student self-assessment
“...a school based on trust is better than one based on conrol and a school based on questions is better than one based on answers.”
from “the soft revolution: a student handbook for turning schools around” by neil postman and charles weingartner
a concrete way of showing that trust to students is to allow them agency in determining how much they are learning. all of my courses now utilize a scoring rubric in the form of a google spreadsheet shared individually with each student. they contain the full set of learning objectives from the syllabus and are scored on a 4-point grading scale [A=4, F=0], with space for both instructor and student comments. this requires students to be critically reflective of what they’ve just learned and made. 40–50% of the course grade is determined by the student, with the other half determined by me.
scoring criteria are on the right side, to give students a clear sense of what type of learning or activities constitute an A versus a C and so on.
learning summaries happen at the end of a particular project or at a predetermined point in a longer inquiry, after which students are given time in class to score their work. i provide scores afterwards, so as not to direct their thinking too much. ideally this happens around four times a semester.
scores for each learning objective are averaged for both the student and instructor, then those averages are averaged at the bottom for the final numeric score. i add in the letter grade for mid-term and the final.