Month: February 2016

OMG, I’m Engaged!

“OMG, I’m engaged!!!” A phrase, I wish I thought in each of my classes, and a phrase I hope my future students think in mine!

Sorry to disappoint. This post has nothing to do with tidings of matrimony! Hopefully you are not too disillusioned, and you continue reading.

Alfie Kohn asserts the following in his article entitled “The Case Against Grades“:

  • It’s not enough to add narrative reports.  ‘When comments and grades coexist, the comments are written to justify the grade’ (Wilson, 2009, p. 60).
  • Grades tend to diminish students’ interest in whatever they’re learning.
  • Grades create a preference for the easiest possible task.
  • Grades tend to reduce the quality of students’ thinking.

Let’s assume the above is true. Let’s assume that a qualitative learning experience better prepares students for the real world, instills a sense of purpose, and overall engages students in a more effective and rewarding manner.

My quandary isn’t how you would pedagogically shift the classroom from grade based to experiential, but how you would enforce this from an administrative standpoint? How do you make certain that teachers and instructors are implementing this strategy in a way that is motivating, engaging, and facilitating learning? Would you enforce assessment and measurement for teachers, but not for students? How would promotion work, or tenure if in an academic setting? Perhaps this specific aspect would need to shift…or would unintentionally shift if teachers felt more fulfilled…

When looking at this longitudinally, if I’m teaching a course that some accrediting body requires for my students to go on and become a credentialed professional, how am I held accountable if I’m facilitating the education process in a non-traditional manner? While this article assures its readers of data which support that even medical students go on to be successful, as a university or school, that still doesn’t address the question of how an instructor’s effectiveness is assessed- if not through measurement?

What are your thoughts?

Grades- The More You Get, the Less You Learn

In the “Case Against Grades,” Alfie Kohn quotes a teacher who has de-graded his classroom stating that some of his high-achieving students did not like the system without grades, because “they viewed school as work and their peers as competitors.” After reading about the case against grades and reflecting on how it has felt to be a student most of my life, I can understand why students would feel this way about school. This is, in many ways, how it is structured- complete tasks, turn in products, have these products assessed. The system isn’t really designed for learning, it’s designed for this cycle to recur.

Another part from that article strikes me as well- Kohn cites the results of a study (Butler, 1992) that indicate that when students are asked to think about their scores on a task, they become interested in the scores of other students, but when they are just allowed to do the task, they become are more interested in what the other students created. If you think about the broader implications of this, it is remarkable how grades could inhibit collaboration and promote competition. I know that in our society, we are supposed to think competition is a good thing, but it seems to me like there is much  to be gained from collaboration. Perhaps, if grades are emphasized less heavily in the classroom, students will stop seeing their peers as competitors and start seeing the potential for collaboration.

“Authentic Assessment” as described by Marilyn Lombardi in her article “Making the Grade: The Role of Assessment in Authentic Learning” may be key to making school be more about actual learning, since assessment does still need to be done. By giving students the opportunity to develop critical thinking skills, it will both better prepare them for the workforce and be more enjoyable and meaningful to them. It seems like a win-win, although there is so much opposition to changing the status-quo. At the K-12 levels, teachers may face tight constraints on how they can structure their classes and grading systems, and college faculty may be too overworked to deal with it. I am hopeful that change will come, since there is an increasing need for it, but fear that it will be very slow. I think that a crucial first step is for everyone: teachers, policy-makers, university administrators, etc., to acknowledge that the purpose of education should be learning. Perhaps teacher constraints and faculty demands could diminish if there was a greater emphasis on real learning. Then other things, like better methods of assessment, could begin to fall into place.

 


Are tests and rubrics the enemy?

One of the challenges we face when trying to improve education is that opinions often greatly diverge as to the best course of action. This disagreement is evident in both informal discussions among colleagues as well as conflicting scientific studies on the topic. Alfie Kohn decries the culture of testing in schools in “The Case Against Grades.” According to Kohn, “frequent temperature-taking” in the form of tests is unnecessary and, furthermore, inadequate to evaluate student learning and progress. Kohn goes on to argue that grades produce anxiety among students that detract from learning and decrease creativity. I can identify with the feeling that tests sometimes do a poor job of asking students to show what they know. I have led a few lectures for my advisor in his undergraduate hydrology class, and he asked me afterwards to write a few exam questions on the material I covered. His tests are a combination of multiple choice, short answer, discussion, and calculation problems. I always found the short answer, discussion, and calculation problems fairly easy to write, and I think they can be crafted in a way that tests the knowledge of the student pretty well. However, I had a lot more trouble with the multiple choice questions. Maybe creating multiple choice problems gets easier with practice, or it might be somewhat of an art, but I remember thinking that no matter how I phrase the question or what answer options I provide, the questions just seem inadequate and either really easy or sneakily obscure. Kohn insists that tests should be a rarity, and Marilyn Lombardi talks about other options for demonstrating learning, such as portfolios.

