Category: Week 5 – Assessment

“Knowledge is power, but has little value unless it can be easily accessed and put into practice”…….Melany Gallant

This quote speaks volume.  With the different restraints that are put on teachers in the classroom, creativity in the classroom appears to be a thing in the past. In today’s schools,  students are learning how to be great test takers. They learn what they need to know in order to pass the test.  Information is not being retained. In order for a student to truly learn a skill or strategy, it must be practiced and not just one time.  With the demands of  teachers having to teach a prescribed curriculum  in an allotted amount of time,  makes it difficult for true  learning to occur in the classroom.

With the existing transition from traditional education inspired by the notion of standardization toward more recent approaches, there is an emphasis on treating students as individuals. Taking this individualist approach seems necessary in both teaching the course content and assessing the student work. In “The Puzzle of Motivation” Pink discussed the trio of autonomy, mastery, and purpose as the most important aspects of self-actualization, which is somehow missing in today’s world of business and education. Also, Elbow (1993) discussed a number of problems associated with rank-based assessments and the benefits of qualitative evaluating methods. The contemporary way of looking at education and the two arguments made by Pink and Elbow call for a need for individual goal-oriented assessment plans. In the context of prevalent practice in higher education, such interrelated assessment methods do not typically take place. The common method is that students take a number of different core and elective courses, with each course having a separate assessment method. Although there are some levels of autonomy in selecting the elective course, the existing assessment methods do not really encourage autonomy, mastery, and any purpose other than passing the course and moving to the next semester. Nor is there a goal-oriented assessment attached to a self-development plan based on the gradual mastery of the curricular content. I think a major takeaway from the Pink and Elbow’s argument for contemporary pedagogical practices is that beyond base-line assessment techniques, instructors need to work with students to develop an individual self-development plan. Then, based on a primarily qualitative assessment method, instructors should help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and move toward their self-set goals. Pursuing a set of goals that have personal meanings while receiving proper feedback oriented toward personal achievement could increase intrinsic motivation and lead to student success (Cherry, 2017).

References:

• Cherry, K. (2017). Intrinsic motivation. (Blog Post)
• Elbow, P. (1993). Ranking, evaluating, and liking: Sorting out three forms of judgment. College English, 55(2), 187-206.
• Pink, D. (2009) The Puzzle of Motivation. (YouTube Video)

I think the first thing that anyone in the Higher Education master’s program thinks of when they hear the term “assessment” is probably not a positive experience from two classes we had to take during our first year.  This is not because of anything that our professor did, but more of the material and the assignments/projects we had for the courses. However, assessment is meant to be positive when we are thinking about how we can go about improving a process or learn more information about a process.

On a different not, after watching The surprising truth about what motivates us video for a second time, a lot of what is introduced was very interesting and provided a different take on several myths or assumptions many of us have about motivation and success. Even seeing the video before, I was still surprised that the large incentives did not lead to the most success. When thinking about why this would be the case, I am assuming the stress of wanting to get the large incentive adds pressure resulting in lesser performance. Whereas, a normal incentive of wanting to achieve some result, removes the increased pressure while doing the task. Along the same lines, Making the Grade: The Role of Assessment in Authentic Learning made a comment that “something like 90 percent of a typical university degree depends on unseen, time-constrained written examinations, and [instructor]-marked essays and/or reports.” I’m not surprised by the large percentage, but it is more interesting when combining that statistic with the results from the video. This could mean that students are not performing as well as they should be or expected to perform since they are under pressure and the stress of performing at a high level. I don’t know how this could ultimately change or how we would go about assessing the success in the class without using the examinations or an equivalent measure.

Also from the video I mentioned above, was how much autonomy in the workplace can result in success or an increase in production. The example used in the video shows how much even one day of autonomy can lead to success. It would be interesting to see if academics were able to mirror something similar to possibly find an increase in success or motivation.

Kohn’s article mentions that grading is detrimental to students. “Psychologists worry because grades fix students’ attention on their performance” (Kohn, 2011, p.2). In addition, grading systems “promote a fear of failure even in high-achieving students” (Kohn, 2011, p.2). I decided to find out how this fear may impact performance. Jennifer Crocker is “a psychologist at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research” (Dittman, 2002). According to her, worrying about grades may impact memory (Dittman, 2002). Dr. Crocker “speculates that students who base their self-worth on academic performance might become anxious and distracted and threatened by feelings of failure, and, as such, their anxiety might then interfere with their memory” (Dittman, 2002). This is important because worrying about grades (fear of failure) may negatively impact memory, which may lead to low grades.

Dittman, M. (2002). Self-esteem that’s based on external sources has mental health consequences, study says. Monitor on Psychology, 33(11), 16. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec02/selfesteem.aspx

Kohn, A. (2011). The Case Against Grades. Educational Leadership. Retrieved from https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/case-grades/

Kohn’s article mentions that grading is detrimental to students. “Psychologists worry because grades fix students’ attention on their performance” (Kohn, 2011, p.2). In addition, grading systems “promote a fear of failure even in high-achieving students” (Kohn, 2011, p.2). I decided to find out how this fear may impact performance. Jennifer Crocker is “a psychologist at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research” (Dittman, 2002). According to her, worrying about grades may impact memory (Dittman, 2002). Dr. Crocker “speculates that students who base their self-worth on academic performance might become anxious and distracted and threatened by feelings of failure, and, as such, their anxiety might then interfere with their memory” (Dittman, 2002). This is important because worrying about grades (fear of failure) may negatively impact memory, which may lead to low grades.

