As far as accessibility is concerned, I love what Straub advocates for in the move to more conversational feedback. My question is, however, how do we get students to engage with the feedback after it has been especially tailored to be accessible to them in light of the challenges of balancing evaluative feedback and ranking?
Sunday, July 16, 2017
QQC Week 4
At a certain cynical point, I start to feel as though everyone knows that evaluating does a better service to our students as a whole than mere ranking. Every writing program that I've been a part of says that the classes are too big, that the expectations imposed by other departments and the larger university are unrealistic, and yet nothing changes as far as the accommodations for those who teach writing. However, as morbid and unproductive as ranking is, my process of discovering that fact led me to acquire skills and an awareness of what I value in education, and a means toward obtaining a rewarding education within that structure. If we were to do away with ranking, how else would we teach students these values?
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Hi Dustin - You present some great questions that probably plague every teacher. Getting students to engage in the feedback is difficult especially when we know that many times once they get their grade, they seem to close that chapter and move on without realizing its importance. Recognizing this, I have been using the following in my classroom to try to get them better engage with the feedback.
ReplyDelete1. All papers must be submitted electronically. I do not accept any paper. This allows for digital artifacts that students always have access to it for reference.
2. Reflections - I use guided reflections throughout the semester and there are always questions that require them to interact with my feedback in order to make some decisions on their own process and progress.
3. E-Portfolios - I began requiring digital portfolios as a way to promote the recursive nature of writing and to promote authorship. I also use it as a way to discuss multimodality and its relevance to them.
While I have implemented these tools, they are not without their challenges. It requires a lot of feedback and teaching many classes with at least 30 students per class means that my own frustration sets in about mid-semester. I am working on ways to streamline my process so that it gives students the feedback and conversations they deserve while not killing me in the process.