To complicate matters, other pedagogical studies talk about how tests are one of the most effective learning tools and that we should test more, not less, often. Preposterous, you say? Perhaps. What I am referring to is called “the testing effect” and is discussed in Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Apparently copious research shows that, if you want your students to remember something, you should test them on it. A test does not necessarily have to take the form of a high-stakes, anxiety producing, multiple choice final exam. The authors include any form of information recall that students do without looking at their notes, such as using flash cards or quizzing each other. Any time that you have to work to remember something, your brain makes a stronger connection to find that information, so it is easier to do so the next time around. The authors also warn readers up front, “your students won’t like this.” However, they also give advice on how to incorporate the testing effect without terrorizing your students. Namely, giving frequent, low-stakes quizzes that do not really impact the grade that much, which also helps to decrease the negative connotation of tests. I was a big convert to the testing effect after reading this book, but I do have reservations about the frequent quizzing, which would become a form of taking attendance. I think Kohn is pretty extreme in his arguments, but I do not think that traditional tests are the best method of student evaluation in many circumstances. Portfolios, papers, and projects are often far superior options, but I think that tests do also have their place. For example, I tagged along during a dendrology field lab last week to observe the professor, and dendrology is definitely a class that requires substantial memorization. The professor did a great job of interweaving stories and context to the different trees and also gave students tips about how to organize their tree descriptions to see connections among species. He also quizzed the students four or five times during the class on trees they learned the previous weeks. I think this sort of class (anatomy would be another one) is a good candidate for frequent testing, which the dendrology professor is already doing. I guess I would caution that tests do serve a purpose in some cases, so do not completely overlook their potential

Similarly to tests, scholars disagree on the value of rubrics. Kohn thinks that rubrics discourage creativity by telling students what to expect and delimiting boundaries on the project. On the other hand, Lombardi promotes rubrics. The rubrics I have seen as a student are usually pretty general and do not seem to greatly constrain the project, especially if the professor includes something along the lines of “other project formats are acceptable but must be cleared by the professor to make sure it is appropriate.” I honestly think rubrics are kind of annoying, but I also believe they can be good to guide the assignment with a general set of expectations. In another book I read, How Learning Works: Seven Research-based Principles for Smart Teaching, the authors describe and then problem-shoot a common complaint of professors that students come into a class unable to carry over previous knowledge from former classes. The authors attribute this inability to a lack of “deep learning,” which may be the issue more often than not, but I also feel that sometimes students simply suffer from tunnel vision and do not think to apply knowledge they already possess in a new environment. Small prompts on assignment instructions or rubrics might go a long way in helping students tap into these other resources they possess. Thus, though counterintuitive, maybe such guidance can actually increase creativity? Rubrics are also good for transparency in grading to decrease resentment among students and help them to understand what they did and did not do well. I had a T.A. last semester who deducted points for nit picky and really just random and unfair reasons that made no sense or were flat-out wrong: we could do no right on our assignments, according to him. In the words of my friend in the class with me, “I have never felt personally attacked by a graded assignment in my entire life until now.” We never debated the grades with him to avoid being “those people” that quibble over points, but he would have avoided considerable resentment if there was a rubric at least suggesting some of the logic behind the strange deductions. It’s like, “if you wanted it that way, why didn’t you just say so?”.

Re-invent the Rubric and Put down the Red Pens

Reading through the articles this week, I was reminded of a class I took during my undergraduate career. The class was designed for athletic training majors and specifically related to injury assessment. Throughout the course, we had a series of practical assessments where we were given a list of competencies to get checked off. If we memorized the list from beginning to end and recited it back to the proctor you would receive an “A” in the class. However, if an athlete was truly injured I would have had trouble taking the information I memorized for that practical exam and applying it on the field.

 
A student is more than a letter grade! I feel like so many students determine their value by their grades. Providing meaningful qualitative assessment verses a simple quantitative number is much more constructive and provides authentic feedback. I also think it provides value to the student’s work. Rubrics are essentially “a chore list” designed for students that narrow their focus and cap their creativity. Students are focused on the next test and graded assignments as opposed to exploring learning independently. As both videos mentioned, motivation is sparked from autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Creating self-driven assignments/rubrics that allow students to explore learning without strict restrictions will enable students to expand their horizons. Can there be more than one correct answer? Check out this link where a student had the correct answer but was deducted points due to the methodology. Would you have marked the question wrong?

The Dilemma of Assessment

It seems many scholars nowadays have problems with the assessment of education. Their biggest concern is that present evaluating system cannot effectively measure students’ real knowledge or abilities, and thus cannot effectively encourage them to learn.

