I have been thinking about grades this week - of course I am as you send me your Part C grade estimate and evaluation. Additionally, I am consumed with writing my dissertation everyday trying to cross the finish line for my PhD and land a job. As I run myself into the ground, continue to apply for jobs and wait to hear about others, I often pause to think about the past four years of my life in pursuit of this degree - the ultimate prize. In my more difficult moments I ask myself what possessed me to do this and has it in anyway been worth the cost. To attempt to answer these questions I have to decide what "measuring stick" to use. My GPA? Dissertation award? Student loan debt totals? Job offers? Number of articles published? Teaching evaluations? Family occasions missed? Praise and recognition or lack thereof? I suppose the best I answer I can give right now is it depends on the time of day because everything is in flux and my perspective feels warped by the urgency of now. To truly give these questions their due, I would have to pause and be present, and allow myself time to revisit a series of moments filled with magic and pain, wonder and disillusionment, and satisfaction and disappointment. Perhaps there is no one answer, at least not now; however, there is some degree of faith (insanity?) that has kept me in the process.
Which brings me back to the topic of grades and your mid semester evaluations. I have been impressed thus far with your self reflection and honesty, and your ability to step out of the box and employ non-traditional "measuring sticks". You have begun to think not so much about your performance, rather what you are investing and learning in the process. You are thinking about your growth and development, and future goals. I appreciate your willingness to begin to take risks and stumble, try new things and embrace (maybe a strong word) the messiness and non linear nature of community work. Learning is a magical experience; however, it can be squashed by the expectation of perfection and mistake free products. Knowledge is not always quantifiable. It is infinite. If we allow ourselves, we are in a constant state of learning - from books, media, relationships, scribes, TV, maps, community work, children, professors, peers, nature, art, catastrophe, success, and the list goes on. I am hoping this class and pedagogy help facilitate your knowledge and development in a variety of areas, hence the six dimensions of learning as a guide and framework for you to identify your growth and room for improvement. Of course you want a good grade; however, I hope by the end of the semester you see beyond the grade and find satisfaction in what you have learned about best practices for community engagement, related theory, the history and contemporary state of service learning, and of course yourselves and how to apply this and other knowledge you gain to your future endeavors.
I am including a few videos for you to watch - feel free to blog about them and we can discuss in class. The first two are TED talks by Shimon Schocken, a computer science professor:
http://www.ted.com/talks/
The third is a You Tube video about the flawed grading system of schools: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Have a wonderful and restful Spring Break and look forward to seeing you on Monday the 18th!
Which brings me back to the topic of grades and your mid semester evaluations. I have been impressed thus far with your self reflection and honesty, and your ability to step out of the box and employ non-traditional "measuring sticks". You have begun to think not so much about your performance, rather what you are investing and learning in the process. You are thinking about your growth and development, and future goals. I appreciate your willingness to begin to take risks and stumble, try new things and embrace (maybe a strong word) the messiness and non linear nature of community work. Learning is a magical experience; however, it can be squashed by the expectation of perfection and mistake free products. Knowledge is not always quantifiable. It is infinite. If we allow ourselves, we are in a constant state of learning - from books, media, relationships, scribes, TV, maps, community work, children, professors, peers, nature, art, catastrophe, success, and the list goes on. I am hoping this class and pedagogy help facilitate your knowledge and development in a variety of areas, hence the six dimensions of learning as a guide and framework for you to identify your growth and room for improvement. Of course you want a good grade; however, I hope by the end of the semester you see beyond the grade and find satisfaction in what you have learned about best practices for community engagement, related theory, the history and contemporary state of service learning, and of course yourselves and how to apply this and other knowledge you gain to your future endeavors.
I am including a few videos for you to watch - feel free to blog about them and we can discuss in class. The first two are TED talks by Shimon Schocken, a computer science professor:
http://www.ted.com/talks/
The third is a You Tube video about the flawed grading system of schools: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Have a wonderful and restful Spring Break and look forward to seeing you on Monday the 18th!
Paula,
ReplyDeleteYou just summed up exactly how I feel regarding my perspective on what I'm doing. I've always felt that it just depended on how I felt on a given day, but you definitely summed it up quite eloquently! I'll be using that when asked why I do what I do from now on!
Thanks!
For what it is worth, you are a tremendous inspiration to me and the goals and dreams I have for my life. It confirms my own feelings that it is never too late to reinvent or recreate self and more importantly, craving the love of knowledge and learning in all types of situations. All the best as you wrap up the dissertation and find the place you will land to encourage and inspire others just like me.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, I believe it will all be worth it. LOVE the TED talks also.
Paula,
ReplyDeleteI love that even you battle the fact that grades are one easy way for us to define our success in education, but that at times, that may be taking the easy way out. After thinking about the way we have gone about the grading system used in the course (as grades are essentially required) I wonder if it would be a better alternative to have the analysis portion using dimensions of learning one week, then the next week (separately) have us grade ourselves as we do. It might help to distinguish that on the one hand we are looking at our own development and learning, have time to reflect, then the next week consider our grade after truly having had time to analyze what we said through the part b analysis.
It's nice having a class where grade isn't the concern, as long as you can see the development through the work we are doing. It's interesting when I was trying to talk about my grade to see the language I felt was appropriate based on the way we were talking about our development. Some of the more technical grading, educational terms were words that I tried to avoid, and it was nice!
I'll watch the TEDtalks after I finish the Walking Dead tonight, I've enjoyed the ones you've shown so far! Still think you should add those into the actual course like the readings, instead of using them as supplemental!
Hope you have a good week!
Cam