To make learning-based assessment work, the best teachers try to
From What the Best College Teachers Do
find out as much as possible about their students…
Early this semester, I’ve done two things to help me gain crucial information about my students. The first is that I’ve offered extra credit for filling out an information sheet. The sheet contained the following questions:
- What are three things you believe are true?
- If you were given an unplanned Saturday to do with as you please, how would you spend your time?
- What is the high school or college course you’ve benefited the most from? Explain.
- Who are three people in your life whose advice you listen to? What advice have they given you that you cherish?
- What are the two most important ways you’ve grown as a person in the last year?
- What’s your favorite story? Why?
- How are you currently contributing to the lives of your family members, friends, or neighbors?
- What do you hope to learn in this class?
In the future, this will simply be a quiz grade, rather than extra credit. These are the kinds of questions that I want from every student, not just the overachievers.
The next thing I’ve done is give every student I’m teaching this first-week writing assignment:
Write yourself a letter dated May 10, 2019 and address it to me. Begin “Dear Dr. Sircy, I got my ‘A’ because…’” then tell me what you will have done to earn your ‘A.’
I’ve only read a few of them, but it may be one of my favorite reading experiences ever. Students are telling me (with more or less detail) what they think they’ll need to do to succeed. With only two classes under our belts, they don’t really have a sense of me as a grader or the exact nature of the work they’ll be asked to perform. It’s cool to see what they’re thinking about their own emotional and intellectual abilities and how they can put them to work this semester.
I pray this will contribute to better assessment on my part. I certainly feel like I know these students better after just one week. Of course, assessment is just one part of the Christian teacher’s gig. I’m praying their souls as well and their growth as disciples. Through the information questions I ask as well as the “I got an ‘A'” assignment, I’m trying to suss out where they’re at in terms of their faith and how that faith interacts with their educational goals. I pray that I don’t forget this part of my task.