WEBVTT 00:00:10.120 --> 00:00:14.880 What would happen if instead of composing predetermined 00:00:14.880 --> 00:00:18.059 assignments, college composition students could 00:00:18.059 --> 00:00:21.600 compose whatever they want to compose? What would 00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:24.600 happen if students could set their own deadlines 00:00:24.600 --> 00:00:29.480 and grade their own work? Find out. as Assistant 00:00:29.480 --> 00:00:33.240 Professor Mason Joiner and I explore these questions 00:00:33.240 --> 00:00:36.140 with a few of our fellow English Department colleagues. 00:00:37.079 --> 00:00:41.479 I'm Monica Mankin, and this is the English 101 00:00:41.479 --> 00:01:09.579 Experiment. All right. So we are here for episode 00:01:09.579 --> 00:01:15.459 four of the English 101 experiment. And this 00:01:15.459 --> 00:01:18.079 is, what's the date today? The 9th already? The 00:01:18.079 --> 00:01:22.620 9th of November. November 9th. 2023. Wow. The 00:01:22.620 --> 00:01:25.159 semester has just been flying by, I feel like. 00:01:25.640 --> 00:01:27.719 All right. Well, I'm Monica Mankin, Associate 00:01:27.719 --> 00:01:30.099 Professor of English at Delgado Community College. 00:01:30.730 --> 00:01:33.569 I am Mason Joiner, assistant professor of English 00:01:33.569 --> 00:01:35.430 at Delgado Community College in New Orleans, 00:01:35.549 --> 00:01:38.510 Louisiana. And I'm Audra Rouse, associate professor 00:01:38.510 --> 00:01:41.489 of English at Delgado. And how long have you 00:01:41.489 --> 00:01:46.049 been working at Delgado? Since 2012. So I started 00:01:46.049 --> 00:01:49.409 as an adjunct for one semester. And then so I'm 00:01:49.409 --> 00:01:54.469 going on like 11 years as a full -time instructor. 00:01:55.250 --> 00:01:58.269 Yeah, I think we have the same. Backstory, like 00:01:58.269 --> 00:02:01.049 one semester of adjuncting here and then full 00:02:01.049 --> 00:02:05.310 -time. I think I did two academic years of adjuncting 00:02:05.310 --> 00:02:11.469 before coming on full -time. I thank you for 00:02:11.469 --> 00:02:13.870 joining us today. Thanks for inviting me. It's 00:02:13.870 --> 00:02:16.610 exciting. I've been enjoying listening to information 00:02:16.610 --> 00:02:21.250 about your experiment. Cool. So today our focus 00:02:21.250 --> 00:02:24.780 is going to be on... I think it was like what's 00:02:24.780 --> 00:02:27.639 fair and other questions of self -evaluation. 00:02:27.800 --> 00:02:31.039 So we thought you would be a good person to talk 00:02:31.039 --> 00:02:34.159 to us about this because I know last year you 00:02:34.159 --> 00:02:36.759 and Mason were working on kind of trying to revise 00:02:36.759 --> 00:02:40.620 our departmental rubric. We're all on the standards 00:02:40.620 --> 00:02:44.300 and assessment committee together. Right. So 00:02:44.300 --> 00:02:47.060 we were the collaboration. It's not collaboration. 00:02:47.180 --> 00:02:51.460 Yes. But calibration team for a while. Yes. So. 00:02:52.009 --> 00:02:55.270 sort of relevant? Yes, definitely relevant to 00:02:55.270 --> 00:02:58.750 our interests. So I was hoping maybe you could 00:02:58.750 --> 00:03:02.229 start off with giving the audience just an overview 00:03:02.229 --> 00:03:05.969 of how you are assessing student work during 00:03:05.969 --> 00:03:09.330 this experiment and how you are establishing 00:03:09.330 --> 00:03:12.870 what's fair. So just kind of start with a big 00:03:12.870 --> 00:03:16.659 picture overview of how you're doing that. Well, 00:03:16.659 --> 00:03:21.400 big picture overview of how the students' work 00:03:21.400 --> 00:03:26.080 is being evaluated. We're, I guess, looking at 00:03:26.080 --> 00:03:27.680 a grade breakdown to start with. That's pretty 00:03:27.680 --> 00:03:31.900 bird's eye. Attendance and conferences are taking 00:03:31.900 --> 00:03:36.060 up a big chunk. I think we, off the top of my 00:03:36.060 --> 00:03:39.360 head, I'm actually, I know it's, is it 20 % for 00:03:39.360 --> 00:03:41.800 attendance and journal, 20 % for conferences? 