Noel, love the quote “You must learn the rules so you know how to break them and then you can choose whether to break them on purpose.”. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for your comment. This line “The Wall looks at systems of control and questions them, challenges them, and explores what happens when we accept control and what happens when we fight against control” summarizes The Wall so well!

Hi, thanks for your comment. I agree with your first half of the discussion regarding indoctrination and the compartmentalization of knowledge. However, criticism is an important part of living in this world. Constructive criticism is critical in making improvements to existing processes. Just because I presented a critical point of view does not mean that I don’t support schools – I am merely commenting on drawbacks of the current system which I think can be improved upon. There are plenty of folks who don’t go to school and remain illiterate – sure they manage to make a living and make sense of the world, but then they all end up voting for Trump ?

Thanks for your comment, Aakash. I think Freire’s work was appropriate for its time – without context it I can see it being taken as a hyperbole. We should adapt what we can from the text and apply it to judiciously to the current education system. I think this is what I wanted to convey when I said that Frier’s work presents a “pessimistic view”; hyperbole would have been a better word choice.

Thanks for your comment Dr. Nelson. i’ll definitely be looking more into Audrey Watter’s blog!

Thank you for your post. I agree that meaningful feedback works best, but I’ve also had so many students requests for grading rubrics (especially if they get wind that there is one). I am very hesitant about handing over the rubrics – there a varied number of reasons for this.

I have often used grading rubrics as a general guideline – I first assign a preliminary grade based on the rubric and go back and adjust the grade based on how I felt about the quality of the overall assignment (i.e. creativity and originality).

Don’t you think poor grades will help you identify knowledge gaps, that can be addressed in future lectures? Poor grades have never discouraged me from learning on the contrary it has made me put in more effort.

Surprisingly, I’ve enjoyed my grad school take home exams more. Mostly, because they have been far more challenging. I agree that the tests maybe hyper-specialized, but there is so much fun in tackling a new problem/puzzle with new found knowledge. On the other hand, undergrad take home tests were rather bland and numerical based where the bigger picture was often missing.

Yeah, that’s what I found best about repeated testing. It always kept me on my toes, otherwise I would just procrastinate till the test.

Thanks for your comment, yes, low-stakes (possibly non-graded) tests with lots of feedback from the instructor would be ideal whenever the format of the class allows for it. I’m glad that the repeated testing format has been studied extensively in pedagogical literature, I thought I was the only one advocating for more tests!