose or gain depending on their work on the assignment. After hearing some of Bill's solutions, I've been rethinking my hatred of group assignments. I wonder if I have matured as a teacher and am more willing to deal with the "trouble" they cause. I'm wondering if the point system would have worked in the above situation. If the students each had to reflect on their contribution to the assignment if that would have been better than just signing a document saying that they had contributed.
DeleteA question that comes to mind about collaborative projects is how to deal with issues like plagiarism. Is every group member guilty if the final draft contains plagiarism? A real life example of plagiarism in group projects involves my sister who was also my roommate during undergrad. My sister was part of a group project that included 4 members initially everything seemed to go very smoothly—all members showed up to every group meeting, participated in discussion, and helped formulate a plan. Each member was supposed to deal with an element of their topic by writing 2-4 pages, and to make a few slides for their PowerPoint. Every member sent their writing to my sister and she was in charge of editing it into a final document for the group to review before submitting it.
DeleteShe realized that two other group members had blatantly plagiarized in their work. She contacted them about it, and not surprisingly got no response. She was very hesitant to turn in a document with her name on it that had plagiarism, but this was only two weeks from the end of the semester and this was a final project. As a teacher I am apprehensive about how I would deal with a situation like this. Thoughts?
TOPIC OF POST: Can we assess the effects of "trigger warnings" in the composition classroom?
ReplyDeleteSo by now, most of you are aware that my pedagogy and research focuses on preparing students to enter public dialogues concerning social and political issues. By the time students leave my classroom, I want to ensure that they have the critical thinking skills and composition strategies for engaging in important civic discussions on a number of platforms. To achieve this goal, I ask students to respond to and engage with each other on controversial current events (healthcare, college tuition, etc.) However, I am hesitant to facilitate discussions on issues like sexual assault and police brutality because I worry that one of my students has had experiences with one of these issues, and I don't want them to feel targeted, victimized, or uncomfortable in my classroom. I've considered using trigger warnings for such topics but get hung up on the critiques I've read on implementing them in the college classroom (see "The Coddling of the American Mind" by Greg Lukianoff and Johnathan Haidt). On the other hand, I've also read statements from students who have experienced traumatic events testifying that trigger warnings helped prepare them for engaging with sensitive materials. Now, my questions are: Is there a way(s) that we can assess, through writing, the effects of trigger warnings? How might we approach that in the classroom? What writing assignments might be appropriate for exploring this topic? Is it our responsibility as instructors to warn students about such materials?
Hi Lacy,
DeleteThis is a really relevant topic for the today's classroom, especially as trigger warnings were a topic in the _New York Times_ just last week: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/09/13/do-trigger-warnings-work/trust-me-trigger-warnings-are-helpful, written by Sofie Karasek.
I, myself, struggle with what I think about trigger warnings. To take from Piaget, I do think the movement through disequilibrium to get back to equilibrium allows students to reach new phases in their development, but I also worry about how far we can take a topic before it begins to adversely affect a student's learning or, even worse, threaten her/his well-being. At what point does it become, as Karasek claims, a blatant refusal to create a respectful atmosphere? I'm not sure these things have a straightforward answer, just as assessing the effects of trigger warnings involves nuance and contextualization.
I imagine qualitative data might be helpful, assessing student narrative responses to trigger warnings. Maybe this can be used as a formative assessment to gauge how effective trigger warnings are for a particular class. Responses could be directly engaged with the topic of trigger warnings. For example, a position paper could look at different viewpoints regarding trigger warnings, and then the student provides a stance with evidence. Or a teacher could evaluate whether or not the presence of a trigger warning facilitated student understanding: Do the students' papers on this topic reflect deeper understanding with a trigger warning or without it? One could measure how the extent of understanding corresponds (or doesn't) with the presence of a trigger warning.
Regarding what our responsibility as instructors, I am intrigued by the possibilities of allowing students to themselves construct a criteria for "effective, respectful discussion." This criteria can then act as an agreement between students and instructor about what best facilitates their learning. How restrictive do we all want to be? Can we come to consensus on topics that we absolutely don't want to discuss? That way, the responsibility to create a responsive, respectful atmosphere is shared.
Aaaand one from me, following up on Automated Essay Scoring (AES). This one examines what happened when a computer judged a beauty contest.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing that article, Dr. Condon.
DeleteI do think that while it's important to recognize the possibilities of technology, we also should be cognizant and cautious of its limitations. While we like to believe that computers approach objective, flawless truth, they were indeed created by subjective, flawed humans--like this article says: "The simplest explanation for biased algorithms is that the humans who create them have their own deeply entrenched biases. That means that despite perceptions that algorithms are somehow neutral and uniquely objective, they can often reproduce and amplify existing prejudices."
But then again, this is all coming from me, a quasi-Luddite who ate up Carr's _The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains_.
A poignant point in _Assessing the Portfolio_ was on page 18, wherein Hamp-Lyons and Condon assert that "Today's context demands sensitivity to social conditions and the impact of racism, poverty, inequitable opportunities for schooling . . . and in response to these demands, newer assessment methods . . . are predominantly performance assessments and are most importantly represented by portfolio assessment. Responding to the same climate of change, teachers and schools are no longer willing to allow the 'assessment people' to decide what is to be measured and how. Teachers and students expect to participate in those decisions, and they have views on what kinds of decisions will be acceptable to them."
ReplyDeleteWe've been talking a lot in this forum about constructivist approaches to assessment and responsive evaluation that involve the multitude of stakeholders. I wonder, though, what are some tangible, practical ways for teachers and students to be involved in making the assessment criteria, "participating in those decisions," and how to ensure that attention to context still somehow appeases the "assessment people" who are ultimately responsible for things like funding allocations and accreditation. Basically, what are ways to find this balance? What does this balance look like?
On a somewhat related note, I was looking at the "Principles and Practices in Electronic Portfolios" and liked how it listed how different stakeholders can be involved in developing the e-portfolio. Do you suppose the medium of an e-portfolio could facilitate more of this kind of collective decision-making? In what ways that are distinct from developing traditional paper portfolios?
Woops, forgot to clarify! The "Principles and Practices in Electronic Portfolios" from NCTE is here: http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/electronicportfolios.
DeleteI see the dilemma you outline unfolding before us: figuring out whether to assess using qualitative or quantitative data. As we’ve seen in the readings, WPAs use a combination of both. Another dilemma you bring up is how to practically incorporate assessment into our pedagogy. I think these are both valuable concerns as a lot of our readings this semester have dealt with these issues; however, I’m going to focus on incorporating assessment values in our pedagogy and our assignments.