00:03:42.669 --> 00:03:47.830 10 % for their action plan, proposal, and then 00:03:47.830 --> 00:03:52.469 that remaining 50 is their body of work, their 00:03:52.469 --> 00:03:54.509 compositions over the course of the semester 00:03:54.509 --> 00:03:58.590 and whatever form those projects take. Along 00:03:58.590 --> 00:04:02.949 with a self -evaluation where they are actually 00:04:02.949 --> 00:04:07.270 designing their own grading rubric. And then 00:04:07.270 --> 00:04:11.129 composing a self -evaluation type of essay, reflective 00:04:11.129 --> 00:04:14.810 self -evaluation, where they then grade their 00:04:14.810 --> 00:04:19.959 project. Okay, and I know that... From listening 00:04:19.959 --> 00:04:22.560 to other podcasts, students are doing different 00:04:22.560 --> 00:04:25.620 numbers of projects. So some are taking on like 00:04:25.620 --> 00:04:28.899 one big project while others are doing smaller, 00:04:28.959 --> 00:04:32.480 slightly less ambitious projects. So how do you 00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:35.480 establish what's fair in terms of the number 00:04:35.480 --> 00:04:40.610 and ambition level of projects? have there been 00:04:40.610 --> 00:04:43.550 any problems or did you have any worries about 00:04:43.550 --> 00:04:46.829 some students being a lot more ambitious than 00:04:46.829 --> 00:04:50.529 others? Because I remember from what you've talked 00:04:50.529 --> 00:04:55.310 about before, an example of like a cookbook versus 00:04:55.310 --> 00:04:58.410 synthesizing 50 articles on cancer research. 00:04:59.769 --> 00:05:02.189 Throwing together some recipes with some commentary 00:05:02.189 --> 00:05:05.410 sounds a lot easier to me. So how do you balance 00:05:05.410 --> 00:05:10.339 that out? Well, yes, of course. I mean, even 00:05:10.339 --> 00:05:12.480 in a traditional English 101 class, I think you've 00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:16.339 got students who take on more than they necessarily 00:05:16.339 --> 00:05:20.579 need to. Those ambitious students are the ones 00:05:20.579 --> 00:05:25.079 that synthesize dozens of sources on cancer research. 00:05:26.180 --> 00:05:28.899 I think this conversation with our students began 00:05:28.899 --> 00:05:32.800 first by really us asking them the question you 00:05:32.800 --> 00:05:35.350 just asked us. We asked them, What do you think 00:05:35.350 --> 00:05:40.689 is fair? And sort of let them just really out 00:05:40.689 --> 00:05:44.949 of curiosity to see what standards they would 00:05:44.949 --> 00:05:48.089 pull out of the air to describe what's fair for 00:05:48.089 --> 00:05:51.670 an English 101 class. Go ahead, Monica. Yeah, 00:05:51.730 --> 00:05:53.209 I was just going to add to that, that part of 00:05:53.209 --> 00:05:56.069 that conversation included what everyone else 00:05:56.069 --> 00:05:58.290 is doing in English 101 at the college, that 00:05:58.290 --> 00:06:00.449 these are the expectations of students in this 00:06:00.449 --> 00:06:03.680 course. So how is this going to translate? to 00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:09.120 this style of composing throughout the semester. 00:06:09.560 --> 00:06:12.399 And we talked a lot about word counts and how 00:06:12.399 --> 00:06:14.879 they're pretty useless. Most students said that 00:06:14.879 --> 00:06:16.959 when there is a word count, that's all they care 00:06:16.959 --> 00:06:19.959 about, and they're just trying to get to that 00:06:19.959 --> 00:06:22.720 number of words, and so they lose sight of the 00:06:22.720 --> 00:06:27.579 quality of what they're producing. And I think 00:06:27.579 --> 00:06:30.259 we talked a lot about the number of hours, right, 00:06:30.379 --> 00:06:32.759 the work hours that would go into these projects. 