Riley questioned the “Outcomes-Based Education” and an “evidence-based” philosophy in engineering education and criticized ABET’s (Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology) recent revision of its criteria. She criticized the elimination of some broader consideration of a student’s ability such as political consciousness and professional ethics. She argued that such criteria are indeed useful and their elimination is ascribed to a rationale that these outcomes are not assessable.

Kohn, on the other hand, criticizes present grading system. According to him, grading at least has three shortcomings: it reduces students’ interests to learn, it makes students lazier by encouraging the easiest tasks, and it harms students’ quality of thinking.

Lombardi also indicates that present assessing system could make students passive information receivers who only learn the stuff that would be tested.

While all these researchers have their insights, I would add that the situations they described are largely a Western concern. In the developed world, educational resources are relatively abundant and it is not a dream for the majority to receive decent education, even college education. This is simply a luxury that most developing countries are still dreaming of. The scarcity of education resources causes a series problems, one of which is the corruption of education. In many developing countries students would know that going to a good school often means bribery in one form or another. In the end, the kids from better off families tend to enjoy better education based upon unfair competition. In this situation, objectified and standardized examinations are whole-heartedly embraced by the vast majority, because only such exams can guarantee relatively fair competition. The more “assessable” the exams are, the fairer. These education assessments very much welcome the “Outcomes-Based Education”.

Of course, the problem the third world is facing is not the reason to downplay the problem in the first world. It just provides a different view to look at the assessment of education.

Bye bye grades, hello chaos

I am a firm believer that grades do not accurately reflect the knowledge of a student regarding a certain subject. They certainly do not tell the whole story.

BUT, grades are an indicator of the level of the student. Just like when the doctor is looking at the test result of a patient, the blood sugar level is not the only indicator of good or bad health but rather one of many others.

Grades serve the exact same function. When assessing the “health” of a student in a certain subject, grades should be accompanied with a thorough assessment from the teacher. A combination of both those indicators could be closer to assessing a student’s ability, but not one without the other. This will make the teacher’s life harder but, in the long run, produce better quality learning and teaching.

 

Are Exams The Only Way of Assessing Students?

How many of us are scared when they hear the word “EXAM”. I bet most of us do. The reason behind this is the stress caused by studying and digesting fair amounts of information before a predetermined date and our will to pass the exam and get good grades. The exam itself is supposed to be a way of assessing how much knowledge a student acquires in a specific course. Let’s now ask some important questions. 1) Is the time of the exam (at most 2-3 hours) sufficient to design a set of questions that can span the whole syllabus? 2) Are exams the only way of assessing our students’ learning gains? 3) Do we assess our students to just give them a semester grade or to help and guide them improve their learning?

The answer to question 1) is absolutely no. How can I test the student in a set of topics I lectured through a whole semester in just 2 hours? Of course I will not be able to design the questions in such a way that it span the whole syllabus. Accordingly, most of the time I will just focus on those important or hard topics. This is not a real assessment. Unfortunately this is the way we were assessed back home in Egypt when we were applying for university. We were given classes for a whole year and then given a standardized test for 3 hours at the end of the year!! Another way to do that which is what is usually applied these days in the US and other countries is to have midterm exams in addition to a final exam and a set of assignments or projects. This may seem as a good approach at first. Now an exam doesn’t need to span the whole syllabus which is fine and may allow the professor to better assess and improve their students. However, this adds more stress to the students since now they will have to do all the assignments and projects on time and also prepare for the midterm and final exams.

Personally I see that some sort of assessment of course is necessary, but it doesn’t need to be an exam or a strict assignment. In most Engineering disciplines, learning how to do things practically is more important than just learning about some theories or concepts and dump them in an exam without applying them. Accordingly, I believe that practical colleges should focus more on activities that span the whole semester and based on milestones. For example, students can be given a set of projects that they should work on for the whole semester. And the professor should define a set of milestones that they should accomplish and their due dates (with a bonus for those who did it early and some sort of penalty protocol for late students). If the student fail to achieve the milestone, the professor then can sit with the student and discuss with him what he did wrong and how can he better accomplish future milestones. This way, I believe students will master the practical skills required for the course at the end of the semester. On the other hand we don’t want to ignore theoretical and conceptual knowledge. Accordingly, in addition to projects, students can be given a set of assignments that are intended to measure their level of understanding after each topic with the same due date protocol as in projects. The professor now can see the performance of his students and intervene when necessary if he find a student that needs help.

Having this strategy of assessment, I believe stressful exams are not required anymore and that professors will be now more able to guide and help their students.

Open Access Journals

Open access journals can be an important part of connecting the academic world with the rest of society. These connections are important in many fields including my area of study international relations. The journal I found was E-IR ( E- International Relations). They call themselves “the world’s leading open access website for students and scholars of international politics”.

