Teaching Community Report

Teaching Community Report

Fall 2011

Teaching Community Focus:

The fall 2011 English Teaching Community is focused on the theme of grading, more specifically, issues involving student self-assessment/reflection and teacher-student dialogue about assessment. After reading the article “The View from Somewhere” by Maja Wilson, we decided to focus our projects on finding ways to create more conversation between the students and the instructor in order to acknowledge the subjective nature in grading English papers while reconciling that with the need to use a grading rubric and be as objective as possible. By creating more dialogue between student and teacher, a meeting of the minds can hopefully happen in which the student understands how the instructor is evaluating his/her essay work and the instructor understands the students’ understanding of the evaluation process. Hence, we came up with the following theme (each instructor exploring a more specific research question based on this larger theme):

Adding further student-teacher dialogue to the assessment process in order to help students gain a better understanding of the evaluation of their essays.

TC Participants:

There are four instructors, each focusing on a different English course ranging from English 70 to 100. We met for a total of 9 hours over the semester, each meeting set at 1 1/2 hours.

Participants include Richard Cartwright, Dabney Lyons, Josephine Perry-Folino, and Julie Ashmore

TC Sessions:

During the first three meetings we discussed various articles including the following: “The View from Somewhere,” “A Grading System for Composition Papers,” “A Simple Alternative to Grading,” and “Student Self Assessment in Higher Education.” We also shared

our own grading practices/methods used and how we wanted to improve upon existing grading methods or implement new ones. We discussed alternative grading methods not commonly practiced such as contract grading and student self-assessment strategies, as well as discussed the pros and cons of using department grading rubrics. By the third meeting, participants had clear research questions for their project proposals, each focusing on some sort of student self-assessment strategy while incorporating teacher-student dialogue. We then used the remaining meetings to share our progress on the projects and report out on student feedback.

Individual Research Questions:

Each participant came up with a research question focused on the theme:

Richard Cartwright: To what degree do students benefit from being aware of, thinking about, and discussing how they are graded?

Dabney Lyons: Does having students help to build the rubric for an essay affect their understanding, confidence, and/or performance in completing that essay? If so, in what ways?

Josephine Perry-Folino: How well do students integrate their knowledge of what specifically they are being evaluated on with what they choose to focus on when writing their essays?

Julie Ashmore: How does greater student involvement in essay self-reflection and self-evaluation enhance understanding about what constitutes good academic writing and students’ learning process and writing performance?

Methods of Investigation

The methods of investigation ranged from giving students a series of surveys in order to understand their perceptions on how they are graded to having students participate in the creation of the grading rubric itself, as well as self-reflection and self-evaluation strategies.

Results

From the below sample of results, it appears that, overall, student-teacher dialogue about assessment/grading is beneficial to students’ understanding of the evaluation of their work. Furthermore, individual conferencing as well as guided student self-reflection/evaluation is crucial in helping to bolster student confidence while including students in the evaluation of their own work, which could possibly lead to better writing.

Richard Cartwright

The surveys provide something of a before and after picture of student perceptions. Overall, students showed a maturing in their understanding of what goes into a good paper. This doesn’t necessarily reflect an ability to carry it through in the work, but it does show a deeper understanding. And there’s always the possibility that the perceived maturity from one survey to the next is due more to weaker students dropping between conferences.

Dabney Lyons

While I can't be sure based on this one class whether their involvement in the assessment process actually improved their grades—Essay 2 and Essay 3 call for very different ways of incorporating and synthesizing the readings—my students' responses about the process are generally positive. Based on what they report, I think that having them help come up with grading criteria and assign weights to those criteria is a positive experience for them and does (at the very least) help them to be more aware of what they are expected to do and how they will be evaluated on what they do in their essays. That awareness appears to have helped them to feel more confident about the final drafts and the drafting process which, as I discovered in a previous teaching community, is important to their level of engagement in the class and their individual assignments. Anxiety about essays can negatively affect a student's ability or drive to complete their work, so anything that raises their confidence, let alone their actual awareness of what they're expected to do, is probably going to have a positive influence on both the process and the final product. And since several students requested that we repeat this process for Essay 4, I think it's fairly safe to say that in their eyes, the experiment was a successful one.

Julie Ashmore

When asked to respond to this statement, “Reviewing and reflecting on how and what I did in my prior essays prepared me to write the next essay,” a high majority (88%) of students ‘strongly agreed’ (31%) or ‘agreed’ (57%) that such review and reflection helped prepare them for subsequent essays, and a much smaller percentage of students (13%) ‘somewhat agreed’ that this process helped them write stronger essays. So, in general, students agree that self-reflection and self-evaluation is helpful.

Josephine Perry-Folino

While making the assessment process visible to students is very important, the coaching from their instructor still seems to be the greatest single factor in their success as writers…. Based on their input, their in class writing and the assessments I did on each of their submitted formal essays beginning in September 2011and finishing in December 2011 as well as the feedback from the questionnaires, clearly about 80% of the class came in at a low English 90 level or even below, ill equipped for writing, thinking, and reading complex essays at the 100 level. Teaching them about the assessment process using the rubric as a tool, helped students to better understand their grades and what they had to do to be able to write at a college level. But the most effective tool was one on one conferencing, as frequently and for as long as possible.

