I wrote this about a month ago while procrastinating during marking time. It's a think-aloud, not a piece with a point, but if you're a teacher, I'd love your take. What does marking involve for you?
Hey Miriam, as someone who has received feedback from you, let me say how grateful I am for the thoughtfulness, depth, and care you put into that feedback. I don't remember what mark I got for those assignments, but I do remember what you wrote, encouraging me to consider things that I had not noticed, to be confident and clear in my writing, and to keep striving every day to put my knowledge and skills into practice and work on improving them just as much. For you and all the other teachers out there, thank you.
Once again, let me just say, that I LOVE reading your writing and then thinking with you. Thank you for capturing some of the feelings invovled with assessment. Btw, I like how you have separated out assignment and assessment. We often use those words interchangably, but they are so different. As an instructor teaching "business writing" (whatever that means), I have come to realize that I need to "sitI with students in some way to assess. If I don't, I will go crazy. Case in point: we used to assign a contentious email. Students had to give bad news to another human in writing. This was so difficult for most students (now chatgpt just does it - but imagine being on the other side of that email, and knowing it was not generated by a human!). Also, I dreaded marking them because they were oftent formulalic even pre-Gen AI. But the reality is, these are important skill sets. We need to be able to communicate bad news to other humans yet still maintain relationships. Am I right? So I started having students co-create rubrics. This way, they were able to see why we needed to assess what we assessed. I did a small research study on this process last year. It was interesting to see the results. Most students didn't even really know what a rubric was (hello hidden curriculum) so they appreciated being a part of the process.
As always, I will continue to think on all of this, Miriam. Assessments are about relationships and relationships are built on affect - feelings of (or lack of) compassion, trust, care. We cannot lose this in our profession.
Oh Lydia you and I share a heart when it comes to this!
I would really like to ask you more about your research project on rubric co-creation. Speaking from a completely conceptual point of view, this sounds like it would allow students to co-create not just the success criteria, but also what they MEAN to the task. But I'd love to know how this went and what came out of it???
Assessment is NOT on the teacher, solely. Assessment comes from the Latin verb “assidere” - that means to “sit with” or “sit beside.” It’s supposed to be a collaborative process, not a solo act. Assessment should be a collaborative process DURING the process of learning, and not seen only as “the final act or judgment.” Assessment for learning is the least known and used form of assessment simply because prep programs rarely, if ever, teach it. Feedback should come BEFORE a grade is issued. Rubrics should be shared and practiced by supplying students examples of strong and weak work so they understand quality. If we had assessment literate teachers in all schools, achievement would soar. But the focus remains on grades/scores (Assessment OF Learning), and look where that got us.
Hey, thanks for this Lawrence! You're absolutely right that assessment isn't solely on the teacher, though my point is that (in our rigidly regulated, standardised education model - remember I'm based in Australia) assessment is an evaluation OF the student's work, not an evaluation WITH the student.
As far as I've seen, formative assessment is covered extensively in teacher prep programs, but it goes out the window as soon as teachers get into the workforce - not because they don't care, but because it doesn't figure in the system's calculations. It's not teachers who need to understand this, it's the administrators and policymakers who don't allow time or money for assessment for learning. They allow only for teaching (explicit instruction) and assessment (summative).
I don't disagree with your "should" statements... but here, from my vantage point, they aren't realities of the system :(
I appreciate the depth of thought and consideration you apply to providing assessment and feedback. It sounds mentally fatiguing in the extreme.
As someone who bounced off classroom teaching by going in thinking (naively and unhelpfully) that I must give my absolute utmost to learners for me to feel I’ve not done them a future defining disservice; I feel I can empathise in some small way with the pressure you must experience.
Of course I’m now very aware that perfection is impossible and its pursuit unsustainable! And so I agree that it behooves all educators to think deeply about how they approach providing nutrition to minds seeking sustenance. A lot is on the line for all parties involved.
And if we think of assessment feedback as fertiliser, what/how much nutrition do we lose when we take the human element out?
I don’t have any answers but I have a few thoughts and questions that I think point perhaps in their direction.
