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Grading For Whom?
2 years ago
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
All of the heavy hitters in the educational technology world recommend moving slowly – taking baby steps, but what if this recommendation is as dated as Windows 95? New teachers are as frustrated as I am by having to progress at this snails pace, especially in regards to technology which changes daily. Remind me again why we have to move so slowly. Part of me thinks that this is a self serving myth, feed by people who make their living telling us how to use technology in education. What is wrong with making mistakes, and learning from them? If we are teaching people how to learn we have to teach them how to learn from their mistakes.
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3 comments:
I think we all have to learn from our mistakes. I know because I make them daily and they always seem so public. That is where the slow pace comes in I think, we're all waiting for someone to get it perfect so we can just play follow the leader and plug everything into the right spot. Interestingly this is counter to what we discuss teaching our children: think for yourself, be flexible, be ready to look at things differently. At the end of the day it is still easier to grade a true/false exam then a really tough essay question. It is safer too, we can easily defend and understand the straight forward math problem. In my opinion, it is the need for our curriculum the what, how and why we present information to our children that needs to be revisited. If we are truly looking at what we are preparing our students for then perhaps this question could finally have the full evolution to how as opposed to why.
I was talking with other parents this weekend about how easily our kids adopt new technology, and how often we rely on them to explain it to us. One of the parents observed that when a kid gets a new gadget they push every button to see what they all do, explore all of the options, start over if they don't get what they want. At the end of "playing" they understand all of the capabilities. I often approach new technologies as a tool that I want to perform some specific purpose, and then lose out on all of the other possibilities. Some of this is time pressure, but some is just a fear of pushing the wrong button and doing something irreversible.
Last week I gave my science students an open ended lab. The processes they used and the ways they worked together were so different than what I would have designed if I structured the lab. It is all very humbling.
You know it is funny. When we went to the Apple workshop and I had the ipod touch in my hand I did a similar thing. Every chance I got, I clicked around and played just to see what was behind curtain number whatever. But when I need it to do something specific, I just hone right in. Options are for later, which often doesn't come.
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