Assessment

Here’s where we talk grades…

Our class will condcut assessmet using a two-fold process of assessment declarations and self-evaluation. This system is meant to value your labor and the work you do in order to fully engage the course. My intention in using this system is to offer each of us a chance to experience composing and learning not as a strictly finite task that is either already mastered or simply needs to be mastered, but instead as an ongoing act of dialogue, invention, risk taking, concern for others, and, yes, even failure. My intention is to facilitate as close as we can a classroom-as-studio approach in which we each play a generative role in one another’s learning.

Conventional grading requires us to over-simplify the otherwise complex processes of learning, processes that require from us a commitment to experimentation, to ambiguity, to taking risks, to listening and responding, and ultimately, to having a space for the productive failures that lay the groundwork for growth. This process do not focus on assigning letter or number grades to individual projects or assignments. This means that while activities, compositions and projects will receive feedback both from me and from your peers, they will not be assigned grades in the traditional sense.

Here’s how it works:

####Assessment Declarations

Each week’s work has a point value, and you receive the points when the work is complete. So, as you finish each week, you will record the points in Canvas by means of a “Declaration” — which is just a true/false survey where you confirm that the work for the week is done. The points you declare are automatically recorded in your total points, which you can see in the Canvas Gradebook.

A typical weekly Declaration looks like this:

• I completed ALL components of this week’s work. - True/False
• I completed ALL components of this week’s work on time. - True/False
• I attended all workshops this week. - True/False
• I offered at least one peer some in-progress feedback or conversation on their work this week. - True/False

There will be a total of 300 points available for the quarter – approximately 30 points a week for 10 weeks.

####Self-Assessments

Each week, students will write a self-evaluation of their work for the week. This self-evaluation focus on how your learning relates to our course outcomes as well as one’s own personal learing outcomes. These self-evaluations will be submitted via Canvas.

####Deterimining Final Grades

Final grades will be determined by the student and the instructor based on the declarations and self-assessments.

Students finishing the course with at least 270 points will be eligible to receive a grade of B or better for the course. Finalizing this grade will be based on taking the self-evaluations of one’s learning and the course outcomes into consideration.

Students finfishing the course with at least 210 points will be eligible to receive at least a grade of C. Again, finalizing this grade will be based on taking the self-evaluations of one’s learning and the course outcomes into consideration.

Students finishing the course with fewer than 210 points risk not passing the course and earning below a C (or 2.0). Again, finalizing this grade will be based on taking the self-evaluations of one’s learning and the course outcomes into consideration.