DeleteIn class on Thursday, 9/8, we went over a couple of practical approaches to incorporating assessment objectives in major assignments. The worksheet Bill provided on 9/15 outlined some of the assignments we went over in class on 9/8. The important factor to the assessment friendly assignments was figuring out how to incorporate learning objectives in the assignments. Reminding students of the overall objectives of the class allows students to think about what is valued in this assignment. For instance, stressing critical thinking, original thought, and comprehension for a synthesis assignment allows for students to understand what is valuable and how they will be judged in this genre. Clearly laying out the expectations for a student in a major assignment is the key to creating an assessment friendly assignment: it allows the assessor to recognize the valuable aspects of the assignment and identify those aspects within student writing. On top of laying out expectations, defining what we – as assessors – mean by quality is also important. Because composition instructors stress the revision process that takes a lot of time and effort, some students may think that’s all the instructor values, when composition values the communication of well-thought out ideas more. Therefore, when instructors define what they mean by quality, for instance, through defining what an inadequate paper does, what an adequate paper does, and what an exceptional paper does, the students shift the value from time and effort, to well-thought out ideas.
In terms of the e-portfolio, I think it’s an interesting idea! Is an e-portfolio more accessible than a regular portfolio? Can students like potential employers to the e-portfolio for future careers? Is the e-portfolio a more marketable skill since it explicitly values the increasingly technologically dependent culture we live in? There are a lot of websites that one can look at; I bet WordPress is the most popular one, but similar sites are propping up all over the internet, like Omeka.net, 750words.com, and pathbrite.com.
Hi Edd,
DeleteI like your response about helping students see the utility of assessment values--defining what these values are and why they are significant to students' lives.
As an example of this need to see utility, when I was an undergrad, my school used the LiveText assessment program and e-portfolio service. I remember my professors telling us that we could use it for grad school and for potential employers, since our subscription lasted 5 years. While I did not end up using it for those purposes, knowing the utility of this e-portfolio convinced me that it was worth the 133-dollar price tag (an exorbitant amount, especially for an undergrad!) and prompted me to put forth my best efforts in my artifacts.
I have 2 questions, one is more of a survey question and the other is more content related to our course. On pg. 95 the text talks about the situation-problem-solution-evaluation essay structure and cites Hoey, 1979. When I worked in Hong Kong, for a few years we were teaching this essay format. I don't think any of the native English speaking staff (from US, UK, Canada, under 50) had heard of this format including myself. I saw parallels to science writing, however, the students struggled writing a good essay making it difficult to grade the writing as well. Out of curiosity, I'm wondering if anyone has heard of this format. Now to my content question: on pg 175 the book lays out 8 potential areas of research on portfolios. I wonder if anyone knows of research on portfolio consequences related to non-native English speakers. The other area of interest is research in the category of transfer and generalizability?
ReplyDeleteTopic for discussion: Situating Multimodality In Portfolio Assessments
ReplyDeleteThroughout class on Thursday, I wanted to address the presence of multimodal composition and its place in assessing student portfolios. Currently, the portfolio outcomes don't speak directly to multimodality. Though the language in the outcomes seems broad and general enough that it could encompass and address the unique process of multimodal composition, I still feel like there is great enough of a difference in process and considerations that we ought to create more concrete language that aligns with the genre's specific needs. As I reviewed the outcomes, I kept going back to Gunther Kress' work on multimodality and was troubled that the complexities of such composition weren't as adequately addressed in our portfolio outcomes. Mark and I actually got into a very brief discussion about this recently and we pondered if the lack of clear language discussing multimodality should be better embedded into our existing outcomes or if we should make another document entirely that specifically addresses the various considerations that go into multimodal composition. I'm really intrigued by this as I frequently assign these projects in my classroom, so all thoughts, both here on the blog and in class are greatly appreciated.
Topic: ESOL Students and Portfolio Outcomes
ReplyDeleteOkay, this is more of a half-baked question based on some reading we're doing for Victor's Rhetorics of the Western Hemisphere course. But, are non-native speakers held to the same portfolio outcomes as native speakers? To put another way, do we use the same criteria to evaluate the work of a 101 student and a 105 student?
Hey All,
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking about assessment friendly assignments a lot this past week. It is an interesting transition for me to go from designing assignments for a 7th grade classroom, where only 8 out of 70 students were reading at grade level, to thinking about assessment at the collegiate level.
As I am becoming immersed in the pedagogical theories around assessment I would love to hear some of your ideas as you are designing an assessment friendly assignment, what are your goals? What is the process that goes into the design? How will/would you present this assignment to your class? Essentially what I am looking for is concrete thoughts on the theories that we have been discussing.
Thanks!
Hi Annie,
DeleteI also have been thinking about the assessment friendly assignments. What struck me from the examples Bill gave in class was the student designed rubric. From my own teaching, I've also been under the assumption that I need to keep the rubric "secret" in some ways. The students will know what is required but not necessarily the importance of each item. The idea of giving students' more autonomy over designing the rubric has inspired me. What I'm thinking is to design a science writing lab report practice assignment with example varying abilities for each section and then have students determine what they think is most appropriate. The way science lab reports are taught there is not much time for multiple revisions, so I think giving students some examples ahead of time will help make the format less intimidating but also give students more authentic examples for their level. Another idea I have had for this assignment was to adjust an essay assignment I used in Hong Kong with this same student designed rubric. Again, I think my students would have benefitted more by having to "think" like the teacher when working on a assignment. For another assignment which was an attempt at collaboration, I think I would readjust it make it more reflective as well as the collaborative. Looking back at your post, I realize that I haven't really mentioned my goals in thinking about these assignments, but my main goal within my ESL context is make sure students are writing in English, and writing in a way that they can improve their abilities as well as meet the requirements of content courses in English (whether here or overseas). I've also been challenged to release some of my "control" as a teacher. I know that my convince in teaching writing isn't always the highest so I tend to want to keep control. Releasing control would be a good challenge for me. I hope this helps!
I forgot to state the theory I'm operating out of which would be constructivism.
DeleteAnna-Karin,
DeleteThanks for your response! I really liked hearing how you thought of this assignment in a context other than an English writing course. Your idea of getting students to think like a “teacher” while working on their assignment really got me thinking. I want students to have the ability to analyze their work and to participate in the process of their own success, and having them think about their work from the perspective of an evaluator is essential in that process. I have chosen to work with creating a fluid rubric for peer review as my assessment friendly assignment. My goal is to use student’s prior/current understand of writing as a starting point. For example, identifying thesis statements, transitions, structure etc. and then over the course of the semester having students work towards analyzing and evaluating the effectiveness of their own and their peers’ work.
Topic: Students as Stakeholders
ReplyDeleteThis showed up earlier with Guba and Lincoln but I was thinking about it again after looking at Chapter 11 in Haswell's Beyond Outcomes (and just flipping through my inherited book "Narrative Inquiry" today). I guess I just think sometimes teachers/instructors/professors are uncomfortable with assessing themselves alongside the students but there is so much to be learned doing it -- even if it's a turning of the rock and it's one of those entrancing in its horror - like a train wreck and all that.
I think teachers would perhaps worry about losing authority, control of their classroom. I'm finding that scrutinizing ourselves, or at least being very open about mistakes, learning, improvements to be made, seems to earn respect from the students. I also see it as being CLASP friendly, as recently talked about in PDC, and making the students aware that they are stakeholders.
