Thursday, February 28, 2008

John Henry was a Steel Drivin' Man

Today is wikiciv grading time.

I had them come up with a rubric, but it's just how to get a C-. I'm trying something new there. And I have looked at them and I've come up with my grade, but I am going to do something UBER different for this first one.

I'm going to give them the rubric and tell them to fill it out and tell me what they think they should get. I'll compare scores then.

I'm having a bigtime problem with grading these, because I've found that when I grade them it turns into something mechanical and cold and...robotic. It really takes the shine off of these wikis and it reduces them to one of those old timey copier things (the ones where you roll it and it prints out. And it smelled SO YUMMY).

That's really how it's making me feel and when I started to report to them their grades (I even had it classy and assessment FOR learning, I posted on their comment boards), I could literally feel the energy disappearing from their enthusiasm for wikis.

I have to grade them but the way I'm grading them is sucking the life out of it and reducing wikis to "THIS IS WHAT I HAVE TO HAVE TO GET AN A" instead of "LET'S TELL SOME FUN STORIES ABOUT MY CIVILIZATION"

I'll let you know how this turns out.

1 comment:

Reece L said...

Hey John,
Sorry to hear that the grading aspect of the assignment is killing the students' motivation. I'm not surprised to hear this which is why I decided to look at intrinsic motivation rather than grading their work; unfortunately I've have similar experiences when integrating IT into core classes. Anyway, stick with it and let me know if you come up with a solution: there has to be one.