Blog Entry #3

I feel that many good points were brought to light in the readings. One of the first paragraphs mentioned something along the line that this is not the only class the student has. I remember thinking that as a undergraduate student and would be somewhat disappointed when a professor would give an overly aggressive amount of work for one class. I tried to keep that in mind when I taught a 2 credit class this summer. I liked how the chapter addressed "fairness" when it comes to grading. I am a strong believer that students should not spend a great deal of their energy focusing on grades and should channel their energy on learning. When setting up a course, I feel a professor needs to ask the question, "is this fair". When I created my syllabus, I took a great deal of time to be sure assignments were spread out and the point values were appropriate for the amount of work required. I liked the examples of how to phrase question to the class to assess learning and to check to see if they are reading the assignments. It is important to be sure questions are open ended rather than simple "yes or no". It is also important to keep in mind that the materials assigned to a student needs to be worth the time it takes to read it. I feel some professors assign all this reading, but never ask about it, or ever reference it. I can see where a student would think, "why bother". I remember teaching in the public school system and having silence. As mentioned in the readings, 5-10 seconds of silence would seem like forever. I would make myself wait, and usually, someone would at least attempt to answer the question, especially if I rephrased it. I thought the idea of group testing was an interesting one. I do not think I would ever use this technique in class or at least give a score. Often times however, I find that students are extremely interested in how they did on a certain test. By doing the group activity, so they know what the answers are would help them gauge how well they did. My fear using this as a way of assessment of grade would not truly reflect knowledge gained. If a student scores a 65% on the written test, but was in a group with student who really knew the materials, and the group grade was 98%. The student would then average a "B" in stead of getting a "D". I do understand that some people do not do well on tests and would do much better with an oral exam versus a written one. I just get "paranoid" of students getting a grade they did not earn. Barbara Gross Davis provides some good suggestions on grading and things to keep in mind. I like the section where she describes ways to limit students complaints about grading. I plan on using many of her suggestions in my future courses. The information suggested can be found at: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/grading.htm.