What do you think? Are there benefits to openly including students in your own process of evolution as teacher? If there are, are they greater than the drawbacks and risks?
You have posed an interesting question that I have thought about in various ways since last spring. I had a class where the instructor was from Asia and used many non-American teacher behaviors in the classroom. In one instance she had the opportunity to make things better a week later but only made things worse. After living in Asia for 5 years, I knew where she was coming from. I was frustrated at having to deal with a cultural behavior that I did not enjoy and I was no longer living in that culture. I had a conversation with a teacher friend over the summer discussing the differences between how my friend & I handle teaching new courses versus what I lived through last spring.
DeleteI have no qualms about apologizing to my students. I try to be as accommodating as possible when I have made a mistake. I learned this early on in my teaching career. I spent one quarter trying to hide all my inadequacies. The students saw my mistakes and also saw me trying to hide or deny them. My evaluations suffered. The take away message I got from that course was to be honest and to admit my failings, and I can always "fix" things in the next meeting if needed. Teaching in Asia this attitude was a bit of a surprise to my students as people do not want to lose face by admitting their faults. I can't say for sure, but I think the students appreciated my transparency. There are still things I know that I can learn in teaching. I know that I could be more transparent than I am, and give more control over to my students. In some ways, being this transparent or the relinquishing of control is more than what I was taught or had demonstrated to me. For some classes it has been easier than others to practice being transparent; I don't know if it is the students or the subject matter that causes the difference, maybe it's both.
I just noticed the second part of your question about the benefits vs. risks. I think the benefits outweigh the risks. Had the instructor I mentioned been more transparent, I would have much greater respect for her than I do now. I might even want to advocate for her if the situation arose.
Saddest of days...I responded to your response and it timed out or something and I lost it...sigh. I'll rally and try again.
DeleteTopic: The Function of Divergence in a Complex Organization
ReplyDeleteAs we discussed the "Office of Writing Assessment Washington State University Eleventh Findings (June 2013-May2015)" handout, I was both overwhelmed and in awe of the magnitude of the program and the undertaking that is portfolio assessment. It's inspiring, really.
As I was reading the book I'm (supposed to be) reviewing for this class, I came across the article "Multi-Tier Design Assessment in the Development of Complex Organizational Systems" by Dyehouse, Baek, and Lesh. The authors claim, "In a complex organization, there are a large num-ber of decisions that must be made and a limited amount of time and resources. It is therefore essential to establish the decisions that will be prioritized so that the most important tasks will get accomplished best. (11)" Because of this, they argue that "Divergence," rather than "Convergence," is essential in these programs because "through this process you will become smarter about how to achieve the end-in-view as you receive feedback, gain experience, or discover new ways of conceptualizing success. For that reason, changing the goals and indicators over time is simply the result of becoming smarter and more informed about how to achieve the end-in-view. (16)" I'm assuming that such a huge enterprise like portfolio assessment would be subject to these complexities. And as the WSU Writing Program is continually nationally recognized (http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/writing-programs), I am curious of some of the points of Divergence that have come up through it's 30 years that have resulted in growth and have made it so successful. For those of you who are teaching at WSU and/or have been involved in the Writing Program, what would you say are current issues that are being prioritized, interrogated, and negotiated? How important is it for incoming TAs (like myself) to be oriented to these points of Divergence?
Thinking about the breakdown of the writing submissions from classes in portfolios here at WSU, I was thinking about what a department chair might do if it became necessary to add more writing into their courses. Do the faculty take WAC workshops? Bill was mentioning that students tend to submit papers from classes where they feel their instructor helped them in the writing process. I also remember hearing that the classes where writing comes from are typically from departments that were to support the portfolios. What could a department chair do to change the writing requirements in a departmental course? Where would the process begin?
ReplyDeleteLooking at all of the data we were given on Thursday, the value of writing at WSU is clear, incorporating a writing across the curriculum tactic to further push this value. For most departments, we can see where writing happens the most within the major; there’s usually a 300-level or 400-level class that has a lot of submissions for the writing portfolio. Thinking of it from my experience in writing, rhetoric, and composition, I’m curious to know how communication is prioritized within the program.
ReplyDeleteMy question here is how do these programs decide which type of writing should be taught at an introductory level, and which should be taught at a higher level? For instance, how does the psychology department decide what is taught in PSYCH 312 [M], which is a required course, as opposed to one of the 400-level, more specific, writing-intensive courses?
Hi Edd,
DeleteI agree that these concerns can be evaluated through Writing Across the Curriculum pedagogy.
I think that engaging in these discussions with faculty from different departments is productive , as it allows faculty to conceptualize and articulate how they value writing within their disciplines. While, like Anna-Karin, I don't know how this takes place specifically at WSU, I do see an emphasis on the values of WAC's write-to-learn pedagogy, articulated in McLeod's "The Pedagogy of Writing Across the Curriculum" in A Guide to Composition Pedagogies by Tate, Rupiper, and Schick. This pedagogy is student-centered, and when faculty use WAC techniques, they use assignments that promote active learning and critical thinking (McLeod 153), and, as we learned from the statistics, these assignments can be so meaningful to students that they include them in their portfolios.
Moreover, as this pedagogy is reflective, faculty can regularly receive feedback on the progress of student learning and can adapt their assignments , and maybe even program requirements, accordingly (McLeod 153). This pedagogy is also applicable to the different departments through its branch of Writing in the Disciplines (WID). By "showing, not telling" each other about writing, faculty can discuss and try out various techniques and adapt them to their own teaching to achieve their own ends (159). Faculty can talk about the rhetorical and conventional demands of their individual disciplines and how to best orient students towards these concerns. Ultimately, faculty can work collaboratively to discuss how they can prepare students for the writing they will encounter in their major and in their future careers. In "Writing Across the Curriculum: A Guide to Developing Programs" by McLeod and Soven, (http://wac.colostate.edu/books/mcleod_soven/mcleod_soven.pdf), discuss strategies on how faculty can engage in these dialogues that avoid the "training," "conversion," and "problem-solution" models and instead "[encourage] dialogue [among] a range of faculty colleagues from various disciplines as well as teaching assistants, students, and others who will be affected. These people have a chance to shape and to own the program from the beginning. Initiators are careful to share power and ownership" (McLeod and Soven 10).
Hi All,
ReplyDeleteI am wondering about the book review, have you all chosen your books? If so what made you chose that book and how will you go about writing your review. I have never written a book review, so I would love to hear from people who have had experience with book reviews.
Annie
Good question. I asked my advisor if there were any new books related to my dissertation topic of science & ELL writers. Amazingly I found one focused more on K -12 that was published this year. I myself haven't written a book review, but found some examples from journals that I typically use. I still haven't had a chance to read through those examples yet. Hope this helps!
