I really appreciated the reading for this week, Eric Liu and Scott Noppe-Brandon really spoke to us social scientists (well I am speaking for myself, I just really enjoyed their document as a social scientist and as a learner as well).  This idea of “Killing of imagination” is so true. Last semester I had a paper to write, the instructor encouraged us to be creative with the paper, we read narratives and poetry the week prior to the paper to inspire us and get ideas.  That paper was so difficult for me to start. Prior to grad school I prided my self in my narrative writing skills and “fluffy” writing concept (as a professor I had in undergrad once told me). But graduate school had conditioned me so much to “scientifically” write straightforward, “get straight to the point”, “no need for all these extra words”,”cite, don’t forget to cite properly” writing that this task that I use to love so much to free flow write was extremely difficult for me to at least start. I thought about it for a week, I sat in front of my computer for hours, nothing. Then I started and it all came back, it was just pouring out on my keyboard, it felt so good to let my imagination and creativity guide my writing. I thanked the instructor after turning in my paper, I told her it was difficult for me to start but as I my imagination shifted into gear I could not stop. Looking back I ask myself “What caused that block?” as mentioned before I once prided myself on the words I was able to put together to describe scenes in my head…my imagination had been kilt as I adapted to the way things are supposed to be, written and read in graduate school.

This brings me to the discussion that we had last week. Someone mentioned that she had never heard the phrase “This is just how it has been done for years” until she came here.  As a society I do have to say we have been conditioned and fixed to operate a certain way..”for years” or “years it has been done” without using our imagination. The reading touched on this concept as well the conditioning of to just operate in the way it is and has been done for years with out using our imagination. I also noticed it earlier. My childhood consisted of barbies, I collected them as well. I had the barbie car, the barbie dream house, the grocery store, the tour bus, the Spice Girl barbie, Pocahontas barbie, anything Barbie in the 90s you name it I had it! (still do). Came up with the best stories to play with them as well, my imagination as a child has great! My barbies had the best adventures, I do have to say so myself!

When went back home this summer and explored all the bins that stored my barbies for all these years and as I attempted to play with them and use my imagination to come up with the great adventures to take my barbies on as a 24 year old adult I couldn’t, it was hard I gave up and put them away. Something I once loved, all the stories, games and adventures my mind was able to create as a child was no longer able to do so. As I read the Imagination First document and the  “either you have it or you don’t” discussion I could not help to think of this experience and at the time I definitely felt like I did not have my imagination that day. The authors state that “the challenge is how to increase the potency and reach of the imagination”. As  learners and instructors this piece really encouraged the students use of imagination. With all this said and after reading this document it all makes sense! As instructors we should challenge our selves and our students to tap in or back into those imaginative spaces.

This also reminded me of the movie Hook with Robin Williams. Last year, someone really wanted me to watch it because I would really enjoy it do to my “imagination” and sense of humor. Long story short if you haven’t seen the movie Peter (Robin Williams) goes back to Never Land as an adult and has to use his imagination to see and even eat the things in Never Land. In one scene Peter is watching the Lost Boys were “eating” Peter couldn’t eat and see the food unless he used his imagination. Peter did he pushed his self to use his imagination and he did he saw the food, he ate, he tasted it and even started throwing it around and caused a food fight and the Lost Boys screamed “YOU’RE DOING IT! YOU’RE USING YOUR IMAGINATION!”

That same someone that told me to watch this movie and particularly this part of the movie told me “Take your imagination to the moon” “share everything you’re learning with others” and that is what I plan to do.

