I’ve been busy. Midterms kicked my ass this semester for some reason, perhaps because I’m teaching an overload. I’m behind on grading, but at least I got my midterm grades in on time. In addition, I’m working on assessments materials for two classes. That will keep me busy for the rest of the week. I am also serving as a committee member for a math hire. That’s strange. It’s a little intimidating sitting there with all those math folk. They are friendly enough, but my math inadequacies come to the fore for me. I guess I will be a good audience for the instruction part of the interview. Anyway, my usually easypeasy job has become hard. *whine*
Also, I’d like to kvetch for a moment about assessments. The assessment folks will say this isn’t true, but I’m not good enough at assessments to make it otherwise:
It seems to me that assessments requires you to dumb down the course to the most basic levels of bloom’s taxonomy, standardize teaching in a way that totally stifles creativity, and creates lots and lots of busywork. Perhaps I’m doing it wrong, but I haven’t seen otherwise. I’m very frustrated about it.
In a word, I really hate assessments. I wish someone would educate me otherwise.
All right, I’ll bite: why do you hate assessment? What are you doing with assessment, exactly?
Bleh. I hate assessment because it creates institutional pressure to give standardized tests across sections. I think that stifles creative pedagogy. For instance, it makes it really difficult to do contract grading because you can’t collect consistent data. I think it also creates institutional pressure to test students on the lower levels of bloom’s taxonomy instead of the higher levels, again because of the ease of data collection. Higher levels of thinking usually require things like papers, and to get good data, we are encouraged to use a rubric that is the same across all classes. I’m very frustrated. We don’t all teach the same way or the same things. While I think there is some value to standardization, I think there’s also some value to eclectic approaches to the various classes. And that’s why I hate assessments.