Caught a student teacher having her students pass their assignments back for the student behind to mark (last person in row brings it forward to person in front desk). This is a fairly common practice among classroom teachers, but it is a very, very bad idea.
It is bad evaluation practice because students routinely 'fix' mistakes for their friends, misinterpret directions or answers, are too narrowly literal or too generously accepting of variations in acceptable answers. The assessment data produced thus collected is therefore unreliable-- and if the data one is collecting is unreliable, why bother?
it is unprofessional because grading is the teacher's responsibility, and should not be delegated to student slave labour -- time spent by students marking other student work for the teacher may well save the teacher's time and energy, but diverts class time from learning. The teacher is supposed to be there for the students' needs, not the other way around.
But mostly my objection is that it is an unethical practice because it violates the students' right to confidentiality. Teachers may regard "passing back" of spelling or math tests a trivial matter, and the waste of instructional time or the danger of unreliable data of little importance. But the student (and their parents) may take a different view.
My daughter, for example, has dysgraphia (a relative of dysexia) that makes it difficult for her to spell. For years, teachers using 'passing back' marking caused my daughter considerable embarrassment as the students marking her work invariably told others in the class laughable examples of my daughter's poor spelling. As a consequence, all her peers believed her to be a weak student (they of course phrased it in less complimentary ways) and their taunting caused her no end of difficulties. All because (a few of) her teachers shirked their responsibilities for marking. And she is just one example -- by definition, every classroom has students who perform badly for one reason or another (including lack of ability) and they all have the unconditional right not to be humiliated. If students choose to share their scores with each other that is one thing; but it is unethical and unprofessional for a teacher to disclose a student's grade to the class or to allow students to view other students grades--the practice is simply unacceptable.
So it is a topic that I hammer on pretty heavily in my evaluation classes. So when I found a student teacher doing "passing back" marking, I of course questioned her. To my utter astonishment, instead of saying she had to because her Teacher Associate insisted, or admitting she'd slept through that part of the evaluation course, she said that she thought we had told her to include peer assessment in her evaluation strategy! As if 'passing back' marking constituted peer assessment! After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I tried to explain the difference between having kids scoring a quiz for the teacher, and students providing constructive feedback to each other through portfolio conferencing, workshops, rubric design, etc., etc., etc. Not sure how successful I was. Generations of teachers have modeled bad evaluation practice; it is an uphill battle to move the profession towards more professional practice. If all this student teacher has ever seen is 'pass it back', how could she know to, or how to, organize her students for peer evaluation?
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Textbook Proposal
Pitched assessment textbook to a publisher this week, had it tentatively accepted. Title, The Cheap, Simple, Straight-Forward Guide to Student Evaluation, says it all.
But honestly, it drives me crazy when text salesmen come around and want to sell me a text that sells for $140+ (and god only knows how much markup the u bookstore will add to that!), of which I can only use three chapters in my course, and which the students will never open again once the course is over. Most evaluation texts devote hundreds of pages to theory which no classroom teacher needs, but which ed psych profs insist on teaching anyway. My attitude is that most of that stuff can wait till grad school. What pre-service teachers need is just enough practical hands-on skills (how to write a multiple choice question, how to set an essay assignment, how to handle oral questioning) to survive practicum and the first two years of teaching. The sort of info I offer on the website.
I figure we can sell the text for under $25 and it will be something students would actually keep around and consult for at least their first couple of years of teaching. I want to see my text on teacher's bookshelves, preferably dog-eared from their constantly consulting it, not in student's trash at end of term. I'm guessing the e-version of the text could be even cheaper -- maybe as little $5. I would have no hesitation asking students to spend $5 on a text; but I cannot bring myself to ask them to spend hundreds on the uniformly pompous, tedious, bloated texts that are currently out there. Up to now I have simply refused to buy texts and just used a custom learning resource (i.e., course reader printed by bookstore) but the price on that has kept creeping up, and as our university is one of those refusing to sign off on ACCESSs new copyright agreement, books of readings have become almost impossible to produce. So time for me to produce my own cost-effective text.
I know it's what I want in for my class, and my publisher is betting that once its out there, other profs will use it too. Or if not, their students will certainly buy it, whatever the official text for the course.
