Friday, October 31, 2008

Week Eight: Power, Control, Validity and Authority in Distributed

So, the week started off with Stephen Downes auto-subscribing everyone to the Moodle forums which I had not participated in before. My reaction was a little surprising to me. I totally rebelled! Although I responded to Downes' post, I felt resentful that he made that decision for me to full up my mailbox and I reacted by tuning out this week. I did none of the reading and although I logged into the Wednesday session, I listened disinterestedly. I found reasons to miss this week's Friday wrap-up session as well.

Little Boxes Revisited
However, just because I haven't participated in the course itself, doesn't mean that I haven't thought about power and control this week. During the Wednesday session, the discussion turned to rubrics and since this is one thing I've been working on intensely these past weeks, it peaked my interest. I think it was Lisa Lane who indicated that she struggled with rubrics that didn't seem to pinpoint exactly what she wanted students to get out of the experience. Students seem to focus on whether they did more work than others in the group or whether they hit the number of words required, etc. It got me thinking about all the little boxes I was filling in as I created rubrics for our teacher education programs. How restrictive are these tools? Are they a help or a hindrance? Are they really getting at what we want out of the assignment or discussion and who is making the decisions about what is required? Doesn't a rubric create borders for an assignment that restrict a student's understanding of the material? Does a rubric which is supposed to give the student guidance on the requirements of the assignment give too much detail? Can it be so detailed that it restricts learning?

The most general rubric we have in the EDU/EDS program is the Assignment rubric which has 2 criteria, content and technical. The exemplary content box of the rubric states that the assignment: Gives very specific information. Addressed all of the assignment components. Clearly illustrates critical and reflective thinking. Well thought out response. The poor response: Is vague and does not address all assignment components. No evidence of having given the assignment real thought.

A more specific rubric is the Reflective Journal rubric which has 5 criteria: key ideas, application, philosophy, accuracy, and format. The criteria are much more defined in this rubric. For example, the exemplary key ideas criteria response displays: Key ideas specific to the subject are very, clearly stated, and well supported while the not acceptable response: does not identify key ideas OR entry is submitted late.

In comparing these two rubrics, although the Reflective Journal rubric provides more definitive criteria, I think the Assignment Rubric allows the student more flexibility for interpreting and creating meaning within the assignment. The Assignment rubric ended up more general because it was created to grade multiple assignments of varying descriptions and types of activities from evaluating lesson plans to developing reading centers. To develop separate project criteria and rubrics for each of these would not only be time-consuming, but would take away from the creativity of students.

One the other hand, the Reflective Journal rubric should probably be a little more defined. Many students today aren't used to journaling as may need more guidance as they reflect on what they have seen during their teaching experiences. However, we should be careful to monitor our preconceptions about this. It's a balancing act between providing students information about that for which they should be looking and shutting down pathways the student may want to explore.

As an instructor, I would probably spend some time in the beginning helping students evaluate the rubrics and perhaps making some changes to help reflect their expectations as well. I believe that spreading around some of the power in a classroom, whether physical or virtual is a good thing for students. It helps them take control of their own learning which is own ultimate goal in the connected classroom.

Returning Power to the Un-empowered
The second consideration of power and control this week came in the form of the book my daughter recommended, The End of America by Naomi Wolf. She outlines the 10 steps taken by fascist countries to shut down democracy and exert power over the people. I've gotten most of the way through the book and am appalled at the extent of the power that has been ripped from the American people. Although I knew there's been a huge power grab at the highest levels, the lose of control described by Wolf is scary. My only hope is that Mr. Obama has the guts to give it back to the Americans and put things right so that some despot can't come in and completely overwhelm us. Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.

So returning to Mr. Downes' power grab this week, the point is taken that power and teaching have always gone hand in hand, but students do not benefit from being forced into little boxes whether they are rubric boxes or Moodle forums. Students should be empowered to explore, discover, create, and distribute their own learning.

2 comments:

Lisa M Lane said...

After that discussion and reading your post, I've come to the (tentative) conclusion that rubrics are simply a justification for a grade, which is already in itself a form of control and restriction. I created mine to articulate my expectations to the students in connection to the grade. I do find them less restrictive than a straight list, but they are still designed to control, and so far I'm finding this necessary because of the cognitive challenge of tracking the learning of so many students (as I've probably mentioned over and over, I start with 200 each semester).

- Lisa

Inez de Tucson said...

Yes, I agree - rubrics help the instructor at least as much as they do the students and they are restricting to the students' individual learning. We're just teaching students conform to the instructor's expectations and many students lap that up. They confuse grades with learning. What they are really learning is how to work the system. Until we abandon the paradigm of stuffing students into large classrooms though, we will have to have some measure of tracking and control. Rubrics aren't evil, they're just written that way :-)