Response #5

"ASSESSING AND EVALUATING STUDENTS' LEARNING"

I found this chapter helpful in a couple of ways: providing ideas and specific tools I can implement in my future classroom, and confirming good teaching practices I have experienced.

I really like the idea of providing my students with a variety of ways to write in my class: informally in a journal or blog where the emphasis is on their ideas and connections instead of mechanics, and more formally where they apply the conventions relevant to the learning objectives. I think the most important concept in assessment is to "clearly articulate to students what is expected and how it will be evaluated" (231-2). I think two important components of that goal are well-designed rubrics and providing examples of exemplary work. I could use a rubric similar to the example on evaluating classroom discussions as either participation or extra credit points. I think using template writing assignments is more appropriate in middle school to help lay foundations for what they should be able to do on their own in high school.

Some big pedagogical concepts I have learned recently at EWU that were echoed in this chapter include: having the students be more responsible for their learning (doing more of the work than the teacher), using reader-based descriptive responses on drafts (from teacher and from peers), and moving away from "covering" material and towards fostering life-long learners.

When teachers focus too much on fact-based literature learning and assessments, the teacher takes the role of the knowledge-giver and the students simply receive it and try to spit it back out later. The students have a much richer learning experience if the teacher assumes more of a facilitating role in the classroom. My ENGL 408 instructor at EWU modeled the reader-based responses outlined on page 229. On our first paper she conducted individual conferences with each of us on our rough drafts, encouraging our strengths and asking for clarification on other aspects. She struck the difficult balance of challenging us without overwhelming us. Then on our next papers we held conferences with each other, doing our best to imitate her example. "Covering" a chapter or key terms and the like seems to be turning into a taboo concept in modern pedagogy. This points back to the teacher as the knowledge-giver and the students as mindless robots regurgitating information. Memorizing is only the basic form of learning, dogs can do it. Meaningful learning requires use of the higher end of Bloom's Taxonomy.