DeleteHello all,
ReplyDeleteI was unable to print off my handout for today, so I'm posting a link to my shareable Google Doc.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qoh2fnw0Qo5kZ2zx8JU3LBgza19dq4ZaWk2W8Nd8baY/edit#heading=h.ok8a13aqbwmd
Please feel free to comment on it both during our discussion and as the assignment develops.
Thanks!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qoh2fnw0Qo5kZ2zx8JU3LBgza19dq4ZaWk2W8Nd8baY/edit?usp=sharing
ReplyDeleteThis looks pretty fantastic. Like, I'm sure I misunderstood the assignment in addition to just generally behind. It looks very professional and, well, persuasive.
DeleteHowever, I'm wondering about the initial feedback from the students on the media/example of argument. Or, I'm wondering if they might construct counterarguments in groups or something, so they are actively learning, becoming culturally aware of other perspectives and thus setting the stage overall for rhetoric, audience, and persuasion as well as giving them a little bit of something to grasp onto. I get the idea of just tossing it out there to see where they’re at, a non-leading kind of thing, but the counterargument part is where I wonder how well it’ll work.
I really like the sort of “before and after” effect. I think it leads to clearer communication and expectations between student and instructor. This is especially important because I don’t know, and they probably won’t know at least initially, what it is you mean and want when you say “unpack and argument.” (I can guess but given our composing differences so far I can also guess that expected formality, jargon, and format that you have for your students is drastically different than mine).
I don’t know that these points of clarity are necessarily in conflict with an assignment being assessment friendly as I’m still trying to get a feel for assessment friendly assignments myself but there’s my two bits. Also, I’m running out of my 90 minutes of free internet. Arg.
Having problems with the airport internet and also didn't think about not being able to attached a word doc. Anyway, a very rough idea that I *think* is assessment friendly (of the "is there coffee?" type), and leads to/scaffolds for other assignments. Copy and paste from .doc
ReplyDeleteAssessment Friendly Library Scavenger Hunt (draft)
Taken from Mike Edwards assignment idea and the Holland-Terrell Libraries self-guided tour
You will need a cell phone that can take selfies. Because of this it is all right and encouraged to work in pairs. You will also need to take notes in some fashion (on a phone, tablet, pen and paper) to assemble all your scavenger parts and submit in the end.
To submit, send the selfies to email as needed and compile/type up the notes. Submit on blackboard using library computers. And/OR assemble to “show and tell” in next class period
Find the Handout Rack toward the main entrance at Holland and Terrell Libraries and pick up at least two handouts, one that looks useful to you to keep.
Take a selfie by the grand piano
Write down a book title on display by the CUB/Library doorway (where the two buildings connect)
Introduce yourself to a reference librarian working at the 1st floor books stacks reference desk. Ask their name and what they specialize in and write it down.
What is on display in MASC?
Where do you browse DVDs to check out?
What are three scholarly journals that the library has physical copies of (as opposed to online access)
Check out a Dewey decimal numbered book (hint: ask a librarian for help)
Take a selfie/picture with one of the oversized books that is bigger than your backpack
Check out a book by Aristotle or about Aristotle to bring to class*
As I was trying to take notes and listen to the conversations yesterday, it seems that some of you have online activities for your courses whether it is peer review or discussion board. I'm wondering how active those forums/spaces are. I've attempted variations of this in the past, and it hasn't worked out well, so I'm just curious how engaged your students are in participating. With my experience it seems as if I've only gotten students to participate if there is a grade attached to the participation. I also wonder if it is dependent upon the personalities of the students.
ReplyDeleteHi All, Thanks for the great discussion on Thursday, it gave a lot of insight into how planning looks and what need to be taken into account when designing an assignment.
ReplyDeleteTwo questions that I am musing about after class are:
Does any one do peer reviews during class time or is it mainly outside of class as homework?
What terms are essential to peer review that need to be gone over and defined before a peer review takes place?
I know that these are opinion based and people probably do different things, and as I am thinking about how I will structure a 101 peer review for my classes next semester, I would love to hear what you do in your classes and why.
Thanks!
Annie
Hi Annie,
DeleteIn my English 110 class back home, I've mostly done peer-review as an in-class activity, so that we can model appropriate responses. But I have also let students continue for homework if they don't finish--if the writer allows reviewers to take her or his work home--and then they coordinate to discuss or meet outside of class.
In my EN 111 class back home, since students are more familiar with the peer review process, there have been some instances where I have required them to bring in their detailed responses to a peer's paper, and then we use class time to discuss them.
Overall, I do like to be involved in the process of peer review (mostly as an observer, simply for my own pleasure derived from seeing them in the process). I also like students to work collaboratively, discussing their feedback together, rather than just receiving an already-prepared review and taking that into revision. I have tried this collaboration online using Google docs and also in person through in-class discussion. I see benefits in both, but I personally prefer seeing them come together to talk about each other's responses and papers in class.
As for terms, this is a video from Otis College that I have used that models peer review and extols its benefits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24apK7i32xg.
After reviewing the Assessment-friendly Assignments in class, I was thinking about how to revise mine from the suggestions given in class. Because mine is a pre-post assignment, I was thinking about the different ways to weigh the assignment in terms of the overall course grade. I was wondering how the weight affects the overall course grade for those of you who have done pre- and post- assessments:
ReplyDelete- Should pre- and post- be weighted equally, as separate assignments?
- Should the post- be weighed more than pre-, as separate assignments? What are the implications?
- Should both pre- and post- be averaged for one overall assignment grade?
Hi Tabitha,
DeleteThese are great questions! One I think we constantly revisit when crafting these assignments. I'm doing a few pre/post assignments this semester, and I am not weighting them equally. The assumption informing this decision is that, towards the beginning, students are still unsure about the course content and their performance as writers. By assigning a lower point value with the pre-assessment, students may provide you with a more accurate understanding of their everyday writing practices, which can allow you to better prepare your pedagogy to best address their needs.
I'm interested, though, about your idea of averaging out the scores. Maybe this is something we can discuss further in class on Thursday?
Tabitha,
DeleteAs Lacy indicated, these are really great questions. My response to these questions really depends on what sort of relationship they will have to the final portfolio and how, specifically, you might be framing reflective writing. Will both pre/post assignments be included as contents in the Final Portfolio? What sort of evaluation criteria will you be using to grade their reflective writing?
If the pre/post assignments are "artifacts" that will be included in the Final Portfolio, you might even consider having them start to build an electronic (or paper) portfolio, in which they upload that first pre assignment directly into a dropbox they'll be updating as the semester progresses. This will allow you to not only reinforce the importance of organizing materials into a single location very early on in the semester, but it will also allow students to practice portfolio building as you go (something that's quite important with digital portfolios, as they can be a bit of a nightmare for students to put together in Blackboard or otherwise).
In either case, I would honestly air on the side of designing criteria that really only assess based on completion, as opposed to the quality or substance of the work itself. Reflective writing can be a difficult genre for anyone to navigate, particularly if they don't have as much practice doing so. The work you're asking them to do in these pre/post assignments is actually rather sophisticated. Which is not by any means to say it shouldn't be assigned; rather, I feel it's important to establish a high level of trust with composers engaging in reflective writing, so that they feel more and more comfortable being transparent about their varying strengths and foibles.
