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发信人: haven (避风港), 信区: AdvancedEdu
标  题: How to be a good TA(8)
发信站: BBS 水木清华站 (Tue May 12 21:51:00 1998)

     7 Elements of grading and evaluation

     7.1 Styles and strategies

     Grading is an activity about which different teachers have different
     ideas. What follows are two points of view. Some teachers do not
     believe in grading at all-that it is unnecessary or even detrimental to
     learning. In this view, grading establishes or reinforces inappropriate
     hierarchies. A good grade merely reflects conformity to acceptable
     styles and standards of work, which are the styles and standards of
     the educational elite, and nonconformity gets punished. Grades
     become vehicles for entrance into further educational and vocational
     institutions and reflect not the abilities of students but the reputations
     of their schools. In some educational institutions, grading has been
     eliminated or replaced by other forms of evaluation. It may be
     difficult for TAs at Yale to exempt themselves from the grading
     process altogether. However, it is possible to downplay the
     importance of grades by giving students oral or written evaluations
     that stress their progress over the semester, the relative strengths
     and weaknesses of their work, and so on.

     Other teachers view grading as a necessary and useful way to give
     students feedback on their work and as a way to convey a sense,
     however contingent, of standards of quality. They feel that beyond
     written comments, numerical or letter grades are a useful vehicle for
     identifying students' success or failure in meeting the educational
     objectives of their courses. Even these teachers, however, may
     disagree about the object of comparison against which to grade.
     Should one compare students to each other, to criteria one has set,
     to each student's own previous performance, to one's own
     expectations of each individual student? Such questions raise further
     questions about whether or not to adjust grades to a curve, whether
     or not to establish quotas, and whether or not to explicitly use
     grades as an incentive to improvement. Answers to these sorts of
     questions may depend on how comfortable you are with grading as
     a subjective process or, alternatively, on how objective you think it
     is or should be. You may initially feel intimidated by the fact that
     grading is always at least somewhat subjective. Both you and you
     students may feel more comfortable with the process if, as a result,
     you strive for consistency and communicate your expectations to, medical
     school, graduate school, the Peace Corps, or other programs and
     fellowships for which students wish to be considered-your letter, so
     long as it is honest, is unlikely to make or break anyone. Students
     who have demonstrated a range of abilities in class may ask for
     letters. Do not feel that you cannot recommend students simply
     because they were not your best. It is almost always possible to find
     positive things to say about students. Whether you write letters for
     your best students or your middling ones, letters should be written
     with great care and thought.

          Make sure students understand that you will write an honest
          letter. Students should have a sense of how well they
          performed in the class and how this affects your
          recommendation. If for some reason you do not feel you can
          honestly recommend a student, you should feel under no
          obligation to do so. On the contrary, suggest that the student
          find another recommender. Delicacy and tact are in this case
          essential. You may or may not want to disclose to the student
          your reasons for preferring not to write the letter.
          Ask questions. Find out when the student needs the letter and
          where you should send it. Also be sure to ask kinds of
          programs the student is applying to, or whether you should
          write a more general letter (e.g., for a job file).
          Emphasize the positive characteristics of the student, whether
          personal or professional. Relate the relevance of the student's
          talents and abilities to the field she is entering.
          Pay close attention to the words you use. Avoid any language
          that may reflect pre-judgment on your part.
          Include factual information about the class. Be specific about
          the nature of your duties, the grade the student received from
          you, and the basis on which you assigned the grade.
          Provide general information such as how long you have
          known the student and in what capacity, her strengths and
          weaknesses as a student in your field, etc.
          Be specific. The more specific you can make your comments
          in a letter of recommendation, the better. You might briefly
          summarize a particular piece of work that you remember as
          outstanding or especially representative of the student and
          explain why it was so.

--
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