“To see oneself as pursuing a purpose and following a call, rather than merely going through the motion, is itself an act of imagination” pg.35  (act of reflection in action) -fighting the fear of what if

“Why imagination? Because without it, education is utterly empty” pg.30

I find the idea of grading to be important in the STEM fields because it makes the student accountable for the materials that were presented in class. Most of my undergraduate course required the traditional grading scheme where you have to put countless hours into studying in order to achieve the grades that you want. In terms, I do agree with Alfie Kohn that strict grading scheme does hamper creativity and causes the student to find the easiest task to get an “A”. In my undergraduate, I was able to take an “experimental” course in materials science. In this course, we were given options to “choose” the way that we want to earn the “A” in the class. We had options of writing weekly blogs on materials, writing midterm essays, performing research, creating a presentation about material topic and teach the class, etc. In that class I looked for the easiest assignments so that I can get it done quickly and focus on other classes. I remember very little from what I have learned in that class. In comparison, I can relate fundamental thermodynamics theories to the applications that I see every day. I find that the gradeless system may work to inspire creativity and pushes the student to self-explore, but it does not hold students accountable for the course topics. I find that it is “human nature” to take the path of least resistance in whatever they do. Therefore, unless the student develops a passion for that topic, they will only do the minimum amount of work whether it is grade or gradeless.

I disagree with the statement, “Grades don’t prepare children for the “real world…” made by Alfie Kohn. I find the that the GPA is a determination of the student’s perseverance, adaptability, and commitment. I personally have to put ridiculous amount of hours into studying in order to pull the GPA that I want.  That shows my commitment to “excellence” in whatever tasks that I am assigned with. Similarly, I am forced to take so many different classes in undergraduate that I feel the GPA represents my ability to adapt. It measures how well I am able to pick up new ideas and topic regardless of whether they are interesting to me or not. Lastly, I think it tests my perseverance because there are times that I have failed, but I kept on fighting for continuous improvement. Even though, the GPA does not truly measure a student’s intellectual capability or learning achievement, it does measure the commitment that the student has toward his education.

I do think that the traditional grading system needs a bit of modernization. Again, my experiences disagree with Alfie Kohn article stating that, “Initially Robbins announced that any project or test could be improved and resubmitted for a higher grade.  Unfortunately, that failed to address the underlying problem, and he eventually realized he had to stop grading entirely.”  The classes that I learned the most from are the ones that the teacher allows the students to make revisions on their assessments to get partial credit. The only assessment that the professor did not allow revisions was the final exam. This concept forces me to reevaluate what I have learned. It encourages me to take on harder tasks because if I fail, there is a chance to recover from. It is a great way to “force” the students to reflect upon what they have learned an improve it. If they don’t they will make the same mistakes on the final exam.

Woah…

Honestly, Kohn just kinda blew my socks off… There were so many moments where he really just knocked me off my game & really made me question my way of thinking… To tie back to previous discussions – that’s part of being mindful in your teaching though. Reading things, especially things outside of your normal way of thinking, and reflecting on it. This article was definitely an exercise in mindfullness for me.

“When school is seen as a test, rather than an adventure in ideas,” teachers may persuade themselves they’re being fair” – Woah…. This has been me lately… I literally had this thought this week… I’m currently working with our Senior Design class this semester and one of things I’ve been asked to do is develop rubrics for the course assignments. Previously this has always been a small class and it was easy for the professor to kinda just go with however he wanted to grade it that year. This year, the class size more than doubled and he wanted a little more structure that could be easily transferred from year to year. I discovered Canvas’ rubric setting and quickly fell in love. But one of the things I’m learning is that when I have a rubric that I’m grading from, my grading tends to be really rough… I tell myself that that’s the fair way to do it and that this is how the students can see up front how everything will be graded… But the more I read this article, the more I realized how this doesn’t jive with the rest of my teaching style. I’m very collaborative. I want to get to know my students and I really want to focus on how their learning the material and transferring it to knowledge instead of just memorizing information… I did struggle with the fact that this seemed to be written for students in secondary education but I can see in the effects of grading that he listed at the beginning in not only my students, but my peers, and even myself at times.