Because in addition to a focus on what preservice teachers really need to know, I intend for the book to be readable -- plain, readable English with touches of humor. I can't stand how pompously serious all the other textbooks are. The last time I took a text to a major academic press, they made me edit out nearly all the humour. This makes no sense to me, but they said profs on other campuses reviewing the manuscript all complained that they felt they were teaching a serious course and needed the text to be serious. Because I had a coauthor, I had to go along with deleting huge chunks of what I considered to be the really interesting bits. That's so wrong! Students want entertaining writing. "Serious" so often translates as "pompous" and "tedious", that it kills students' love of the subject. They want to see the same passion in the text as they get from good profs. (I sometimes wonder if those profs who rejected the funny bits in that manuscript felt threatened by the text being more entertaining then they were....) The one article I went to the wall for was a provocative essay -- not funny as such, but totally in your face outrageous attack on standard interpretation of things. They let me keep that chapter in. So the text itself went by the boards as soon as my colleague and I stopped teaching that particular course (I changed campuses) but my provocative essay, I am pleased to say, is still reprinted in course readers across Canada, and there isn't a conference I go to that someone doesn't come up and tell me how much they love that article and how refreshing it was to read something not dull.
So, all those factors coming together -- realizing I've made far and away more money from the reprint of that one provocative article over time than from all my other textbooks and chapters put together; annoyance over the weak selection of outrageously overpriced options available to me from mainstream publishers; and the collapse of ACCESS agreements -- have made mesee it's time for me to write my own evaluation text.
If it goes over well, the Cheap, Straight-forward, Provocative Introduction to the Sociology of Education could be next.
But honestly, it drives me crazy when text salesmen come around and want to sell me a text that sells for $140+ (and god only knows how much markup the u bookstore will add to that!), of which I can only use three chapters in my course, and which the students will never open again once the course is over. Most evaluation texts devote hundreds of pages to theory which no classroom teacher needs, but which ed psych profs insist on teaching anyway. My attitude is that most of that stuff can wait till grad school. What pre-service teachers need is just enough practical hands-on skills (how to write a multiple choice question, how to set an essay assignment, how to handle oral questioning) to survive practicum and the first two years of teaching. The sort of info I offer on the website.
I figure we can sell the text for under $25 and it will be something students would actually keep around and consult for at least their first couple of years of teaching. I want to see my text on teacher's bookshelves, preferably dog-eared from their constantly consulting it, not in student's trash at end of term. I'm guessing the e-version of the text could be even cheaper -- maybe as little $5. I would have no hesitation asking students to spend $5 on a text; but I cannot bring myself to ask them to spend hundreds on the uniformly pompous, tedious, bloated texts that are currently out there. Up to now I have simply refused to buy texts and just used a custom learning resource (i.e., course reader printed by bookstore) but the price on that has kept creeping up, and as our university is one of those refusing to sign off on ACCESSs new copyright agreement, books of readings have become almost impossible to produce. So time for me to produce my own cost-effective text.
I know it's what I want in for my class, and my publisher is betting that once its out there, other profs will use it too. Or if not, their students will certainly buy it, whatever the official text for the course.
Because in addition to a focus on what preservice teachers really need to know, I intend for the book to be readable -- plain, readable English with touches of humor. I can't stand how pompously serious all the other textbooks are. The last time I took a text to a major academic press, they made me edit out nearly all the humour. This makes no sense to me, but they said profs on other campuses reviewing the manuscript all complained that they felt they were teaching a serious course and needed the text to be serious. Because I had a coauthor, I had to go along with deleting huge chunks of what I considered to be the really interesting bits. That's so wrong! Students want entertaining writing. "Serious" so often translates as "pompous" and "tedious", that it kills students' love of the subject. They want to see the same passion in the text as they get from good profs. (I sometimes wonder if those profs who rejected the funny bits in that manuscript felt threatened by the text being more entertaining then they were....) The one article I went to the wall for was a provocative essay -- not funny as such, but totally in your face outrageous attack on standard interpretation of things. They let me keep that chapter in. So the text itself went by the boards as soon as my colleague and I stopped teaching that particular course (I changed campuses) but my provocative essay, I am pleased to say, is still reprinted in course readers across Canada, and there isn't a conference I go to that someone doesn't come up and tell me how much they love that article and how refreshing it was to read something not dull.
So, all those factors coming together -- realizing I've made far and away more money from the reprint of that one provocative article over time than from all my other textbooks and chapters put together; annoyance over the weak selection of outrageously overpriced options available to me from mainstream publishers; and the collapse of ACCESS agreements -- have made mesee it's time for me to write my own evaluation text.