I'm not sure if that quite addresses the specific questions you asked, but I hope it offers some useful fodder for continuing to develop your ideas in this wonderful sequence of assignments.
Thank you so much for sharing your work and questions with us. Have a wonderful day!
Mark
Hi Mark and Lacy,
DeleteThank you both so much for your helpful feedback! It's really helping me conceptualize these assignments. I look forward to discussing them in more detail soon in class!
Assessment Friendly Assignment Revised:
ReplyDeleteAssessment 1 – 20% of final grade
Based on the weekly tutorials and lecture, you will need to post at least one question on the discussion board. The question can be about the content of the lecture or the activities in the tutorial. You will also be responsible to respond thoughtfully to a question from one of your peers posted on the discussion board.
Write your questions and responses using appropriate English.
Note that good questions or comments will be identified in tutorial discussions and/or may be included in the lecture quizzes.
Thank you all for your kind and incredibly helpful feedback on my Assessment Friendly Assignments! Here are links to my documents. I am including both first drafts and my revisions as per class today.
ReplyDeletePre-Reflection Draft: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AgjVmHf4H81igU3crmz733B4szae
Pre-Reflection Revision: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AgjVmHf4H81igUv5TaJk_hTqg_bS
Post-Reflection Draft: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AgjVmHf4H81igUzNkIsyC95c_07R
Post-Reflection Revision: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AgjVmHf4H81igUoQiefHyQnGEsES
In _A Guide to College Writing Assessment_, O'Neill, Moore, and Huot discuss in Chapter 4 that faculty all have different perceptions of students, which in turn affects how an assessment is designed and implemented (66). There are faculty who see developmental writing as a matter of correct grammar and in turn focus on errors in writing (66). There are faculty who value critical thinking and highlight analytical abilities in their assessments (66). There are faculty who privilege acculturation and consider improvements in dispositions toward school, attendance, participation, etc. in addition to writing ability (66-67). Overall, O'Neill, Moore, and Huot maintain that programs need to acknowledge, discuss, and account for these differences.
ReplyDeleteWhile this list of perceptions is not comprehensive, do you see yourself subscribing to one view more than others? How does/has your view affect/ed your approach to assessment? I ask because I think I would categorize myself as someone who values critical thinking and tends to want to focus on analytical abilities. However, I never thought about acculturative practices but think that it's important to consider, given that my background is in an open-enrollment institution with the majority being first-generation college students.
I can see how accounting for various perspectives would be helpful in developing responsive assessment. Have you experienced program-wide assessment that accounts for and perhaps integrates all these views?
What an intriguing and relevant question, Tabby. You bring up some concerns that I also have, especially locally at WSU. I’d argue that WSU values improvement in the portfolio system, but that is made complicated because each instructor can value a different writing assessment strategy within their classroom, therefore, affecting the ability to reach certain learning outcomes within the English 101 Portfolio Outcomes.
DeleteMy interpretation from O’Neill, Moore, and Huot is that we can set up these abstract or concrete “outcomes” or “goals”, but when you have 50 or more students, achieving each one of those “outcomes” and “goals” seems more and more of a daunting task, which is why some instructors are only able to shoot for developing specific areas. There are 26 outcomes in the English 101 Portfolio Outcomes and we have 25 students per class. Considering the time, space, and financial constraints, it makes sense to follow what O’Neill, Moore, and Huot are discussing in that the first-year writing classroom sometimes omits “goals” and “outcomes”.
The other question that I had going into class yesterday after reading the book is related to the writing program administrator. I realize that different schools approach this position differently. I've seen job ads for writing program people in the past, and I started to wonder if being a writing program coordinator is a good career move if want to stay in higher ed. Would it help or hinder an attempt at a tenure-track position? From the description in the books it seems as if it could in some contexts be a thankless job full of frustration.
ReplyDeletePost 8 Q
DeleteTuesday, October 11, 2016
11:20 PM
Hi Anna-Karin,
I've wondered the same thing. While reading O'Neill, Moore, and Huot, I was intrigued by the complexity of the WPA position, as well.
While I've never been a WPA, the WPAs at my previous university were some of my closest friends and would share their struggles with me: not having enough time to do their own research, being accountable to administrators, and trying to juggle their teaching responsibilities with administrative duties. They also shared the rewards of their job with me: developing professional relationships with the student tutors, being directly involved in curricular planning that helps students succeed, being involved in larger institutional discussions, and collaborating with different departments within the university. Their experiences echo O'Neill, Moore, and Huot. I'm not sure how true this is, but my colleagues also said that getting a PhD in Rhetoric and Composition almost guarantees being a WPA at some point in one's career. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, a matter of fact or opinion.
A blog post in the Chronicle of Higher Ed (http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/six-tips-for-a-successful-first-year-as-a-writing-program-administrator/62193) gives tips for writing program administration from a WPA. Again, these experiences affirm the complexity described by O'Neill, Moore, and Huot. The WPA describes the position as such: "The network of a writing program administrator weaves through the entire campus, shaping student writing and the professional development of writing teachers, improving the delivery of writing instruction, and fostering allies for writing across the campus."
I know even less about the career trajectory and higher education politics. However, the "CCCC Statement of Best Practices in Faculty Hiring for Tenure-Track and Non-Tenure-Track Positions in Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies" (http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/faculty-hiring) stipulates best practices in hiring Writing Program Administrators. Ideally, "WPAs are hired with tenure at the rank of Associate or Full Professor" and are given "thorough information about how administrative work will be evaluated by the university for reappointment, tenure, promotion, and annual performance reviews." This language, I think, supports the WPA and enables progression in her or his career.
Thanks for sharing the link to the article! I appreciate hearing your the stories. It was nice running into you today in the library this afternoon.
DeleteThanks, Anna-Karin! I enjoyed talking to you, too! :) I hope your cooking went well this evening!
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ReplyDeleteThough the class did not meet yesterday, Anna-Karin and I had run into each other today in the library and were able to discuss the progress of our assessment projects. It was nice to be able to discuss how this project is contributing to our research goals and helping us consider other aspects of assessment.
ReplyDeleteAfter talking with Anna-Karin, I was wondering how many of you all are using qualitative or quantitative research methods, or a combination of both. Because placement data is unavailable for my project, I will be doing more of a qualitative analysis of the rubric criteria. What about you?
This is such a great post and one I think we can all gain from! Thank you, Tabitha! I will be doing more qualitative myself, specifically looking at rhetorical moves students use when engaging with one another. Since my project looks more closely at agonism development, I'll probably have to add in some cultural theory (or at least identity development theory) that can provide some background and context to the students' situations. Bill recommended I consider using ethnographes for my model, and I was curious if you or any of our other wonderful classmates know of any that could help me ground my research. I have a few I'm considering (including Cintron...shout out to Victor's class!) but would like to find some that are more directly situated in the classroom.