Being divorced from the experience of interacting, or as you put it, being unable to smell or touch students xD, puts educators in a precariously powerful position. A heady almost unchallengeable authority is given to them to use at their discretion. A place where feelings of apathy and dislike for their role can freely form around the sense of obligation to tend to the needs of an onerously large number of depersonalised minds. This ill will towards the educators role as an assessor can create knock on effects for learners. The same way an unengaged and negligent factory line worker might instill defects or even break what they're tasked to develop.
What systems are in place to help educators look hard at their gripes and grievances? What tools are at their disposal to help them know when they’ve strayed too far into malcontent? These feelings aren't unnatural. Repetitive tasks can be enormously taxing. So what do we do to make assessment inspiring and more enjoyable? How does reflective practice serve us best under these circumstances and what do we measure against to ensure consistency of engagement and tone when providing feedback?
The subjective nature of the latter, just as you say, is unavoidable and inherent in human to human interaction. And so we take a risk with human assessment. But a human risk will always be worthwhile. I believe that human interaction is at the core of truly meaningful learning experiences. What will be the cost of breaking from this longstanding tradition of education when we depersonalise, homogenise and artificialise assessment? Could it be the difference between fertiliser and barren soil? I don't think we should put people's futures at such a risk as to stunt or deny future growth. And by degrees our own future development as collective.
This was a lot, I’m sorry. I have a lot of thoughts around what makes an effective teacher and AI assessment methods don't compute for me. Not always. Not when a learner's opportunity for growth really counts. AI assessment will NEVER be able to lift someone up and propel them on their journey as a learner the same way another person can.
What’s certain is that positivity and constructive communication shine through as surely as bad blood bleeds. Something educators that say they “hate” assessment should give some thought to before giving in to apathy and quick fix solutions.
Ok first of all I can't believe you just likened assessment feedback to fertiliser... you're obviously some kind of country boy.
What really strikes me about your reflection is the powerful sense of ill will, apathy, even contempt by educators towards their role as assessors. I wonder to what degree this is accurate -- like I mentioned, from my vantage point there's no shortage of negative feelings from teachers about marking load, but if they had to actually describe those negative feelings, what would they be?
In my case, I think, they are overwhelm (so many papers), boredom (so repetitive), nerves (about giving bad feedback). Sometimes frustration if I don't like the assessment design and feel bad for the students for having a crap task to do.
For more and more teachers, it's anger and indignance at the increasing volume of marking to do, the increasing administrative requirements surrounding it, and the increasing knowledge that students are using ChatGPT to write bad essays for them -- which means that they are being made to give feedback that's irrelevant, because the student can't improve if they're not doing the work.
These are real feelings, and not from bad people. I think assessment hurts because it's unjust. Teacher-student ratios are a problem. What we're asking our students to do is a problem. The economic obsession with credentials (NOT learning) is a problem.
All of these things hurt not just assessment practice, but the quality of educational relationships -- between students, teachers, and learning itself.
I find the fertiliser analogy quite apt! Country boy can give credence this this! To begin with there is compelling research into the benefits of gardening for learners in multidisciplinary educational settings. Perhaps this can be applied conceptually from the top down.
Both immature flora and neophyte learners can be left to their own devices. To absorb information and elements at their discretion. Some will flourish, some grow wild, some fail to thrive at all. Often this is dependent on their immediate environment, what they have access to. In the act of nurturing through nourishing we better the chances in favour of growth, if not flourishment, regardless of environment. Just as the attentive teacher aware of their power, features and flaws, instills virtues beyond just increased fact acquisition in learners; who but the attentive gardener that considers their own knowledge and preferences will yield higher quality and/or more life from their plants?
I apologise if I painted too bleak a picture before. I have deep respect for all educators because I think, in the majority, they are trying their best with the tools they have while working in a culture that doesn’t give them the respect or status I think is owed to them. Perhaps that’s part of it. To feel overwhelmed, unheard, under appreciated is to start from a place of negativity. It takes a lot of resilience and sense of purpose to shoulder that and then to take on more when looking at addressing the needs of individuals and groups of learners that bring their own unique challenges. And then there's the systems in place that throw up their own problems as you say.
