I watched another though-provoking session by Barry Sharpe this afternoon, from the asynchronous Lilly Conference sessions on Educational Theory and Pedagogy. Sharpe used key ideas and quotes from two great books I was able to read this year: Josh Eyler’s How Humans Learn and Flower Darby and James Lang’s Small Teaching Online. The presenter used various examples from the books and an online course Sharpe teaches to highlight how assignments can be used to engage students students and help them build better assignments and improve. Barry’s “Purposeful Reading Assignments” use a modified 3-2-1 assignment to have students identify connections and questions that are then addressed through feedback and course announcements. The thoughtful integration of rubrics and clear expectations for assignments from the first week of class allows students to try (and often fail) in formative assessments and improve for more summative assignments later on. The distinction of, as Sharpe puts it, grading for instruction and grading for a summative grade is more evident thanks to the careful course design that allows students to explore and share questions and misunderstandings. No assignment is one-and-done! This presentation made me think about how to create assignments that allow students to explore and pay attention to the feedback. Too often I use the rubrics and feedback to justify grades instead of encouraging exploration, connections, and improvement! How can I create assignments and provide feedback that students will read and incorporate? I think I need to start early and, as Sharpe does, use grading for instruction. This will be challenging but an awesome new goal for the spring!