I was familiar with this resource before the assignment. I use it when I’m looking for ideas in international politics or if I need a very basic overview of an issue to refresh my memory. Because it is aimed at reaching students and individuals who may not have a lot of literacy in this discipline, the articles are written simply without the abundance of acronyms often found in IR literature.

The journal is based out of Bristol, UK and is staffed with a largely volunteer staff made up of academics, international relations practitioners, and some students. Dr. Stephen McGlinchey the Editor-in-Chief  of the journal is a senior lecturer  in IR at the University of the West of England, Bristol. The journal writes about current events and politics shaping the world today, but it also includes some articles about IR in general to help readers better understand the events they’re reading about. I think that these articles and open access journals in general, fill an important gap. Too often academic research is just reported to the same small community, they are yelling into an echo chamber. These types or resources can help give relevance and influence to research by connecting it to the general public.

An idiot who deserved A+

Can a comedy play affect the education in a country? Unfortunately, it already happened. In Egypt, the educational system drastically changed because of “Madrasat Al-Mushaghebeen” (The School of Mischievous) play. The play was released in 1973 and was adopted from the the American movie “To Sir, with Love”. In this play, a group of five rebellious students kept failing and retaking their last year of high school. The students’ constant pranks led all the teachers to a mental breakdown which forced them to quit the school.  The play was first performed on a theater but due to its major success, it was recorded and broadcast on TV . For older people, the play was very funny. However, they did not notice that smaller kids got affected by this play and began mimicking these actions in their classrooms to gain their fellows praise. Alas, today teachers in Egypt are not much respected as in the past. I do not mean they are humiliated in classrooms, but they no more have the previous prestigious look from their students.

I remembered this sad story while I was preparing to write about a movie that discuss a great  educational pedagogy. 3 Idiots is an Indian movie which was released in 2009. In this movie, one of the actors was called “an idiot” by his professors in the university as he did not like the way they were teaching and assessing students. In a famous scene (you can watch by clicking the link), a professor asked him to define “the machine”. He gave a good definition and examples one of which was pants zipper. The professor got angry and asked “Is that what you will write in the exam?!”. The professor asked another student who gave a long definition as memorized from the book. The first student is an example of a creative mind which understands and relates things, and the later is an example of  who studies only for the exam (grade). The movie in other scenes also discussed the teaching philosophy of learning under pressure and learning for exams (grades). Finally, the movie shows what each of these students became in the future. It is needless to say that who was called an idiot became very successful in his life and that he deserved more than A+ in the college.

In his article, “The case Against Grades”, Alfie Kohn discussed the same problem of learning for grades. He mentioned that previous research has discovered that grades tend to reduce the quality of students’ thinking.  Students are less likely to wonder, say, “How can we be sure that’s true?” than to ask “Is this going to be on the test?”. The author gave good solutions for the case of grading and suggested that instead of giving letter or number grades to students, it is better to give them narrative reports about their progress. This could be hard at the begging especially for students and teachers who are used to use grades. However, experiments show that these descriptive reports helped student to learn better and not to feel pressure at all.

He also suggested a good way of giving grades, if the system insists on using them. The teacher could grab each student alone and discuss with him, according to the narrative report, the grade this student think he should get with the final word being for the teacher. This type of self assessment is being  used today in some school as a reference for students before getting their actual grades. Therefore, I think it would not be hard to apply the de-graded system using narrative reports while the self assessment could be used as a transition period.

Thinking about college, I think this type of assessment is not hard to apply at some fields like engineering. Many subjects now do not depend on exams as a source for grading. They depend on projects where students use their creativity to apply what they have learned. However, I think in some other fields this type of assessment might still not be applicable where students have to take exams.

Third Prompt: Assessing the problems with Assessments.

I should confess from the beginning of this post that I am not an engineer. I have never taken an engineering class, I don’t even have any engineers in my family. But when reading Donna Riley’s  paper about engineering assessments I new exactly what she was talking about. She argues “that this immediate crisis in engineering education is the logical result of an outcomes-based approach if what we value is assessable outcomes, then anything that appears difficult to assess (whether or not it is actually difficult to assess) will be devalued, and will ultimately drop off our list of educational goals”. This is certainly true in my field of political science as well.

A study a few years back asked graduates students in the political science department to create a political utopia. They were supposed to be unhindered by any material considerations. This hypothetical exercise was meant was supposed to leverage the creativity and innovative spirit of young scholars. The results were dismal. Not one of them was able to even hypothetically propose a system that differed from the one in which they lived. Their answers instead described minor tweaks in areas like healthcare, welfare programs, and education. This example highlights that overwhelmingly student’s creativity is hindered by something much more foundational. They’re natural problem solving abilities are being crippled by a system which is weighted too much on an “outcome-based approach”. Assessments are changing what we value in the academic world and creating students with a fear of failure. Assessments are an educational tool– a tool that now dictates how we educate students. This is a ludicrous as a hammer that informs the carpenter what he can and cannot build.

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