Dittman, M. (2002). Self-esteem that’s based on external sources has mental health consequences, study says. Monitor on Psychology, 33(11), 16. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec02/selfesteem.aspx

Kohn, A. (2011). The Case Against Grades. Educational Leadership. Retrieved from https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/case-grades/

The first time that I heard about Pink Time was in the Motivation and Education course when the designers of this idea inspired by  Daniel Pink’s TED talk and his book, were invited to our class to talk about this novel idea. That’s how it works:

They ask their students to skip the class three time times, do ANYTHING that they like, absolutely ANYTHING; no limitation or guideline,  share what they did with the class in the next session, and assign a grade to themselves.

They found it to be a very successful experience. Challenging students to learn something because they like it not for any other reason and helping them to become self-regulated learners.  At that point, for me who believes in the chaotic and unstructured nature of learning, this sounded like the most fascinating idea.

Fast forward to six months later, last semester, I took a course in which Pink Time was part of the syllabus. In the middle of the semester, we skipped one class, did whatever we wanted, shared it with people in the room in the next session, and assigned a grade to ourselves. I decided to read an article about STEAM education which I had in mind for a long time (which by the way, even with the excuse of Pink Time, I did not read the whole thing). As fun and entertaining the next session after the Pink Time session was, hearing about everybody’s activities and what they did, I did not like the whole experience. Here, I’m going to describe what I felt without analyzing it. While trying to figure out what I should do for my Pink Time, I found myself doing it with a sense of obligation. I was not excited. I was not adventurous (stayed within the academic structure (read an article)), and I definitely did not enjoy it. I was surprised by my feelings toward this experience to which actually had a pretty positive attitude toward before I got involved in it. This experience made me think whether this activity in this form is appropriate for all levels. When people get to the level graduate school, they are pretty much self-motivated. I loved the case made by Daniel Pink, but should the implementation of his idea in the form of Pink Time be modified for the different educational levels?

I look forward to reading your comments and ideas about this question.

Every semester I have taught, I have a conversation with my spouse that goes something like this:

Me: Ugh. I hate grading
Spouse: Don’t you want to teach for a living?
Me: Yes! But, it takes forever because I give so much feedback. I want students to know that I care and how to improve for next time.
Spouse: That’s cute. Your students don’t care. They want the grade so they can move on with their lives. Just give them the grade so you can move on with yours.

Every single semester. Am I delusional? Narcissistic perhaps? Do they genuinely care about my random comments about the content or how to demonstrate critical thinking further? Or do they just want to know why they got points off?

Kohn (2011) makes a case against grades, as students’ interest in learning is diminished and reinforces the desire to complete the easiest task. Further, quality of thinking is reduced when grades are given. Dan Pink (2009) reiterates this phenomenon in businesses that provide monetary incentives for completion of tasks. In several studies outlined by Pink, providing incentives for tasks involving anything above mechanical skill (simple if-then tasks) leads to poorer performance. This is completely contrary to everything economists have always hypothesized. Indeed, my fear of removing individual grades would lead to students never turning in their assignments. I know I’ve been there myself as a student. With so many balls in the air, why would I try to juggle one more thing that I won’t get any credit for?

Instead of motivating through incentives, Pink argues that we need to be thinking about how to motivate through autonomy, mastery, and purpose. I completely agree with this line of thinking. The “volunteer” work I’ve done throughout my time as a graduate student has fit into one of these three ideas. If I have control over my own actions, I can increase my skills, or I feel that I am making the world a better place, I am motivated to use my precious “extra” time to do these tasks.

This does help me conceptualize the reduction of grades in my classes. But only to a small degree. There is a very real tension between a teaching philosophy that minimizes grades and a university that demands them. As an instructor of record, I am expected to administer exams of some sort. In an online class, that historically equates to multiple choice exams. I HATE multiple choice exams. They don’t test for learning. Instead, I prefer to place more emphasis on the discussion boards and application assignments that I assign. But these have rubrics that are assessing for specific competencies, like critical thinking and attention to context. Lombardi (2008) offers excellent suggestions for rubrics that include such competencies, so I believe I am on the right track.

But I am still left wondering…..Do my students care about my feedback? Or just the grade at the end of the day? What if they do? What if they don’t? How do we, as instructors, foster motivation through autonomy, mastery, and purpose? What would this look like?

I hope I don’t have to tell my spouse she’s right….I hate it when that happens.

References

Kohn, A. (2011). The case against grades. Retrieved from https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/case-grades/

Lombardi, M. (2008). Making the grade: The role of assessment in authentic learning. Retrieved from https://library.educause.edu/~/media/files/library/2008/1/eli3019-pdf.pdf

Pink, D. (2009, August 25). The puzzle of motivation [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y&feature=youtu.be