00:06:32.899 --> 00:06:36.860 And that if you are talking to a classmate and 00:06:36.860 --> 00:06:40.959 they're wanting to do, you know, a podcast on 00:06:40.959 --> 00:06:43.339 autism and you're like, I'm going to write a 00:06:43.339 --> 00:06:48.079 cover letter for my resume, that's an imbalance. 00:06:48.220 --> 00:06:50.240 So how do we correct that? And they actually 00:06:50.240 --> 00:06:53.310 really helped each other. thinking about that 00:06:53.310 --> 00:06:57.910 at the beginning. Now that we're kind of wrapping 00:06:57.910 --> 00:07:03.430 things up, there are some concerns, but is there 00:07:03.430 --> 00:07:05.550 anything else to the fairness question that you 00:07:05.550 --> 00:07:07.829 want? I think this, for me, kind of feeds into 00:07:07.829 --> 00:07:11.250 this self -evaluation part. My students today 00:07:11.250 --> 00:07:14.470 just started generating thoughts for their self 00:07:14.470 --> 00:07:17.149 -evaluation in their journal based on the questionnaire 00:07:17.149 --> 00:07:22.889 that I gave them. One of the questions was, you 00:07:22.889 --> 00:07:25.810 know, would you say the amount of work you compose 00:07:25.810 --> 00:07:29.509 this semester exceeds, equals, falls below, or 00:07:29.509 --> 00:07:32.529 falls far below what your classmates, the amount 00:07:32.529 --> 00:07:35.029 of work your classmates composed? And so I think 00:07:35.029 --> 00:07:37.329 we're still addressing the fairness question, 00:07:37.569 --> 00:07:41.209 even in their self -evaluation, encouraging, 00:07:41.350 --> 00:07:43.509 you know, honesty, integrity, accountability 00:07:43.509 --> 00:07:46.550 for what, how much work have you done, and do 00:07:46.550 --> 00:07:49.209 you think it's enough? Right. And I circle actually 00:07:49.209 --> 00:07:51.170 circled that it was the third question on your 00:07:51.170 --> 00:07:55.350 list of questions that I added to that was just 00:07:55.350 --> 00:07:57.350 the straightforward. Did you complete what you 00:07:57.350 --> 00:07:59.569 set out to do? Because I do have a couple of 00:07:59.569 --> 00:08:02.089 students and it's really only two, literally 00:08:02.089 --> 00:08:05.670 a couple who haven't even started the second 00:08:05.670 --> 00:08:08.990 project and their first project wasn't. Super 00:08:08.990 --> 00:08:11.009 demanding, like it really didn't need 12 weeks. 00:08:11.129 --> 00:08:13.230 So we're going to have to have that conversation 00:08:13.230 --> 00:08:16.709 about how, you know, this is not this 50 percent 00:08:16.709 --> 00:08:19.569 of your grade is probably not going to be an 00:08:19.569 --> 00:08:23.730 A. And so, yeah, we're going to have some hard 00:08:23.730 --> 00:08:26.939 conversations happening. I think starting having 00:08:26.939 --> 00:08:30.259 those hard conversations all together helps lay 00:08:30.259 --> 00:08:32.340 a foundation to make the individual conversations 00:08:32.340 --> 00:08:37.460 easier. Last class, we'd started by saying, think 00:08:37.460 --> 00:08:40.360 about the body of work that earns an A in this 00:08:40.360 --> 00:08:42.279 course and describe that body of work. Think 00:08:42.279 --> 00:08:43.899 about the body of work that earns a B, that earns 00:08:43.899 --> 00:08:46.299 a C. Describe that body of work. And so then 00:08:46.299 --> 00:08:49.399 it was really the students telling me what a 00:08:49.399 --> 00:08:53.509 C looks like. sort of taking ownership over, 00:08:53.549 --> 00:08:55.070 well, that kind of describes what I've done. 00:08:55.169 --> 00:08:57.950 So sort of laying the foundation there for maybe 00:08:57.950 --> 00:09:01.070 I'm going to get a C in this class. Okay, great. 