Learning Outcomes and Assessment Objectives
We started off by discussing a series of Aphorisms:
1)Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself (John Dewey)
2)School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is (Ivan Dominic Illich)
3)The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy. Education does not change the world (bell hooks)
4) Education changes people. People change the world (Paulo Friere)
5) The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot (Auder Lorde)
These quotes quickly made the table discuss which quotes/statements we disliked and liked. It was fun how quickly this became an ideological discussion on what kind of teachers we want to be and what kind of learners we want to shape.
In many ways our discussions where shaped around the courses we teach and the industries for which we are preparing students to go into. For example Design or Architecture tutors are preparing students for a competitive industry where students are vying for careers within these industries with actual jobs. Whereas on a Fine Art course, tutors are preparing students to go on and become artists…these are very different things and require different styles of teaching and learning.
With this in mind, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria have a different level of importance for differing courses. I am unsure how I feel about them. I do not think that I am interested in teaching to LO’s and AC’s but I do believe that grading serves as an incentive for students to work hard, and I believe that students that engage with the course and their work should be rewarded. At the same time, I would want my students to hit these grading matrixes as a consequence of engaging with their work and their inner worlds.
When looking at the grading matrixes, one of the things that stood out for me was that engagement was not a marked criteria on the course. This led to an interesting discussion around how education should not hold back students that are not able to commit to being physically in class. I do however think that engagement in Painting or any other Fine Art course can be perceived through the engagement a student has with the material/s that they are using. When painting, how paint is handle can sign post to the reader, the maker awareness of certain movements and tropes. Perhaps there could be an additional marking grid for material and contextual engagement?
There was also an interesting discussion around how grading could be stemming students experimentation and creativit.
During the work shop, we also discussed how the grading systems does not take into account where a student has started from – we do not mark how much a student has journeyed in their learning, only where the land amongst everyone. It feels as though this does not sit within my ideological framework as a teacher.
This brought into my mind what my teaching goals and ideology are:
To create life long learners
To help students find their own personal language
I would like a new marking/grading system to consider:
The engagement a student has with their own practice
To take into account the journey that a student has been on to arrive where they are.