DeleteThanks again for this post!
Lacy
Hi Lacy,
DeleteThanks for your kind encouragement and for your post! :)
Inoue's Race and Writing Assessment definitely comes to mind, and since we're reading it for this class, it's even more productive!
Hi everyone,
ReplyDeleteI wanted to piggy-back off of Tabitha's post from Friday and seek some advice on research methodology. In "Assessing Writing," Weigle notes that often first language and non-native learners can reside in the same composition course. What's more, is that there are several types of second language learners, determined by when they being learning the second language and the resources available to them for learning that language. In my research, I analyze the writing predominately of native speakers; however, I have a handful of students whose first language is not English. While I find Weigle's insights helpful, I wanted to see what suggestions you had for assessing the text. Specifically, I'm concerned about making misplaced observations based on cultural differences. For example, students from other countries may utilize different rhetorical tactics than those found in Western rhetoric. How can I account for these language and cultural differences throughout my research? Should I assess all texts (produced by both native and non-native speakers) collectively, or note the existence and examples of other culture-based rhetorical practices? Thank you for your feedback!
Lacy
Hi Lacy,
DeleteThis is a really good question that confronts a reality that many of us face: that our classes are not homogeneous, that assessment and evaluation needs to be responsive, and that research needs to be representative.
In the introduction, Wiegle explains that we should consider our test takers and what we need to know about them in order to design tasks that allow test takers to perform at their highest ability (3). I think that if the purpose of your research is to consider the ways to assess agonism development, then maybe it would be fruitful to respond to the different learners in your classroom and how they can be successful in these assessments.
Perhaps another way to approach it is through the lens of contrastive rhetoric and the ways that cultural expectations influence understanding text as a meaningful whole (Wiegle 21). I also think it adds a new dimension and depth to your work, especially If you notice marked differences in the agonism development between L1 and L2 learners. Maybe it would be worth noting in contextualizing your work that you have both L1 and L2 learners and whether or not you noticed differences in agonism development. If this isn't your particular focus for this project, maybe you can suggest them as points for further research in the conclusion.
I'm really interested to hear more about your findings, especially as I think about linear versus circular and direct versus indirect cultural characteristics. I do wonder how much influence culture has on agonism development.
Okay, so this is the third time I'm posting this assignment link:
ReplyDeletehttps://1drv.ms/w/s!AhhQ4hQABmCPhR0HCd25G62Ab2Xc
That is my "Assessment Friendly Assignment".
DeleteI appreciated Bill's acknowledgement of the differences between the US and elsewhere in the world's approach to teaching writing. It helped me understand the reasoning behind systemic functional linguistics and rise of the 'Sydney school' under Halliday. As I was reading Weigle, I marked p. 184 regarding in the discussion about error correction in writing. Even though I know it's not always the most useful for a student to receive a paper back full of grammar notations, I find myself doing that a lot especially for students who are weaker in the language. I'm curious for those of you teaching writing, what approach do you use when grading papers? What do you do when the writing is hard to understand?
ReplyDeleteHi Anna-Karin,
DeleteLike you, my teaching background includes a lot of ELL learners, and I struggle with how to go about providing valuable feedback on their work: Do I focus on grammar, even though I know content is more important? Will all my grammar marks even matter? How can I ensure I'm doing more than just "editing"?
I remember this one student from Korea who used a translator in every class session. She had failed English 110 before, and I was her third instructor. She was intent on learning, though, and worked really hard. I really wanted to do right by her. I remember always saving her papers to grade last because I knew how long it would take me to get through. I spoke with my Composition Chair, and she said that it was important that I understand which feedback would actually benefit her in this point in her process. She mentioned that error correction on papers only does so much to help ELLs and instead explicit grammar instruction with readings and context practice help more in language acquisition. This was a relief, because that meant I could shift my focus to content and only make comment on the most glaring issues that impeded meaning. My Chair also recommended that she seek our university’s English Language Institute, which has tutors trained in TESOL.
For my own classroom, my stance is similar to Peter Elbow’s in “Inviting the Mother Tongue: Beyond ‘Mistakes,’ ‘Bad English,’ and ‘Wrong Language’”: “My short term goal is crudely pragmatic: to help speakers of nonmainstream dialects come up with good essays in correct SWE [Standard Written English] as quickly and easily as possible. But my long term goal is probably no secret: to honor and help preserve multiple dialects of English and to legitimize their use in writing” (378).
I do feel that I should provide them feedback that will help them develop their understanding of Standard Written English (which Elbow calls the “language of prestige and power”), but what’s difficult is knowing how that’s done for every student, in accordance with their specific language needs. I do try integrate some ESL teaching strategies for both ELLs and native speakers, because I know both can benefit from that pedagogy. For the most part, though, I want them to learn how to engage with the language of discourse for the specific academic context, but I also want them to understand that this is not a devaluing of their own unique language practices. I think helping them to understand this perspective and intention is the difference between punitive correction and helping them learn to navigate the discourse.
I was particularly intrigued by Weigle's discussion of the cultural aspects of writing.
ReplyDeleteThe discussion of the extent of influence culture has on writing remains a precarious one, as Leki and Grabe and Kaplan argue that it is cultural preferences among linguistic possibilities that determine differences, and not the culture itself, as all writing requires the same thought patterns (Weigle 21). However, contrastive rhetoric argues that coherence is culturally constructed and writing is at least partially attributed to cultural differences (Weigle 21-22). Weigle reconciles that writing is both a social and cultural activity that cannot be investigated in isolation but must be seen in social and cultural contexts (22). However, I'm not sure how to practically interpret and apply her argument: "The implication for the testing of writing is that writing ability cannot be validly abstracted from the contexts in which writing takes place" (Weigle 22).
I'm thinking specifically about large-scale writing assessment, like placement tests and program portfolio reviews. How important is it for assessors to know the demographic or cultural background of test takers or portfolio authors when evaluating their writing? If this information is necessary, how is it to be dealt with? Should placement test readers' training entail some cultural orientation that discusses the backgrounds of test takers? For the portfolio, should the reflective piece or some preliminary cover sheet contain demographic background? Basically, how attuned to the cultural background of test takers should evaluators be? In what ways? What would this mean for validity?
Hi Tabitha,
DeleteYou have raised some good points. Granted I come from a skewed perspective on this. When I took a course on assessment for my MATESOL degree we learned about TOEFL and IELTS exams. So what I have to say stems from that background. The basic assumption is that the writers do not come from the same cultural background. However, the IELTS may less of that assumption but I'm not entirely sure. When it comes to a US context, I wonder if having demographic information may influence raters to go higher or lower based on the information provided. This might be an interesting study to conduct. Does anyone else have an opinion about this?
Hi, Anna-Karin!
DeleteThanks for sharing your experience and insight with us! I have always wondered what the TOEFL was like, as it was a high-stakes test back home and determined whether an ESL student could begin to take classes at the University or had to go to the English Language Institute first, which was very costly per credit.