I do think grading has its place in higher education. (I definitely don’t think I could tell my department next year that I’m throwing out the gradebook for my class.) But I am intrigued by the applications for my classroom and combining these ideas with others I’ve seen to comprise my own “grading style” if there is such a thing. Through working on these rubrics for Sr. Design, I’ve actually been thinking a lot about what kind of assessment I want to in my class next year… The course I’ll be teaching is our Intro to BSE course which has both a lecture & lab component. I’ve been looking at in-class assessments, more problem-based lab assignments, and even lab quizzes to make sure they come prepared. This idea of not everything being graded is really interesting to me now. Maybe the lab quizzes can be self-graded at the very beginning so they can ask questions before we start about what they don’t understand.  The in-class assessments don’t need to be graded either and can just be for helping the students assess their own learning during the “lecture” time. “We Assess What We Value” and if what we value is students leaving our classroom being able to apply the knowledge provided to them in our course, being able to problem solve, or even just knowing how to learn then in the words of Kohn himself maybe “grading is problematic by its very nature” to what we’re trying to accomplish.

I’ll leave you with the one part in particular of this article that really struck me personally. It was the story of the student and his zen master. As a very goal-oriented person, I literally make goals everyday and I’m better when I make goals & deadlines for those goals. But it’s true. When you focus so much on how close you are to that goal, no matter how important, enlightened, or critical it is…

“If you have one eye on how close you are to achieving your goal, that leaves only one eye for your task.”

Woah…. Just Woah….

We hear people say, “I’m just not the creative type” all the time. Probably all of us have said it at one time or another, unless you actually happen to be incredibly creative. But, this phrase creates a barrier to learning, especially at an early age. Being creative, or rather the act of creating, forces you to ask questions and think critically. In many ways, this has become a lost art in standard educational practices. This portion of Eric Liu and Scott Noppe-Brandon short book, Imagination First, resonated with me because while reading, I made the connection that imagination, creativity, and assessment are all interrelated concepts. Everyone has an innate sense of creativity, it just needs to be cultivated in different ways. Designing more creative ways of assessing students, as Alfie John suggests in The Case Against Grades, could give students the motivation to be curious learners and use their imagination more.

I grew up with very rudimentary methods of assessment used between elementary school and college. The standard A-B or 100% scales. And, admittedly, I fell subject to being one of those students who simply worked for a high grade, either through rote memorization or easy assignments that were guaranteed to be easy-A’s. In my senior year of high school, I took a college-level writing course for college credit. Our teacher gave us a detailed rubric for every writing piece that year. Which, in turn, led to mediocre pieces of writing that fit the bill of the rubric, but lacked any substance. In fact, I can’t even recall a single paper I wrote in that class, just the rubrics. Looking back, I’m angry at myself for not taking more advantage of the opportunities I had in such classes.

But, however much I regret focusing too much on numerical or alphabetical grades, that is how you have to play the game when you are a student. You have to live up to certain expectations to receive x-grade that you want, and if you receive the proper x-grades, you’ll get into a prestigious college. If you receive exceptional x-grades in colleges, you’ll get a job after graduation or even get admitted into graduate school. It’s just the game that students now learn.

But, as Kohn’s narrative suggests, there are many alternatives to standard assessment methods. This is an exciting concept for me, especially since I have had little exposure to such methods in my own schooling, and I have yet to teach myself. I really enjoyed reading the concept of collectively arriving at a grade between a teacher and student, and was pleasantly surprised to hear that most students pick the same grade the teacher would have given them otherwise. This creates a more democratic system within the classroom. It also leads us to the question of the quality of teachers– It would take a lot more time and effort for a teacher to sit down with every student to review a quarter/semester, especially when many teachers probably are overloaded as is. But, I hypothesize that if a teacher truly wanted to make a difference in the lives of his/her students, they would be more than willing to spend that extra time. At least in a perfect world.

These readings made me interested to learn more about grade-less education systems. However, after a quick Google search, I found a Wikipedia page (yes, I know, Wikipedia…) that listed the grading systems by country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grading_systems_by_country

I didn’t see a single one that doesn’t use some type of numerical formatting (though I quickly skimmed through it so possibly missed something). Food for thought… what if an entire country became grade-less? Wouldn’t that be something…