If it goes over well, the Cheap, Straight-forward, Provocative Introduction to the Sociology of Education could be next.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Exam Anxiety
The Tuesday, November 9th, 2010 edition of the CBC's news show, The Current had an interesting discussion on exam anxiety, described on their site as follows:
Exam Anxiety - Gabor Lukacs
Passionate debate is a core part of the university experience, and at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, the hot topic right now deals with academic policies at the university itself. Specifically, how far should the administration go to accommodate students with academic anxiety?
In this case, the university waived certain degree requirements for a doctoral graduate math student diagnosed with extreme exam anxiety. The student, whose name has been withheld, was ultimately granted a PhD.
University of Manitoba math professor Gabor Lukacs considered that an unacceptable breach of academic standards and has taken the matter to court. The University has since suspended the professor for three months without pay, accusing him of harassment, insubordination, and violating the student's privacy.
Gabor Lukacs joined us from Winnipeg this morning.
Officials of the University of Manitoba will not comment directly on this case, citing privacy rules. But university spokesperson John Danakas responded this to the university's policies regarding accommodating students with disabilities. We aired a clip.
In the 2008-2009 academic year, 136 University of Manitoba students were registered as having exam anxiety. That means they were able to provide medical documentation of their condition. Dr. John Walker is the director of the Anxiety Disorder Program at St. Boniface General Hospital in Winnipeg. He explained what exam anxiety is, and how he comes to a diagnosis.
Manitoba Math Fight - Carolyn Mamchur
We spoke to officials of several universities across the country, and they also noted more students reporting forms of academic anxiety. That doesn't mean faculty think it's a good idea to waive degree requirements for students debilitated by academic stresses.
Carolyn Mamchur is a professor of education at Simon Fraser University who has written extensively about how to address different learning styles and student anxiety. Professor Mamchur was in Vancouver.
You can give the podcast a listen at http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2010/11/09/nov-0910---pt-1-exam-anxiety/
Exam Anxiety - Gabor Lukacs
Passionate debate is a core part of the university experience, and at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, the hot topic right now deals with academic policies at the university itself. Specifically, how far should the administration go to accommodate students with academic anxiety?
In this case, the university waived certain degree requirements for a doctoral graduate math student diagnosed with extreme exam anxiety. The student, whose name has been withheld, was ultimately granted a PhD.
University of Manitoba math professor Gabor Lukacs considered that an unacceptable breach of academic standards and has taken the matter to court. The University has since suspended the professor for three months without pay, accusing him of harassment, insubordination, and violating the student's privacy.
Gabor Lukacs joined us from Winnipeg this morning.
Officials of the University of Manitoba will not comment directly on this case, citing privacy rules. But university spokesperson John Danakas responded this to the university's policies regarding accommodating students with disabilities. We aired a clip.
In the 2008-2009 academic year, 136 University of Manitoba students were registered as having exam anxiety. That means they were able to provide medical documentation of their condition. Dr. John Walker is the director of the Anxiety Disorder Program at St. Boniface General Hospital in Winnipeg. He explained what exam anxiety is, and how he comes to a diagnosis.
Manitoba Math Fight - Carolyn Mamchur
We spoke to officials of several universities across the country, and they also noted more students reporting forms of academic anxiety. That doesn't mean faculty think it's a good idea to waive degree requirements for students debilitated by academic stresses.
Carolyn Mamchur is a professor of education at Simon Fraser University who has written extensively about how to address different learning styles and student anxiety. Professor Mamchur was in Vancouver.
You can give the podcast a listen at http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2010/11/09/nov-0910---pt-1-exam-anxiety/
John Mighton on the Bell Curve
Provocative talk by John Mighton of the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences on The Ubiquitous Bell Curve: What It Does and Does Not Tell Us. The talk focuses on JUMP Math program and Mighton's work helping teachers learn how to excite students about mathematics. Mighton raises a number of key issues about teacher expectations, assessment, and students' ability to learn.
The talk is from TVO's Big Ideas series (highly recommended, whatever your interests).
Like all of TVO's Big Ideas series, the talks are made available as either audio or video versions. I find downloading the audio to my ipod, and then listening while cutting the grass, washing dishes, taking the bus etc. allows me to turn wasted time into productive time; but you may prefer to watch the video so you can see presenter's slides etc.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Redesign
Have started the redesign on my "How to write Tests" site. The old site was still getting 400 hits a month, but a lot of the links were no longer working, images weren't showing up, and the format was cumbersome. As IT closed down the server it was currently on, I would have had to rework all of the links anyway, and much of the coding was no longer compatible with modern browsers, so I just decided to redo it more or less from scratch. Including a blog, is one example of that expansion.
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