00:09:01.169 --> 00:09:04.269 So a lot of it is about community and kind of 00:09:04.269 --> 00:09:06.870 setting the standards together. I was actually 00:09:06.870 --> 00:09:09.009 wondering about that a lot. This goes a little 00:09:09.009 --> 00:09:12.330 bit off of the idea of assessment, but since 00:09:12.330 --> 00:09:14.789 everybody's doing their own individual projects, 00:09:15.090 --> 00:09:18.330 like having enough commonality to be able to 00:09:19.409 --> 00:09:23.149 evaluate each other's or give feedback or um 00:09:23.149 --> 00:09:26.710 so I was just kind of wondering like how do you 00:09:26.710 --> 00:09:32.169 keep the social component um of the course and 00:09:32.169 --> 00:09:33.850 it sounds like a lot of that does have to do 00:09:33.850 --> 00:09:36.450 with assessment and kind of establishing the 00:09:36.450 --> 00:09:40.090 class norm like or the class expectation a lot 00:09:40.090 --> 00:09:42.820 of that energy was spent in the first few weeks 00:09:42.820 --> 00:09:46.360 establishing the class norms, expectations, class 00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:48.940 community, you know, what we expect of each other. 00:09:49.299 --> 00:09:53.019 Yeah. And I think that does pay off further down 00:09:53.019 --> 00:09:56.679 the line. Yeah. And having the opportunity for 00:09:56.679 --> 00:09:59.320 them to all share what they're working on throughout 00:09:59.320 --> 00:10:01.840 the entire semester, like the workshopping that 00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:04.279 we've done. And it's like, I don't like we, I 00:10:04.279 --> 00:10:10.509 have not been using educational. Like I don't, 00:10:10.509 --> 00:10:12.769 we don't talk about assessment or grading. We 00:10:12.769 --> 00:10:14.470 talk about feedback. We talk about the quality 00:10:14.470 --> 00:10:17.389 of the text. We talk about, you know, how do 00:10:17.389 --> 00:10:20.629 we develop this or how do we sharpen the language 00:10:20.629 --> 00:10:24.129 or the style? Because we did so much practice 00:10:24.129 --> 00:10:26.210 at the beginning that the students all have that 00:10:26.210 --> 00:10:28.789 in common to be able to make, to draw from that, 00:10:28.809 --> 00:10:32.009 to make suggestions, no matter the type of composition 00:10:32.009 --> 00:10:35.669 that they're putting forth for feedback. And 00:10:35.669 --> 00:10:40.889 because everyone's projects vary so highly, it 00:10:40.889 --> 00:10:43.590 does leave a lot more room in discussion and 00:10:43.590 --> 00:10:46.929 workshop to focus on the purpose of a particular 00:10:46.929 --> 00:10:51.370 text and the audience and letting the author's 00:10:51.370 --> 00:10:53.350 purpose and the author's target audience sort 00:10:53.350 --> 00:10:56.169 of guide what your feedback should be for each 00:10:56.169 --> 00:11:02.980 other. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. And how 00:11:02.980 --> 00:11:06.539 do you tie that all into the SLOs for the course? 00:11:06.980 --> 00:11:09.000 How do you make sure that you're keeping on track 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:13.840 with that? I'm just going to say that has been 00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:18.019 one of the struggles this semester. And I think 00:11:18.019 --> 00:11:20.120 we've had a lot of conversations, Mason and I 00:11:20.120 --> 00:11:23.399 have, about when we do this again, how do we 00:11:23.399 --> 00:11:26.419 fold in? I think it's just more of the academic 00:11:26.419 --> 00:11:29.320 part of it. But I think there's still a lot of 00:11:29.320 --> 00:11:31.460 academic work that's been done. And I think especially 00:11:31.460 --> 00:11:33.720 with the self -evaluation essay as the final 00:11:33.720 --> 00:11:36.539 culminating text that they produce, that they 00:11:36.539 --> 00:11:39.580 are, I mean, they have been practicing citation. 