This might just be a slightly-elaborated Twitter post, but I'm just checking in from my classroom, where I have a stack of projects to grade, and I'm not enthusiastic about it, and I'm ... Let me tell you how unenthusiastic I am: I assigned these projects and made them due, I want to say they were due on like September 27. And I collected them. And I didn't grade them. And I didn't grade them. And I didn't grade them. And I didn't grade them. And now it's November 1 and I'm finally grading them. Holy moly, I did not like the way these projects came out.
How did it even come about? It kind of popped into my head a day after buying like 1,000 sheets of construction paper at CostCo; I kind of thought, "why not a project that uses a bunch of construction paper?" I mean, it wasn't THAT hair-brained, but it was close. The actual stuff the students had to do on the construction paper? They had to devote one page each to several mathematical symbols: One for addition, one for subtraction, one for multiplication, one for division, one for equality, and one for INequality. Beisdes drawing teh symbol, they were to write what the symbol meant to them, mathematically and nonmathematically. And then on the back, they were to make like five examples per page, and solve each example.
As I look at them now, I realize that the five examples per page I asked them to do on the back was strictly filler--I thought up an assignment and something cool for them to put on it for the front of each page, but then I ... just made up filler for the back. I don't want to grade that filler. I don't expect it to tell me anything! The interesting part now is to see what they WROTE about each operation. And that already IS telling me some things; some things about their literacy. And some things about their understanding, and/or lack thereof, regarding the MEANING of these operations.
I am increasingly persuaded that if there were the germ of a good idea in this clusterf*@k of a project, it would be the writing piece--I could have simply had them write me an essay about mathematical operations, demonstrating understanding of each. That sounds like a very legitimate assignment, now that I say it back to myself.
But the other lesson I learned here is the danger of filler assignments. I sure wish I had run this by somebody else before I assigned it. Every time I look at this stack of projects, I'm embarrassed by it--because it represents a load of work I asked others to do--time they wasted at my direction. If I'm not careful, I waste other people's time, and that's a damn shame.
" Every time I look at this stack of projects, I'm embarrassed by it--because it represents a load of work I asked others to do--time they wasted at my direction. If I'm not careful, I waste other people's time, and that's a damn shame."
ReplyDeleteI can't tell you how profoundly my teaching practice has been influenced by paying attention to thoughts and feelings like these. Reflecting on an experience I led my students through that looks fatally flawed in the rear view mirror and swearing each time that it would be the last time I waste my students time. I appreciate you being honest and letting me read about it.
This is an incredible post and one with which I sympathize deeply. I HATE grading more than almost anything.
ReplyDeleteI struggle with this because I want my students to do more writing, but I REALLY don't want to grade it. I've been trying to come up with ways to give them meaningful writing assignments that I don't have to grade.
But that's not fair. Filler is easy to grade, but not meaningful for them or for me.
Being a math teacher, I was never trained on how to give meaningful feedback on writing assignments, but maybe that's just an excuse.
I don't know the answer, but I'd like to find one and I'll help you look for it, if you help me.