I appreciate the dialogue because I’m reframing things for myself at the moment. Questions like what it means to attribute “learner” with a sense of self at a truly meaningful level. What has influenced my attitudes in the past. I won’t burden you with the minutia.
But it’s helpful to be reminded that my judgemental feelings towards uninspired educators not always striving to meet the high standards I have applied to myself, and them by proxy, is for the most part not their fault or even fair. I do believe there is a level of good enough that most of them attain. It’s when good enough is sprinkled with the aforementioned negativity that rankles me. Why undercut good enough with a pervasive culture of negativity? Everyone needs to vent their feeling yes, sharing gripes is therapeutic. But in my experience it often goes too far, is too common in casual conversation. Negativity bias is insidious because it can make positive conversations feel flippant or overly idealistic, and negative conversations more about sharing and bonding over frustrations than working together to find solutions.
Also yes! Thank you! To hear someone say that the focus on gaining credentials, as opposed to gaining knowledge for the sake of learning, is problematic echos my own thoughts. Maybe this is subjective and I speak out of turn but it’s the sense that education is commercialised and a means to an end. When in reality there is no end to learning apart from the point at which we take a break or change interests. And then there’s shame applied or consequences for learners that need to take time away from formalised education when in the middle of it. I’m thinking of both schooling and tertiary institutions. blah blah blah blah! I have thoughts. To be quite honest I'd have approached this conversation with you verbally but I know you're very busy rn so I have placed my thoughts here. I'm conscious that it's possibly a bit much and am happy to put a pin in it for now until we can converse if you're open to that. If nothing else it's helping me reflect upon my experiences and the dissonances I felt as a learner engaging in theories of education and practical teaching.
Truly wonderful people do this work and it concerns me greatly that some should be cowed or break under the strain. I think that being mindful of these pressures and how it effects us personally is crucial to being an effective educator. Conditions will never be absolutely optimum.
It gives me hope that people such as yourself Miriam are thinking hard about the ways things can change and improve. To return to the fertisliser analogy; I believe a mindful gardener, that's in touch with their internal experiences, that can still see the forest for the trees, is inherently more likely to spread good shit evenly 🌱
Hey Miriam, as someone who has received feedback from you, let me say how grateful I am for the thoughtfulness, depth, and care you put into that feedback. I don't remember what mark I got for those assignments, but I do remember what you wrote, encouraging me to consider things that I had not noticed, to be confident and clear in my writing, and to keep striving every day to put my knowledge and skills into practice and work on improving them just as much. For you and all the other teachers out there, thank you.
I don't know what to say Tim... just... thank you! This absolutely made my day to read.
Once again, let me just say, that I LOVE reading your writing and then thinking with you. Thank you for capturing some of the feelings invovled with assessment. Btw, I like how you have separated out assignment and assessment. We often use those words interchangably, but they are so different. As an instructor teaching "business writing" (whatever that means), I have come to realize that I need to "sitI with students in some way to assess. If I don't, I will go crazy. Case in point: we used to assign a contentious email. Students had to give bad news to another human in writing. This was so difficult for most students (now chatgpt just does it - but imagine being on the other side of that email, and knowing it was not generated by a human!). Also, I dreaded marking them because they were oftent formulalic even pre-Gen AI. But the reality is, these are important skill sets. We need to be able to communicate bad news to other humans yet still maintain relationships. Am I right? So I started having students co-create rubrics. This way, they were able to see why we needed to assess what we assessed. I did a small research study on this process last year. It was interesting to see the results. Most students didn't even really know what a rubric was (hello hidden curriculum) so they appreciated being a part of the process.
As always, I will continue to think on all of this, Miriam. Assessments are about relationships and relationships are built on affect - feelings of (or lack of) compassion, trust, care. We cannot lose this in our profession.
Oh Lydia you and I share a heart when it comes to this!
I would really like to ask you more about your research project on rubric co-creation. Speaking from a completely conceptual point of view, this sounds like it would allow students to co-create not just the success criteria, but also what they MEAN to the task. But I'd love to know how this went and what came out of it???
