Grading is grading. Teaching is helping the students improve their performance or increase their knowledge or change their thinking. Grading doesn’t do any of that. Students learn by doing (writing, creating, speaking), reflecting and getting feedback. The doing part is the required assignments and the optional ones and the more they do, the higher the grade […]
I’ve been talking a lot about reducing the picky and endless details of the assignments in order to get the students to dig deeper and think more holistically so the whole experience becomes more meaningful. But what does that mean exactly? How do I know if the assignments are meaningful? Certainly, I evaluate by deeply […]
Out into the world that is. This is a class in public speaking and so I’m taking the “Public” part seriously. One of the things I tried to do this semester is to get my students to engage in a wider public beyond the classroom. Two parts to this: get them into a different physical […]
You think specificity is good; we’re taught it’s good. But it’s not. It’s oppressive. All those who hate rubrics, raise your hands. I get it. I spent many years being more and more detailed in my assignments, being clearer and more precise about exactly what was expected of my students. That way, they knew exactly […]
OK, so the commute is horrible and keeps getting worse with the increasing subway crowds and rent is ridiculous. But this city gives back: awesome food and people and energy and a place for someone as weird as I am. AND it gives me an on-going protest at Trump Tower (TT) where people read work […]
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