Beginning to write this blog i really had no idea what I was going to write about, but deciding that starting with the reading this week would be a good place to start. What really caught my attention in this book was the anecdote at the very beginning of the book, the one about Krystal. Her paper had no form to speak of and the general direction of her piece didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Although on a rubric her paper would have received an F, Maja Wilson said that it moved her and she couldn’t bring herself to give Krystal a failing grade. The question I had, and one that Wilson addresses in her book, is whether it is write to base grades of the individual on how the group as a whole was supposed to be doing. Although Krystal’s piece wasn’t the typical A,B, or even C paper, it did move Wilson in some way. I think that in certain cases an individual students grade should be determined separately from the standard rubric, and in some cases a new rubric needs to be made to achieve that. Thoughts?
This is such a difficult topic to negotiate, and one that we will most likely deal with throughout our teaching career. While I think it would be almost impossible to design separate rubrics for each student, I think reworking the structure of the class, perhaps using Christensen's model mentioned near the end of Wilson's book, could be a good starting point.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mackenzie, I really liked Christensen's model, and I think I will modify it slightly and use it myself. Changing a rubric to fit individual students doesn't seem right to me. If you're going to base grades on rubrics, which are supposed to be objective, then you can't change the rubric because one student's paper doesn't reflect the rubric well.
ReplyDeleteI like your enthuiasm, but it isn't very practical to make rubrics for each student. If you are a secondary teacher, you might have 100 plus students--even if you spent five minutes on creating each one, that would be 500 minutes. That calculates to over eight hours for one assignment, not including actually reading. Sorry to be a bummer.
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned in class last week, I didn't really foresee this as being much of a problem. I thought it was rubric-bashers being over-dramatic about one paper they've had in 20 years of teaching that broke the rubric well, but then I tried putting one of my group member's personal narrative into a rubric and realized it didn't fit. I loved the story, even the form, but it didn't fit into the rubric. Worse, I have graded papers into my practicum that are awful, but they fit into the rubric and receive good grades based on that criteria.
ReplyDeleteI've mentioned this before, in my blog and some of my responses, but I think we need to take the power of grading out of a teacher's hands, to a certain extent. If we can actually create a learning environment that promotes personal responsibility and mutual respect, a grade should, if it is to continue to hold its holy and celebrated place in education, should be determined through dialogue and compromise, not a dictatorial or universal standard.
ReplyDeleteThis class has made me realize that grading will prove to be a difficult task; rubrics will not only make it easier for me, but as a student I liked having a rubric to see how I could get a an A or so I could have concrete evidence of why I got a certain grade. However, with papers like Krystal's, I couldn't fairly give her an A with a rubric. I guess it's something that I still have to think about.
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