00:11:39.659 --> 00:11:41.879 They're very concerned about documenting sources. 00:11:43.299 --> 00:11:46.100 I think the way that our SLOs are written, there 00:11:46.100 --> 00:11:49.480 is a lot of... there's some wiggle room like 00:11:49.480 --> 00:11:51.840 everything doesn't have to be an essay to assess 00:11:51.840 --> 00:11:55.139 whether a student can have an idea and support 00:11:55.139 --> 00:11:59.019 an idea or achieve a purpose or appeal to a specific 00:11:59.019 --> 00:12:01.059 audience like those things are happening and 00:12:01.059 --> 00:12:03.039 so they're that's pretty clear I feel like those 00:12:03.039 --> 00:12:06.379 SLOs can be checked off but it is the uh you 00:12:06.379 --> 00:12:11.080 know um I guess did have has anyone had to write 00:12:11.080 --> 00:12:14.860 an MLA paper no but I mean, some of them are 00:12:14.860 --> 00:12:17.759 doing that, but it's not like a requirement. 00:12:17.799 --> 00:12:19.860 So I can see how like that might cause trouble. 00:12:21.399 --> 00:12:24.419 But we are addressing that and coming up with 00:12:24.419 --> 00:12:27.940 ways to kind of integrate that better into the 00:12:27.940 --> 00:12:30.879 second round of this experiment in the spring. 00:12:31.240 --> 00:12:34.039 Yeah. And we've had we have at least had the 00:12:34.039 --> 00:12:36.679 position from from early on that they are doing 00:12:36.679 --> 00:12:39.580 a lot of academic kind of work. Like you mentioned, 00:12:39.639 --> 00:12:42.360 the self -evaluation is ultimately very academic. 00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:48.740 And the action plan that they write to sort of 00:12:48.740 --> 00:12:51.740 moderate the timeline of their projects is at 00:12:51.740 --> 00:12:54.220 least a very professional text, if not strictly 00:12:54.220 --> 00:12:56.039 academic. It's certainly a professional text 00:12:56.039 --> 00:12:59.399 that they're creating. Yeah, and I think that 00:12:59.399 --> 00:13:02.139 applies. Yeah, and I think that's a very transferable 00:13:02.139 --> 00:13:05.620 skill to be able to take that. process and that 00:13:05.620 --> 00:13:09.419 type of composition that we all created and I 00:13:09.419 --> 00:13:11.700 mean use that again in a class where you are 00:13:11.700 --> 00:13:14.419 going to maybe be asked to compose a midterm 00:13:14.419 --> 00:13:16.860 paper or a final paper it's a big project and 00:13:16.860 --> 00:13:18.779 you need to break it down and you need to manage 00:13:18.779 --> 00:13:21.379 your time like I think that was one of the benefits 00:13:21.379 --> 00:13:24.259 of doing that is that it really made that more 00:13:24.259 --> 00:13:27.419 concrete for a lot of students instead of me 00:13:27.419 --> 00:13:29.740 saying okay we need to do this by this time they 00:13:29.740 --> 00:13:31.980 had to really think carefully about their lives 00:13:31.980 --> 00:13:35.230 and their schedules and and map that out themselves. 