Assessment is NOT on the teacher, solely. Assessment comes from the Latin verb “assidere” - that means to “sit with” or “sit beside.” It’s supposed to be a collaborative process, not a solo act. Assessment should be a collaborative process DURING the process of learning, and not seen only as “the final act or judgment.” Assessment for learning is the least known and used form of assessment simply because prep programs rarely, if ever, teach it. Feedback should come BEFORE a grade is issued. Rubrics should be shared and practiced by supplying students examples of strong and weak work so they understand quality. If we had assessment literate teachers in all schools, achievement would soar. But the focus remains on grades/scores (Assessment OF Learning), and look where that got us.
Hey, thanks for this Lawrence! You're absolutely right that assessment isn't solely on the teacher, though my point is that (in our rigidly regulated, standardised education model - remember I'm based in Australia) assessment is an evaluation OF the student's work, not an evaluation WITH the student.
As far as I've seen, formative assessment is covered extensively in teacher prep programs, but it goes out the window as soon as teachers get into the workforce - not because they don't care, but because it doesn't figure in the system's calculations. It's not teachers who need to understand this, it's the administrators and policymakers who don't allow time or money for assessment for learning. They allow only for teaching (explicit instruction) and assessment (summative).
I don't disagree with your "should" statements... but here, from my vantage point, they aren't realities of the system :(
I appreciate the depth of thought and consideration you apply to providing assessment and feedback. It sounds mentally fatiguing in the extreme.
As someone who bounced off classroom teaching by going in thinking (naively and unhelpfully) that I must give my absolute utmost to learners for me to feel I’ve not done them a future defining disservice; I feel I can empathise in some small way with the pressure you must experience.
Of course I’m now very aware that perfection is impossible and its pursuit unsustainable! And so I agree that it behooves all educators to think deeply about how they approach providing nutrition to minds seeking sustenance. A lot is on the line for all parties involved.
And if we think of assessment feedback as fertiliser, what/how much nutrition do we lose when we take the human element out?
I don’t have any answers but I have a few thoughts and questions that I think point perhaps in their direction.
Being divorced from the experience of interacting, or as you put it, being unable to smell or touch students xD, puts educators in a precariously powerful position. A heady almost unchallengeable authority is given to them to use at their discretion. A place where feelings of apathy and dislike for their role can freely form around the sense of obligation to tend to the needs of an onerously large number of depersonalised minds. This ill will towards the educators role as an assessor can create knock on effects for learners. The same way an unengaged and negligent factory line worker might instill defects or even break what they're tasked to develop.
What systems are in place to help educators look hard at their gripes and grievances? What tools are at their disposal to help them know when they’ve strayed too far into malcontent? These feelings aren't unnatural. Repetitive tasks can be enormously taxing. So what do we do to make assessment inspiring and more enjoyable? How does reflective practice serve us best under these circumstances and what do we measure against to ensure consistency of engagement and tone when providing feedback?
The subjective nature of the latter, just as you say, is unavoidable and inherent in human to human interaction. And so we take a risk with human assessment. But a human risk will always be worthwhile. I believe that human interaction is at the core of truly meaningful learning experiences. What will be the cost of breaking from this longstanding tradition of education when we depersonalise, homogenise and artificialise assessment? Could it be the difference between fertiliser and barren soil? I don't think we should put people's futures at such a risk as to stunt or deny future growth. And by degrees our own future development as collective.
This was a lot, I’m sorry. I have a lot of thoughts around what makes an effective teacher and AI assessment methods don't compute for me. Not always. Not when a learner's opportunity for growth really counts. AI assessment will NEVER be able to lift someone up and propel them on their journey as a learner the same way another person can.
What’s certain is that positivity and constructive communication shine through as surely as bad blood bleeds. Something educators that say they “hate” assessment should give some thought to before giving in to apathy and quick fix solutions.
Ok first of all I can't believe you just likened assessment feedback to fertiliser... you're obviously some kind of country boy.
What really strikes me about your reflection is the powerful sense of ill will, apathy, even contempt by educators towards their role as assessors. I wonder to what degree this is accurate -- like I mentioned, from my vantage point there's no shortage of negative feelings from teachers about marking load, but if they had to actually describe those negative feelings, what would they be?