You posed a really good question about bias! I do wonder how demographic information might create bias, and in what specific ways.
In _On a Scale_, one of the most intriguing sections for me was in Chapter 4, "Borderline People: A Decade of Turbulence." Eley comments on the magnitude of testing and its high stakes: "Testing is no game . . . It is in deadly earnest. If tests are misused, the consequences can be far from trifling. Lives can be warped and careers ruined. . . . The strength and vitality of a nation may be jeopardized" (qtd. in Elliot 166). We talked in class about some of the stakes of testing, such as school funding and teacher reappointment. As Common Core and legislative bodies continue to mandate large-scale assessments, the stakes get increasingly higher. As I mentioned in this class, John Oliver discussed this in his episode on "Standardized Testing" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k). Do you know of other consequences of the "business of testing" (Elliot 166), either from your readings or from anecdotal evidence, particularly in the higher education context? We know what happens when assessment is executed well and is valid and reliable, but what are some examples of what happens when it is not? How are different stakeholders affected?
ReplyDeleteI think knowing the stakes and consequences is of import, especially as we find ourselves as stakeholders.
Thanks for sharing the link from John Oliver! I wonder if I would have felt better about taking the GRE or SAT if someone had said, "Here comes the monkey!" In response to your question about consequences of tests, I can't think of any per se, other than what John Oliver mentioned, along with the influence on culture. In some ways society/culture becomes a stakeholder in the tests as well. The pressure of the high school exit exam in Hong Kong, has trickled down to nursery schools in that if you can get your child into the right nursery school, she can get into the right primary school which will then get her into the right secondary school which should allow her to get a good score on the exam and into one of the eight universities in Hong kong. While watching John Oliver a thought came to mind while watching the video related to what would happen if instructors in higher education were evaluated the with 'value added analysis.'
DeleteThere were two things that struck me as I was reading _On a Scale_. The first was that I didn't realize that writing assessment was so closely linked to psychology IQ tests, and the other was how white/privileged the key players in ETS/College Board were. From a previous class on epistemology, I kept thinking about how critical race theorists perceive the ETS/College Board. After class, I have started to imagine what would higher education look like if there hadn't been these gate keeping exams "preventing" certain groups of people from attaining university education? I look forward to reading Race and Writing Assessment to see where things are currently headed.
ReplyDeleteHi Anna-Karin,
DeleteLike you, I could not help but notice all the privileged white men, and some women, involved in developing the prominent institutions of writing assessment.
Questions have been raised throughout the years regarding racial validity, even from within the ETS institution: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/11/the-bias-question/302825/. Matthews does a good job about contextualizing this controversy and the considerations of higher education assessment, especially, as you noticed in previous posts, the influx of the consumerist approach in education and the increasing attempt to quantify thinking skills.
Again, as we find ourselves as stakeholders in the assessment enterprise, we have our own experiences informing our questions. As Matthew claims: "Nearly all those involved—ETS and College Board officials, University of California researchers, high school guidance counselors and admissions officers from those schools that would be affected by a change in the SAT—are, like Freedle, practical people with a seemingly distant but still compelling goal. They want to remove barriers that limit young people's choices in life." A worthwhile reading of Elliot might consider how barriers have limited or expanded people's choices and how barriers can be expanded in the present and future, especially as their choices have lasting implications. It is worthwhile noticing the structural barriers and then possibly explaining these structures to students as they take assessments.
Also, while Elliot provides a very thorough timeline, PBS did one until 1960, ending with the University of California's requirement of the SAT: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/timeline.html.
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ReplyDeleteAfter today's class on _Very Like a Whale_, I was thankful for Bill's clarification of terms like "validity" and "construct modeling." The discussion led me to consider some other terminology that I find somewhat ambiguous--like a camel or whale.
ReplyDeleteOn page 19, White, Elliot, and Peckham explain the differences between "assessment" and "evaluation." As they mentioned, I, too, often used the terms synonymously, rather than understanding evaluation as a subset of assessment. The authors explain their use of the word "assessment" over "evaluation," saying that it was more "capacious" for their purposes in this text. I remember Guba and Lincoln even circumventing defining "evaluation" within the first sentences of the first chapter, because they claim that there is no answer to the question of what evaluation is, and therefore there is no point in asking the question (21). After all of our readings in the course thus far, I have an inkling of the differences, but I am glad that it was clarified a little bit further in _Very Like a Whale_. I also found this handout from Duke University clarifying the differences, and I found it to be helpful: https://arc.duke.edu/documents/The%20difference%20between%20assessment%20and%20evaluation.pdf.
I was wondering, though: How do you all understand the difference between "assessment" and "evaluation"? How would you clarify the meanings to someone who has not had the privilege that we have of taking a seminar on assessment?
Hi Tabitha,
DeleteI think for a long time I've thought of assessment as a final test (more summative than anything else). After taking a course on assessment for my master's degree, I started to begin to think about assessment as formative or process oriented. However, I often find myself defatting to my original understanding if I'm not in the mix of thinking about the differences or working on/with ways to assess students. I like the handout from Duke for which you provided the link. It simplifies the differences even more. One of the things I've been realizing in working on my PhD that since i began working after earning my master's degree I've made up my own definitions based on what I learned even if they are not exactly true. I don't know if this answers your question or not, but I hope it helps. :)
I think I learned more from discussing _Very Like A Whale_ than I did when I was reading it. The book discusses e-portfolios a bit, and I was wondering how widespread those were. My school in Hong Kong was trying to get the associate degree students to create e-portfolios to help them stand out to employers or bachelor degree programs. Prior to HK I had never heard of an e-portfolio. As faculty we were also encouraged to create e-portfolios of our achievements and courses taught. I realize that the e-portfolios discussed in the book are more about writing than achievements, but I was just wondering if e-portolios were rising in popularity across the country for writing.
ReplyDeleteThe other question I have, and it is rather minor and not related to the content in the book per se. Does anyone know what is meant by a 'white paper' as mentioned on p. 61? I had never heard the term until I was in Hong Kong, and the usage was in relation to official documents from the government (whether Hong Kong's local government or the government out of Beijing. A classmate last year dropped a course asking students to write a white paper, and that was the first time I had heard of the term being used in academia. Seeing the term again, I'm still not sure what exactly is meant by it.
I have tried to reply to this post for almost a month now and my reply keeps getting deleted, and I don't know why. I have screenshots of this unfortunate phenomenon. I have emailed my reply directly to Anna-Karin, and if anyone wants a copy, I can email it to you, too.
DeleteFor the record, I have tried to post to this twelve separate times in the span of a month.
DeleteHi Everyone,
ReplyDeleteHere is my draft of my Assessment Term Project, "Purpose, Pedagogy, and Praxis in the UOG English Placement Essay Scoring Rubric" for your review: https://1drv.ms/w/s!AgjVmHf4H81igXs0h7slvw2LVjMC. If you would like a more readable format sent directly to you, please feel free to email me: t.velasco@wsu.edu.