Student Feedback:

Richard Cartwright:

What was it like to fill out the surveys and think about the grading process? Is it good for students to think about how they’re being graded or should be graded? Why? Why not?

“Knowing how we’re being graded is a good thing because it’ll push us to be better students.”

“I think it’s good for students to think about how they are being graded because it does show that they are concerned about their education.”

“I think it’s good for students to see how they are getting graded, and how they should be graded because then they don’t have a big shock. It’s better to understand it before you write your paper.”

“It was kind of just to waste time filling paper out.”

“When I filled out the survey, I had to really think and decide which points were most important to be graded on. I think it is a good idea to think about what I am graded on because it can help me to better understand what to focus on.”

“I think that good for the teacher to know how the student feel like what was going on.”

Dabney Lyons:

Student feedback on coming up with the grading criteria and whether they felt that doing so affected their grade or ability to write the essay in any way:

"I think determining the grading criteria for the essay really helped because it broke down everything that needed to be done. It helped me finish my essay because I was able to check off what needed to be done."

"Making our own criteria really made me understand what was important in the essay. Things like a strong thesis and examples are crucial. I feel that helping to determine the criteria is very helpful and we should do it for Essay 4 too."

"I think it was somewhat helpful. I think some of the things that were placed as more important, were not really that important. But it also helped a little because the things that I did agree on being most important, I think I did good on."

"Yes, it helped me. I feel that grading criteria in general is helpful. Whether it's given to us or we come up with it, it is great to be able to reference it."

"I think it did not really help me with my essay because I preferred your criterias, they were more clear and it was easier to follow them."

"I don't think it helped all that much. I mean either way I have a set of rules to follow."

Josephine Perry-Folino

Describe whether expectations for what you needed to do to achieve a good grade for Essay 4 were clearer to you and why they were clearer.

“The essay was just laid out and discussed so there was a lot more clarification over all.”

“They were clear to me because it was explained well. My questions were answered in detail.”

“Yes, the expectations were clear to me. All the info you gave us all on what and how it had to be done helped.”

“The things that I needed to do to achieve a good grade were clear but as I started to do the essay I realized I had questions that needed to be clarified.”

“Expectation were clear by having you explain them in one on one meetings. Plus reminders sent via e-mail were helpful.”

Julie Ahsmore

Faculty Feedback:

Did this semester’s teaching community help you improve upon your pedagogy in anyway? Explain.

“Absolutely. I spent a lot of time with both evaluating the rubric alone and with my students so I could discover if they actually integrated the elements of the rubric into their writing and then self-assessments.”

“Yes! I’ve been concerned about grading for a while, and this teaching community helped me to better understand why I approach evaluation a certain way. It also prodded me into relinquishing some of my “control” and letting my students have a say in how they’re evaluated. It made me feel more accountable, and it helped me to better understand and articulate to my students exactly what the process and rationale are for grades. It changed how I approach the whole thing.”

“Yes. It helped me look at how I grade a bit more in depth and how I communicate that to my students.”

“Yes, the readings and discussions helped me reflect more deeply on my approach to and the role of student assessments and grading.”

Did you find the theme of grading to be an interesting and valuable topic of exploration? Why or why not?

“Yes. This is an issue that’s full of anxiety for me and for others like me.”

“Assessment is a hot buzz word now and there are good reasons for that. How do we know students are actually learning throughout the process and throughout a class (i.e. semester) unless we constantly test, assess and communicate with them? It’s a key part of education and more time should be spent on it.”

“Definitely! It’s always good (I think) to check in and re-evaluate grading processes to make sure there’s no “slippage,” so grading stays consistent.”

“Yes, because there are various approaches to this topic. Since it is one that greatly impacts students and that causes me a bit of anxiety each semester, I feel I need to pay even more attention to it.”

What about the teaching community did you find more valuable?

“Talking with other teachers about what I do and what they do. I like discussing the readings as a group…it gave me more ideas….”

“Feedback from peers and hearing and seeing what peers are actually doing in their classes is invaluable. A camaraderie develops between faculty when each other’s ideas and creativity are shared and respected.”

“Group feedback! Discussing ideas with everyone and getting lots of feedback and hearing other people’s experiences is invaluable. The readings we discussed were neat because they offered suggestions that sparked ideas. I like new ideas even if they don’t work out or seem truly feasible.”

“I liked that we could develop individual projects this time because it gave me freedom and flexibility. Yet, there was something valuable about having a more shared, in common, if you will, project plan (like in the teaching community about helping students overcome anxiety and become more confident).”

What suggestions do you have for improvement of the teaching community?

“Two consecutive semesters to research and then improve on a problem”

“[To have] at least 2 [meetings] a month, for just an hour.”

“Try to have 2 consecutive semesters in one subject. It would be great to implement the ideas one comes up with.”

“Maybe more meetings? 1 or 2 more or make the meetings shorter and have them more frequently.”

“Have 2 semesters in a row on the same theme: one semester to sort of explore and figure out, and one to confirm whether the changes are representative.”

“None. Sara picked a diversity of thought-provoking readings and was flexible and collegial throughout the process.”