00:13:35.769 --> 00:13:38.610 Yeah, I think we're both looking for ways to 00:13:38.610 --> 00:13:44.289 integrate academic writing into the philosophy 00:13:44.289 --> 00:13:47.809 of this course more. But I think it's also important 00:13:47.809 --> 00:13:50.169 to remember that English 101 is an introduction 00:13:50.169 --> 00:13:53.490 to that. I think English 102 is where we really 00:13:53.490 --> 00:13:56.409 go deep with that kind of writing. And so students, 00:13:56.590 --> 00:13:58.950 I think my students will leave with... what they 00:13:58.950 --> 00:14:02.330 need to be in a good place to start 102. It's 00:14:02.330 --> 00:14:05.049 not like they've never heard of citing and documenting 00:14:05.049 --> 00:14:07.889 sources or, you know, they've never heard of 00:14:07.889 --> 00:14:09.830 how to organize an essay or what the purpose 00:14:09.830 --> 00:14:11.669 of the paragraph, all those things are still 00:14:11.669 --> 00:14:13.570 happening. They're just, they just look very 00:14:13.570 --> 00:14:15.490 different. So I could see how that might make 00:14:15.490 --> 00:14:17.870 people nervous. Like, oh, they're just, they're 00:14:17.870 --> 00:14:20.629 just writing poetry and keeping journals. They're 00:14:20.629 --> 00:14:22.669 not doing anything they're supposed to be doing 00:14:22.669 --> 00:14:26.190 in 101. But I think it's just a very different 00:14:26.190 --> 00:14:31.379 approach. getting students to actually care about 00:14:31.379 --> 00:14:35.179 what they're doing in a composition class. That's 00:14:35.179 --> 00:14:40.419 a much harder battle to win is teaching how to 00:14:40.419 --> 00:14:45.320 care about what you're writing. So just a logistical 00:14:45.320 --> 00:14:47.940 question. Have you looked at any finished projects 00:14:47.940 --> 00:14:51.639 yet? Or are you going to wait until the end? 00:14:51.659 --> 00:14:54.559 Because I see their final... Self -evaluation, 00:14:54.799 --> 00:14:56.960 that's going to include all the work that they've 00:14:56.960 --> 00:14:59.840 done. So are you sort of waiting until the end 00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:02.940 to look at everything that they've done? Or have 00:15:02.940 --> 00:15:04.960 you been sort of checking in and making sure 00:15:04.960 --> 00:15:10.759 about the quality all along? I would say, yeah, 00:15:10.799 --> 00:15:12.899 we're seeing rough drafts throughout. I wouldn't 00:15:12.899 --> 00:15:14.820 say we're seeing anything final throughout because 00:15:14.820 --> 00:15:18.009 I think we're also encouraging them to. Keep 00:15:18.009 --> 00:15:20.129 working. Keep working on it, right? There's always 00:15:20.129 --> 00:15:22.889 more improvement to be made. I do have students 00:15:22.889 --> 00:15:25.590 that did successfully complete a first project 00:15:25.590 --> 00:15:28.649 and then moved on to a second one. And so, yes, 00:15:28.710 --> 00:15:31.909 I have seen some final projects. We all agreed 00:15:31.909 --> 00:15:34.830 when we were making our timelines that we would 00:15:34.830 --> 00:15:38.450 be delivering our texts to their audiences no 00:15:38.450 --> 00:15:41.529 later than the 20th. So this next week, tomorrow, 00:15:41.629 --> 00:15:43.409 in fact, in class, we're going to talk about 00:15:43.409 --> 00:15:45.899 how do we do that. And so some students. their 00:15:45.899 --> 00:15:49.679 delivery will be to submit their work to images. 00:15:51.279 --> 00:15:53.580 Some students, like the student who did the cancer 00:15:53.580 --> 00:15:56.100 research, she wants to submit that to a journal. 00:15:56.159 --> 00:15:58.259 So I'm going to help her figure out that process. 00:15:59.879 --> 00:16:05.840 We've created a space also, I think. In progress. 00:16:06.179 --> 00:16:08.360 Yeah, it's in progress, but a space for students 00:16:08.360 --> 00:16:11.679 to be able to publish. And of course, that's 00:16:11.679 --> 00:16:14.059 going to include, it has to meet standards just 00:16:14.059 --> 00:16:16.120 like it would for any publication. It can't just 00:16:16.120 --> 00:16:20.299 be like, here's my shitty first draft for this. 00:16:20.620 --> 00:16:23.899 for this publication so i think so like it's 00:16:23.899 --> 00:16:26.360 coming together but there's there are still things 00:16:26.360 --> 00:16:31.580 that i'm concerned about as far as like and i 00:16:31.580 --> 00:16:34.159 asked mason i think it was yesterday or the day 00:16:34.159 --> 00:16:37.460 before it's all running together um but just 00:16:37.460 --> 00:16:40.059 like what do you do when you have a student who 00:16:40.059 --> 00:16:43.230 their work is not really deliverable yet Right. 