I wanted to point out something that I thought was interesting when I read it in the chapter on Portfolios. (I know it's hard to believe I didn't point out everything that I thought was interesting in class.) I noticed that one of the benefits that the book gave to having students complete a portfolio is that the instructor has the opportunity to view it as a reflection of how effective the class has been. I guess this could be said of any sort of assessment (although I don't remember ever hearing it about tests or other assignments). I have never been in a class that had a portfolio requirement, so some of you who have (or require portfolios from your students) may have a more insightful comment on this. I am trying to imagine how this might work, and I guess that a teacher grading a portfolio of student-chosen assignments would first of all get to see which writing assignments were most meaningful or interesting to the students. Second, the teacher, like the student, would get to see how far the students have come, partially due to his/her instruction. Can anyone else think of how a portfolio might be informative to the teacher about his/her class?
As I think about portfolios and grading in general, I think it is important to not only think about the grades students get as a reflection of how hard they worked but also how effectively we taught the material. I know that as a teacher, there are times where I realize that I must not have taught something as clearly as I thought since most of my students did not know the correct answer. I have also been on the other side of the equation in a class where the professor assumed that we knew the material because we had "covered" it in class. There is definitely a difference between teaching something and covering it.
What do you think? How might our students grades inform our teaching?
I think that is a good point about paying attention to which assignments the students chose to put in the portofolio. In particular if there was a common thread as far as one that students left out or perhaps all students put in. I suppose that would be more meaningful if you even asked the students to order the assignments by some criteria but that would be tricky as I don't know if students would actually do this if there was not a means to assess it.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about grades as much as student progression is the focus on "teaching". However, I don't have any experience assigning grades yet so I am not experienced in this area. However, I do have experience watching students progress in learning English. I suspect it obvious when students are engaged are quality is being produced. Sometimes, I think grades have additional factors in their calculations which might include some sort of curve or "throwing a commonly missed question out". But perhaps in this act of grading and considering these additional calculations you might notice trends that you will consider for informing us on the teaching aspects even if the grade itself is adjusted and does not reflect this? (again, I have no experience with grading myself).