We had a minor argument a few months ago about assessment – whether it should evaluate participation or not. I would like to say that I am moving more and more in the direction of doing that, of holding my kids more socially responsible, and tying their grade more to what I see in their eyes, and less what I see coming out of their pencils.
I know many teachers don’t feel that way, but I do. Language is an intensely social thing, and, with the machines now taking over for real, maybe we who espouse the idea of CI can work against the dehumanization of our society by holding the kids responsible for how they sit and and interact with us in our classes.
For me now, it is about 70% participation rubric (not the self evaluation which I use less now) and 30% how they do on the quick quizzes. No long term testing at all. Long term testing sucks. It destroys their good will. And I’ve dropped the Thematic Units except for AP track kids and others who want to do it as extra credit.
[OT note: the blog entries I am receiving as emails are stacking up and jamming things up. So they are in queue, but I can’t just blog ten a day or we wouldn’t have time to read all of them. Just FYI].