00:16:43.889 --> 00:16:46.549 I can't I can't really deliver it to an audience 00:16:46.549 --> 00:16:49.230 because it's not ready. And so I'm still trying 00:16:49.230 --> 00:16:50.970 to sort out that question. And I think maybe 00:16:50.970 --> 00:16:53.190 that's even a question to ask the students. Like 00:16:53.190 --> 00:16:58.370 what, you know, what is the result of that? It 00:16:58.370 --> 00:17:00.690 brings us to the conversation with our students 00:17:00.690 --> 00:17:03.049 of what does it mean for a text to be ready for 00:17:03.049 --> 00:17:06.250 its audience? Yeah. Which is an interesting conversation 00:17:06.250 --> 00:17:09.869 to have. Yeah. And I don't think I mean, I think 00:17:09.869 --> 00:17:11.430 it's important for them to understand like this 00:17:11.430 --> 00:17:14.380 is. This is a place to be practicing these things. 00:17:14.480 --> 00:17:17.079 So if you didn't succeed at making it ready, 00:17:17.319 --> 00:17:20.839 you know, I don't think you should fail. But 00:17:20.839 --> 00:17:24.640 like, but what what does that mean for your grade? 00:17:24.740 --> 00:17:26.920 What does that mean for your learning process? 00:17:27.019 --> 00:17:30.799 What does that mean for the future courses you're 00:17:30.799 --> 00:17:35.660 going to take? That was one of my questions was, 00:17:35.880 --> 00:17:38.880 are there projects going to be graded? Do you 00:17:38.880 --> 00:17:42.349 feel like they're going to? the final grade for 00:17:42.349 --> 00:17:49.069 the project portion of the grade, do you think 00:17:49.069 --> 00:17:52.230 that that will be more based on effort or the 00:17:52.230 --> 00:17:55.670 actual quality of the work? Or how will that 00:17:55.670 --> 00:17:59.210 balance out? Well, I think for me, I'm expecting 00:17:59.210 --> 00:18:04.170 a lot of it to depend on... I'm really curious 00:18:04.170 --> 00:18:08.589 to see, A, how they score their own compositions 00:18:08.589 --> 00:18:11.779 using the rubrics they've designed. And I'm interested 00:18:11.779 --> 00:18:15.500 in seeing how honest they are in their evaluations 00:18:15.500 --> 00:18:18.259 of themselves. I feel like integrity in those 00:18:18.259 --> 00:18:23.019 two parts will play a lot into it for me, I think. 00:18:24.240 --> 00:18:26.619 I think I'm focusing more on the quality, the 00:18:26.619 --> 00:18:29.339 product, because I think the effort was in showing 00:18:29.339 --> 00:18:31.920 up to your conferences and showing up to class 00:18:31.920 --> 00:18:34.940 and participating in what we were doing in class. 00:18:35.660 --> 00:18:37.539 making the most of workshop, taking advantage 00:18:37.539 --> 00:18:41.700 of all of the processes that we participated 00:18:41.700 --> 00:18:44.940 in together. So I think really for me, I want 00:18:44.940 --> 00:18:49.039 to see them grade it based on what it is, not 00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:53.779 how much time they put into it or what they feel. 00:18:53.980 --> 00:18:57.380 Because we have kind of different guidelines, 00:18:57.519 --> 00:19:01.859 I guess, for our students. I definitely want 00:19:01.859 --> 00:19:06.079 them to... I had them actually do a social annotation 00:19:06.079 --> 00:19:09.799 of our department rubric. And we talked a lot 00:19:09.799 --> 00:19:11.960 about, like, well, what do these qualities mean? 00:19:12.119 --> 00:19:14.559 And then how would, you know, what language can 00:19:14.559 --> 00:19:16.839 you borrow from this to help build your own rubric? 