Plugging the assessment conversation
I’ve been reading a few posts from Autono Blogger which delve into assessment and testing. The first part of the trail, or where I picked it up anyway, begins here. Marco explores a variety of interesting topics: Unpacking touchy-feely assessment. Hoop jumping. A quick quote from this theme that I think is meaningful:
"students learn that "education" means jumping through hoops… not learning anything of value. I see this year in, year out in my own classes: students who, from the outset, don’t expect to learn anything of value (they seem to have given that hope up long ago) but only aim to pass the course; indeed, they are just "doing the time". "How many classes can I miss without failing? Have I missed too many classes yet?" These are the vital issues, not whether they’ve mastered the content or the target skills." (Naace Conference Blog � Computers in Education: An alternative view, Autono Blogger)
Ouch. I encourage you to read through his post, but then wade on into the comment at the end. Well said.
Then the trail jumps here. Marco goes a little deeper into the "touchy-feely" thought he got started with in the first post. I totally agree with him there. I think the spirit behind recent conversation [see this blog, James’ "The Demise of the Red Pen" ] is not about hurting the feelings of students with feedback in red. It’s more around being meaningful in how we deliver feedback. Not IF we should. HOW we should.
I really identify with Marco’s quote there…it seems so many students are just putting in time, not wanting to learn new things, but just jumping through those hoops.
the lowest level of activity
the least quality in learning
this is tough. Sometimes you just feel like an entertainer, standing in front of a class of people who just want to be entertained for an hour or so…not learn, not be challenged.
It is pretty passe (especially in gr12) to be challenged (speaking from the student point of view here), yet this is the very thing I want to do…I want to challenge….talk about ideas, things that inspire…but it is pretty hard to talk about these things when you are confronted with vacant gazes and people continually looking at the clock.
And who, by the way, put that bloody clock on the back wall, so that students have to turn most of the way around to look at it….not subtle at all.
I think this is the death of the classroom teacher : apathy. Student apathy just sucks the life right out of me in class…sometimes I just want to swear to get a rise out of them (haven’t done that yet…it is a last resort).
Maybe a smoke and lights show would get their attention, but I am not an entertainer.
I am a teacher.
If they want entertainment, they can go to Disneyland.
A bit of a rant there, sorry…
I think the classroom should be exciting; the classroom should be a dynamic and charged learning environment.
Unfortunately, students looking for the latest required hoop to jump through don’t really care about that kind of excitement.
they want their mtv
How can we combat this?
Deconstruct the hoops? After they have jumped through them for 12 or so years??
I’ll leave it at that.
Comment by James Matthew — March 10, 2006 @ 12:09 pm