Week+3B

Week 3B For me, this lesson was more about sorting through some of my developing perspectives about teaching than the rubric task itself. We were asked to design our own rubric which aims to assess all aspects of a Wiki such as layout, clarity of expression and content etc. Marios and I worked as a pair and managed to complete (or so we thought) about two thirds of our work in class. We were ready to pack up and leave, excited at the prospect of having very little homework to complete over the weekend, when we overheard Salomi telling a classmate to "soften" the language she had used to describe Wikis that still need development. Considering we had labelled our weakest rank (1) as "poor" and not something more positive such as "developing" it quickly became evident we would have to rethink our approach to the rubric. Since then, I’ve been trying to cement my position on the matter. Here goes my rant: although I do feel like positive reinforcement is important, I still believe there is such a thing as being oversensitive. I understand that, just as students have different learning styles, some students need to be handled more delicately than others, and that putting people down is always uncalled for and counterproductive. Having said that, I find that, personally, while I don’t respond to “tough love,” I do respond to directness. I feel as if certain students, such as myself, find motivation in the knowledge that their work is not up to standard….yet:) I fear that going too far down the political correctness route, might come at the expense of such students. Additionally, most of the more “positive” examples of rubrics I have found on the net tend to be vague, which obviously defeats the purpose of constructive criticism. With that in mind, Marios and I set out to design a rubric which retains its directness, thus affording students with tangible suggestions about how to improve their work, while still being encouraging. As for the results? – You be the judge.  Ps. I am sold on the fact that “poor” is perhaps, maybe, slightly a bit too harsh :)