tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8255957639083024024.post3264792344576788478..comments2023-05-25T08:15:20.115-07:00Comments on {Musing Mathematically}: Rubricized: Thoughts Provoked by SkempNat Bantinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08088568485640783921noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8255957639083024024.post-80185439270828904502013-04-09T21:08:05.862-07:002013-04-09T21:08:05.862-07:00I try something very different in the assessment o...I try something very different in the assessment of my statistics students. First, there's only one "formal" assessment -- the final exam. Other than that, I tell students that it is my job to understand their thinking no matter where I see it, whether it's in a class discussion, group work, office hours, homework, or something else. My personal record-keeping is a simple marking of "doesn't know," "is getting to know," and "gets it," and beyond that my focus is on feedback, which often comes in the form of one-to-one feedback in class, or screencasting a response if I'm grading their homework outside of class. The feedback is paramount, not the scoring and ranking. Am I still looking for instrumental understanding? Sometimes. But often I just want to sit and listen to a student talk about how they approached a problem, and in that I think I'm looking for the relational.<br /><br />I should mention that my class was small and only met once a week. I also recognize that I get almost complete autonomy in choosing how I teach the course, and deviating from instrumental traditions is easier when the building you work in is filled with assessment experts who describe what you think you're trying to do. We should all be so supported.<br /><br />If you get a chance, I suggest you try reading Lorrie Shepard's "<a href="http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/TheRoleofAssessmentinaLearningCulture.pdf" rel="nofollow">Assessment in a Learning Culture</a>." It's not long and I apologize for the diagrams not being clear, but it's a really important article in this area. It gives me hope that we can keep rethinking and refining our assessment practices and reach Shepard's goal of having good assessment tasks that would be interchangeable with good instructional tasks.Raymond Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14213559862857292867noreply@blogger.com