In my case, I think, they are overwhelm (so many papers), boredom (so repetitive), nerves (about giving bad feedback). Sometimes frustration if I don't like the assessment design and feel bad for the students for having a crap task to do.
For more and more teachers, it's anger and indignance at the increasing volume of marking to do, the increasing administrative requirements surrounding it, and the increasing knowledge that students are using ChatGPT to write bad essays for them -- which means that they are being made to give feedback that's irrelevant, because the student can't improve if they're not doing the work.
These are real feelings, and not from bad people. I think assessment hurts because it's unjust. Teacher-student ratios are a problem. What we're asking our students to do is a problem. The economic obsession with credentials (NOT learning) is a problem.
All of these things hurt not just assessment practice, but the quality of educational relationships -- between students, teachers, and learning itself.
I find the fertiliser analogy quite apt! Country boy can give credence this this! To begin with there is compelling research into the benefits of gardening for learners in multidisciplinary educational settings. Perhaps this can be applied conceptually from the top down.
Both immature flora and neophyte learners can be left to their own devices. To absorb information and elements at their discretion. Some will flourish, some grow wild, some fail to thrive at all. Often this is dependent on their immediate environment, what they have access to. In the act of nurturing through nourishing we better the chances in favour of growth, if not flourishment, regardless of environment. Just as the attentive teacher aware of their power, features and flaws, instills virtues beyond just increased fact acquisition in learners; who but the attentive gardener that considers their own knowledge and preferences will yield higher quality and/or more life from their plants?
I apologise if I painted too bleak a picture before. I have deep respect for all educators because I think, in the majority, they are trying their best with the tools they have while working in a culture that doesn’t give them the respect or status I think is owed to them. Perhaps that’s part of it. To feel overwhelmed, unheard, under appreciated is to start from a place of negativity. It takes a lot of resilience and sense of purpose to shoulder that and then to take on more when looking at addressing the needs of individuals and groups of learners that bring their own unique challenges. And then there's the systems in place that throw up their own problems as you say.
I appreciate the dialogue because I’m reframing things for myself at the moment. Questions like what it means to attribute “learner” with a sense of self at a truly meaningful level. What has influenced my attitudes in the past. I won’t burden you with the minutia.
But it’s helpful to be reminded that my judgemental feelings towards uninspired educators not always striving to meet the high standards I have applied to myself, and them by proxy, is for the most part not their fault or even fair. I do believe there is a level of good enough that most of them attain. It’s when good enough is sprinkled with the aforementioned negativity that rankles me. Why undercut good enough with a pervasive culture of negativity? Everyone needs to vent their feeling yes, sharing gripes is therapeutic. But in my experience it often goes too far, is too common in casual conversation. Negativity bias is insidious because it can make positive conversations feel flippant or overly idealistic, and negative conversations more about sharing and bonding over frustrations than working together to find solutions.
Also yes! Thank you! To hear someone say that the focus on gaining credentials, as opposed to gaining knowledge for the sake of learning, is problematic echos my own thoughts. Maybe this is subjective and I speak out of turn but it’s the sense that education is commercialised and a means to an end. When in reality there is no end to learning apart from the point at which we take a break or change interests. And then there’s shame applied or consequences for learners that need to take time away from formalised education when in the middle of it. I’m thinking of both schooling and tertiary institutions. blah blah blah blah! I have thoughts. To be quite honest I'd have approached this conversation with you verbally but I know you're very busy rn so I have placed my thoughts here. I'm conscious that it's possibly a bit much and am happy to put a pin in it for now until we can converse if you're open to that. If nothing else it's helping me reflect upon my experiences and the dissonances I felt as a learner engaging in theories of education and practical teaching.
Truly wonderful people do this work and it concerns me greatly that some should be cowed or break under the strain. I think that being mindful of these pressures and how it effects us personally is crucial to being an effective educator. Conditions will never be absolutely optimum.
It gives me hope that people such as yourself Miriam are thinking hard about the ways things can change and improve. To return to the fertisliser analogy; I believe a mindful gardener, that's in touch with their internal experiences, that can still see the forest for the trees, is inherently more likely to spread good shit evenly 🌱