Grading and the open end
I just posted my second final exam via weblog, and now I’m listening to the pleasant sound of twenty-six hands typing furiously. I wish it was in OpenOffice format, but we only have Borg Office in our computer classrooms. Some nifty projects to share this semester; I’ll say more about that before too long.
This semester I tried two new things, grading wise: audio commentary on drafts, and the use of the U grade. I will continue both in the spring.
Providing students audio commentary on drafts went well for me. I will soon find out how students feel about it. Though I managed to goof up some volume settings, resulting in quiet audio for some students, it definitely saved me a lot of time. I spent about half as much time I usually spend commenting on drafts this semester, and provided more detailed commentary as well. A few students were not able to figure out how to play sound on their computers, which shocked the heck out of me. No sound? I can’t imagine a computer without sound. Doesn’t everyone use their computer as a jukebox? for games? for YouTube?
The second was my use of the “U” grade—a provisional failing grade given to drafts or milestones which didn’t meet the minimum requirements. I didn’t think I’d have to assign U grades in 400 level courses. Wrong. And I didn’t go to this grade as quickly as I should have, nor did I explain it as carefully as I should have. Given that I’ve just been switched from a 300 to a 100 level class in the Spring, I will need to refine the way I’ve been thinking about it a little.
What of the open end? That’s the larger and more important question these issues point to: a basic principle of my pedagogy since my first semester of graduate school. And still a challenge. In all of my classes, both undergraduate and graduate students still asked, “What do you want, really?” And at times I still wrestled with providing guidance while making students find the way. I don’t think it’s ever going to be easy to find the right balance of open-ended assignments and assignment standards like page counts, prescribed form, etc. In most of my classes, figuring out the form of the assignment is part of the point, and I’m not going to give up on it.
Thinking in terms of standards, which I’ve definitely done this semester, has helped, and I’m going to do that more often too–in fact, I think I need to articulate more what an assignment standard, as opposed to an assignment sheet, would look like. The assignment as an request for proposals or a specification. Or perhaps an assignment API. What kinds of standards would work for students, I wonder?
December 11th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
And still a challenge. In all of my classes, both undergraduate and graduate students still asked, “What do you want, really?”
In my end-of-the-semester debrief for my Writing for New Media course today, I had a student say that he liked the way I would weave and dodge around their questions that tried to straight jacket the open-ended elements of the assignments. They complained uniformly that the confusing assignments ended up fulfilling as they figured out how to do them.
I did my usual song and dance about inventing our writing formats, but the effect was pleasing without that.
December 11th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
I haven’t looked at my evaluations yet, but one student said to me she was “completely lost” in week two, but by the end of week six had figured things out and felt very confident. That’s the journey we hope for….