Thank you, in advance, for your feedback! I appreciate your help!
One of the many things, that struck me from today's discussion was something that Bill said about 'teaching for success' rather than 'teaching for failure.' Thinking about my own education, I know that being in the sciences at first there was a bit of a teaching for failure attitude/mindset. Maybe not overtly spoken, but it was a reality to keep in mind. Maybe you should think twice about this major if you're not making good grades. Then with teaching ESL, I have to be mindful of students' strengths in the language whether oral or written; but at the same time I'm not supposed to correct every mistake and crush the students' desire to practice the language. I know that I can default to 'teach for failure' as the students may not seem to try, or put much effort into learning English. Has anyone else thought about their teaching, if it is 'teaching for success' or 'teaching for failure'?
ReplyDeleteHi Anna-Karin,
DeleteI think when it comes to assessment, I agree that there is a temptation to "teach for failure," especially when the stakes are so high. We think that because there are limited resources, we have to somehow control access to them.
I especially think that the perception of first-year composition teachers as "gatekeepers" has a lot to do with this attitude. Like you said, many may claim, "If you're not making the grades, then you don't make the cut. College probably isn't for you." We think that first-year composition courses are somehow meant to "weed out" who isn't cut out for college, raising the stakes of our assessments and putting the onus for student success on ourselves and our judgments. We know from experience that it's much more nuanced than that, and student success (whether in college or not) is dependent on more factors than if they can pass English 101.
In _Race and Writing Assessment_, Behm and Miller explain that when teachers assign "outmoded, decontextualized grammar and usage exercises," they are implicitly eradicating deviant language patterns, functioning as a gatekeeper and destructive force, negatively assessing the competency of students of color (137). This implicitly establishes a framework of cultural racism. I think it's important for us to consider how many of our teaching and assessment practices reinforce these "gatekeeping" mechanisms that keep students--particularly those of color--from gaining access to the help and resources they need. This awareness can entail interrogating the supremacy of rubrics or teaching strategies that enforce monolingualism, which excludes students from multilingual backgrounds (Behm and miller 137). For those of us who teach in areas where multilingualism is the norm, it is especially important that we "teach for success," with a consideration that the path to it is multifarious.
Thanks for insights, Tabitha! I'm glad to hear of others' thinking about this paradox of "weeder" courses, and the elements that cause the 'teach for failure' mindset.
DeleteI have been thinking a lot about how my actions in the classroom act as "gatekeeper," rather "than gateway." Thanks for that great question!
DeleteAfter reading Race and Writing Assessment, I was intrigued by Inoue and Poe's suggestion of "Fourth Wave" writing assessment from pages 136-138. It reminded me of Guba and Lincoln's Fourth Wave Evaluation in terms of constructivism, though a more focused form of constructivist pedagogy. While I understand the call to account for intersections of race and writing assessment and to interrogate assessment practices that construct white habitus, I was wondering how this would look in our classrooms. For those of you who have taught, have you approached Fourth Wave writing assessment? If so, in what specific ways? If you have not taught or have not considered Fourth Wave writing assessment, in which ways can you ensure you "place whiteness and 'color-blind racism' at the center of scholarly discussion of classroom and programmatic writing assessment"? How can we use assessment to evaluate and perhaps even rectify the power structure?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I was so invigorated by today's Assessment Term Project presentations! I think everyone did an amazing job! I look forward to hearing more about the developments of your projects!
ReplyDeleteIn _Very Like a Whale_, White, Elliot, and Pekham rely on an environmental metaphor of growth to frame assessment programs. This metaphor, they write, stems from the allocation of resources within circumstances of scarcity (160). Growth and sustainability as an analysis focuses on past action, present decisions, and future developments so key boundaries can be established to allow the writing program to extend its influence to the entire campus (160). My question, then, is how do you see your project fitting into the metaphor of growth and sustainability? Put more simply, what do you hope will be accomplished as a result of your Assessment Project, in terms of either the writing program more broadly or maybe even more specifically just assessment within your own classroom?
For myself, I do hope that the UOG Placement Essay Scoring Rubric can be revised to better fit the local context. I don't explicitly say so in my paper, but I would like to think good would come out of my analysis. Altruism definitely makes the work feel more worthwhile.
Dear Bill,
ReplyDeleteafter reflecting on reflection writing in and out of class, I propose time to peer review each other's reflection drafts as part of our next and last class.
Edie-Marie
I concur!
DeleteEdie, I am glad that you brought this to the class blog after I proposed this idea to our classmates and we all had a collaborative discussion after last week's evaluations. I do think it would be beneficial to work together to both model and benefit from reflective writing in the composition classroom.
DeleteI agree. My course syllabus requires that my students produces several reflections of the course, and I am writing a review on a book all about the importance of reflection. And here I am sitting down to write my reflection, and its hard to even start....
DeleteI'm bring in a draft, and am looking forward to getting feedback and seeing how you all went about reflecting :)
Today in class we discussed how to assess Critical Thinking in our classrooms, which entails integrating it explicitly into our instruction and assignments. Furthermore, the CCCC Position Statement for Postsecondary Teaching of Writing explains that one way to teach critical thinking and critical engagement is to prepare students to write in different contexts and disciplines: "Instructors emphasize that writing development is continuous and supports learning, engagement, and critical thinking by using activities and assignments to help students learn and engage with information, ideas, and arguments within specific courses. Beyond specific writing courses, instructors emphasize this purpose when they create opportunities for students to recognize expectations for writing within their disciplines and use writing to help them prepare to participate in their intended disciplines."
ReplyDeleteI was wondering how often you are able to "help students learn and engage with information, ideas, and arguments within specific courses" and "create opportunities for students to recognize expectations for writing within their disciplines" in your courses. Namely, how have you been able to share with students that the writing they do in FYC is not just prerequisite but truly helpful for the types of academic writing they will be doing in their major courses. Back home, I used to assign an essay on the conventions of the students' academic discipline. Are there other assignments that you all have formulated to engage students explicitly in the type of writing they can anticipate in their major, as a form of critical thinking? I certainly think these skills of transfer would benefit them not just in the university but hopefully beyond, in their workplaces.
Tabitha, you ask a good question. I have thought about this as well for the ESOL context. James (2010) found that the majority of the skills covered in his general English for academic purposes course he taught at a university in the States, transferred easily to humanities and social science major courses. The students in his study from business or science majors had limited transfer of English skills. In Hong Kong, when I taught students from engineering programs, I felt like I was in a losing battle of trying to show relevance for the English language. The courses I taught in Hong Kong that were more workplace driven/relevant were easier to motivate students to work on their English. Getting a job and earning money were high motivators rather than being able to write a good essay for another class. I also have found that when I share my personal experience in mistakes (learning moments), I have the students attention more than if I just focus on the writing task that needs to be addressed.
DeleteHi Anna-Karin,
DeleteI always appreciate your TESOL perspective and considering of contexts outside the United States!