Assessment has been one of the main focuses in education for as long as I can remember. From elementary school onward, there was always some big state exam on the horizon, in addition to the nearly constant steam of other kinds of evaluations. Does this focus on assessment actual increase students’ abilities to learn? What about long-term retention of knowledge? Alfie Kohn suggests, citing many sources, that our obsession with assessment may actually be counterproductive. It causes students to focus on the wrong aspect of being in school. Rather than trying to “make the grade” students should be encouraged to enjoy the process of learning itself. The inherent enthusiasm for learning that most people have is not harnessed by a grades-centric approach. Kohn suggests that usually it is the instructors and administrators, not the students, that benefit most from a focus on assessment. Shouldn’t education at all levels ultimately be about the students? As  Diana Oblinger lays out in “Making the Grade: The Role of Assessment in Authentic Learning,” traditional assessment methods miss the mark . Authentic assessment is a superior alternative to traditional assessment. It focuses on students’ learning of concrete, real-world skills and critical thinking over time. Memorization of facts and adherence to rubrics is not found in authentic assessment regimes. Ideally, at the end of such a program, students would be prepared to creatively handle complex situations. Putting such a program into practice is difficult however, given the current status quo and funding difficulties. Perhaps over time enrollment in institutions that do not focus on grades will become more commonplace, but for now, the focus on grades remains.

I personally like to view grades the same way I view the number that pops up on my scale: it’s just a number and it holds no barring on my value. I admit that it’s not always easy to tell myself those things after receiving a less than ideal grade on something I studied my ass off for or seeing a larger number than I had expected after eating lean protein and veggies. Just like we are constantly bombarded by media of what “beauty,” “health,” and “attractiveness” are, society tells us that our success is dependent on our education, our GPA’s, and our careers. College is an incredibly difficult time for numerous reasons and some students get wrapped up in letting grades define them instead of focusing on their growth as individuals. 

Our mindsets have shifted from choosing a major that interests, fascinates, and lights a fire within us to what will be the most lucrative in the long run. These mindsets have almost turned us into intelligent  and incapable robots. We take in information (sometimes), regurgitate it (sometimes), and spit it back out with little to no comprehension of what’s been heard or read. We look for buzz words, formulas, and other people’s work in order to (re)create work of our own.

For example, in the Public Speaking class I teach, there is a set rubric we are taught to follow and then grade from. It includes your basic public speaking skills such as eye contact, articulation, hand gestures, and a clear organizational pattern. These are all good things that I believe are important when public speaking but the rubric itself and the way the course is designed stifles any creativity on the student’s part. I’m obligated to knock off points for memorization, performances, and slam poetry pieces. It’s almost painful to write in the comments “I appreciated your creativity but…”

Something I struggle with is determining whether to grade to the student or grade to the curriculum. Do I punish a student for not performing to the rest of the classes standards even though they’ve improved tremendously? In a student’s mind, is a C+ really that much better than the C they’ve previously received? How am I suppose to motivate and encourage their improvement if I’m bound to “grade everyone on the same scale?” I understand the logic behind this but am still unsure as to how I feel about it.

When reading Lombardi’s article all I could think about was the importance of giving my students the opportunity to hear feedback not only from me, but from their classmates as well. I cannot take credit for this aspect of my courses, because it was suggested by my boss for all GTA’s who teach public speaking, but I capitalize on this opportunity as often as possible.

As someone who teaches public speaking, I have a lot of tips on how to best engage an audience and how to write a speech that is easy to follow, but I am not afraid to admit that I do not know all there is to know about public speaking.

The greatest part of my job is not teaching my students to become great public speakers, but learning from my students what makes a great public speaker. Day in and day out I learn amazing things from my students, and I try to give them as many opportunities as possible to learn from not only me, but one another. One way I facilitate this learning is by having the students assess one another’s speeches. I am always interested in how honest my students are with their classmates about their performances. They grade one another much more harshly than I grade them.

After reading the Lombardi article I have decided that in my next class I am going to explain to my students why these assessments they provide for one another are so important. I want them to understand that they aren’t simply a way to receive participation point or my way of keeping them focused during speeches, but that they allow them to see a wide range of perspectives, because even though I may be the one giving them the final grade, in public speaking you can’t only cater to one member of the audience you must consider the group as a whole.