In the interest of being transparent, I
will be honest when I say that I'm nervous to take my first step into
the classroom as a teacher. In order to combat this (still fairly
distant) reality, I've made the decision to soak in every resource
that's available to me. Education courses? Check. Readings? Check.
Advice from fellow teachers, students, and professors alike? ...
Maybe check only two of those. I tend to talk with a professor only
if I don't understand something on the syllabus. The point is, in the
rush to get prepared, I worry that I may fall victim to forgetting
the basics, as covered in pages 19-20 of Interweaving Curriculum
and Classroom Assessment.
The
section Guiding Principles of Assessment
talk about how “three key elements of effective assessment
practices” are validity, reliability, and fairness. I think that
these elements are fairly straightforward in their usefulness for
evaluative purposes. Validity, as the author explains, is the
“trustworthiness of the judgements” that the teacher makes;
reliability is “the degree of consistency” the teacher has; and
fairness is making sure that students have an equal chance of
success. And the spectrum of marking and evaluation, I can absolutely
see how these are useful. But I think that these three values can be
applied to almost any other teaching, or even just leadership
situation.
A
friend of mine, we'll call her Lauren (because that's her name), was
listening to a story from her grade 3 teacher. During an aside, this
teacher mentioned her nephew, Crandall. And as soon as that name,
“Crandall,” left her lips and met Lauren's ears, a smile grew on
Lauren's face and a giggle escaped her lungs. Right as the teacher
caught on to Lauren laughing at poor Crandall, she responded harshly:
“Lauren! Crandall is a normal name!” and, from that point on,
Lauren swears that this teacher treated her less favourably. This is
also a story we know well. Not only does Lauren bring it up every
time the name “Crandall” is mentioned (which, let's be honest,
happens all the time, because it's a normal name!). But also because
the framework for this story is an unfortunately common one: an
unfavourable incident, followed by the assumption that the student
was now a target, or at least less favourable.
What's
interesting to me was the Snapshot from the Classroom: Improving
Reliability (20). The teachers who were trying to mark the
assignments from the students, some with years of experience, still
found themselves victim to teaching bias while they were marking the
assignments. And while the Snapshot did not include unfavourable
events (they mentioned that they were considering things like effort
and background knowledge), I wonder if there was some truth to
Lauren's infamous Crandall claim: that one minor incident left a
lasting impression on her marks and her relationship with the teacher
overall.
Incidents
like this are problematic. I have heard, countless times, where a
teacher has apparently
targeted a student, or doesn't mark their work
fairly, or has some sort of personal problem. And for me, the Case
Study (Improving Reliability) really struck a chord. Despite these
teachers' best efforts and years of expertise, they still fell victim
to that old bias trap. And, as the case study explains, some of them
even got defensive about it: perhaps an effect of having to justify
your grading scheme to some of the students who feel they've been
judged poorly. I'm certain that I'll also need to pay attention to my
marking scheme, making sure that I'm marking solely on content and
not on effort, or a student-by-student basis. I suppose that these
teachers could be struggling with marking subjectively based on
individual performance, or objectively based on curriculum
expectations. So, as an English/Geography teacher, how do I best
design assignments that can be graded evenly? Do I create “Yes/No”
criteria? Will that limit the students' creativity? How do I even
begin to grade creativity? Is originality a curriculum requirement?
How do I balance creativity, originality, and government regulations?
Fairness
is, and will always be, a priority in my classroom. So will validity
and reliability. But my fear is that in an attempt to maintain
unquestionable, clear-cut fairness, my ability to cultivate
creativity will be diminished by all the red tape teachers and
prospective teachers need to adhere to. Do I pull a Dead
Poet's Society and have my
students rip their copies of Where the Red Fern Grows and
The Paper Bag Princess
straight down the middle? Or shall I create a black and white, yes/no
classroom with no inequality, but no inspiration either? If the
answer to both of these is no, how do I create a balance between the
two?
In
any case, the first Chapter to Interweaving Curriculum and
Classroom Assessment certainly
got me thinking about the politics and dynamics of even the most
fundamental and basic classroom practices. Marking, and the struggle
to keep that fair, is just one of the many balancing acts I'm sure
teachers will need to deal with.
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