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the pedagogy of collecting
The new semester has begun; so far I'm enjoying it.
This new semester is especially exciting for me because I've radically reworked my syllabus, and, for the first time in my eight years of teaching, I've abandoned my grading rubric: I've instead set the course up on a system based on the Scout merit badge system.
The way that this works: I've identified 21 areas that I want them to demonstrate proficiency in, and I've associated each of these skills with a merit badge. As the semester goes along they can choose which of these badges they want to get; applying for one involves the completion of some set of assignments. None of these assignments are given a letter or numerical grade; they either earn the badge or are sent back for more revision.
For the most part, the students can do the badges in any order; getting fourteen or more gets them the "A." This setup offers them the ability to work at their own pace and play to their own (developing) strengths, and also enhances the sense of gradual progression towards a goal (as opposed to my old method, which involved them earning a certain number of points out of 1,000—although from one persepctive this could be seen as a similar process of accumulation, from another perspective it can feel like you start off with 1,000 points and get more and more chipped away with each misstep).
I've made actual badges for the students (they're stickers), which I hope will tap into the profound motivating force of the collector instinct.
We'll see how this works out. The students seem guardedly optimistic about it. Labels: teaching |
Thursday, September 09, 2004
3:36 PM
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