00:19:16.839 --> 00:19:19.279 Because, I mean, if you're not all writing this 00:19:19.279 --> 00:19:22.690 particular kind of... essay the language doesn't 00:19:22.690 --> 00:19:25.589 necessarily translate very well but having I'm 00:19:25.589 --> 00:19:27.170 having them gonna they're gonna create their 00:19:27.170 --> 00:19:29.589 own actual rubric and I'm gonna be very much 00:19:29.589 --> 00:19:31.690 like this is about the actual product that you 00:19:31.690 --> 00:19:34.569 created so you have to put that aside and actually 00:19:34.569 --> 00:19:36.390 I was having a conference with one of my students 00:19:36.390 --> 00:19:39.779 today And I've been kind of as we've as I've 00:19:39.779 --> 00:19:41.319 introduced that and I'm conferencing, I've been 00:19:41.319 --> 00:19:42.960 asking them, you know, how are you feeling about 00:19:42.960 --> 00:19:46.579 having to grade yourself? You know, and she was 00:19:46.579 --> 00:19:48.359 like, actually, like, I think I'm going to just 00:19:48.359 --> 00:19:50.539 like after I finish, I'm just going to put it 00:19:50.539 --> 00:19:51.940 all away. And then I'm going to try to, like, 00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:55.039 look at it like I didn't write it and try to 00:19:55.039 --> 00:19:57.700 be objective. And I'm like, that's exactly what 00:19:57.700 --> 00:19:59.880 I want you to do. So it was good to hear that, 00:19:59.940 --> 00:20:02.900 you know, and just kind of an informal discussion 00:20:02.900 --> 00:20:06.339 about it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking forward to 00:20:06.339 --> 00:20:09.160 those conversations. as well. And I think and 00:20:09.160 --> 00:20:11.400 hope that at least many of the students will 00:20:11.400 --> 00:20:14.900 surprise me with how objective they are about 00:20:14.900 --> 00:20:20.519 their own writing. I hope, yeah. Can you talk 00:20:20.519 --> 00:20:23.619 more about having students design their own rubrics? 00:20:23.660 --> 00:20:28.180 Are you both doing that? Yes. So I didn't do 00:20:28.180 --> 00:20:31.099 the social annotation of the existing departmental 00:20:31.099 --> 00:20:37.539 rubric. Well, yeah, so I had them start by thinking 00:20:37.539 --> 00:20:40.119 about, for each of their projects, the type of 00:20:40.119 --> 00:20:42.460 composition that it is, and then writing in their 00:20:42.460 --> 00:20:45.900 journals a list of qualities that make that type 00:20:45.900 --> 00:20:49.900 of composition strong. And then from those qualities, 00:20:50.140 --> 00:20:55.140 they draw out some criteria. And then, yeah, 00:20:56.000 --> 00:20:59.160 so for... For each criteria, then I'm asking, 00:20:59.220 --> 00:21:01.660 so we sort of did this practice already of describing 00:21:01.660 --> 00:21:04.900 the body of work that earns an A, and now they're 00:21:04.900 --> 00:21:06.480 going to say, it's going to be like describe 00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:15.519 an article that has an A in presentation, and 00:21:15.519 --> 00:21:17.900 what does a B look like in presentation, and 00:21:17.900 --> 00:21:21.180 so forth. So these are the criteria that they've 00:21:21.180 --> 00:21:25.039 come up with, and I'm just sort of guiding. guiding 00:21:25.039 --> 00:21:27.900 their criteria. I think if there's something 00:21:27.900 --> 00:21:30.720 that I think they need to add, I contribute my 00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:33.579 thoughts. And then in the final conference as 00:21:33.579 --> 00:21:37.220 well, I might say, I feel like, you know, for 00:21:37.220 --> 00:21:39.180 this rubric, you might have also considered, 00:21:39.359 --> 00:21:41.880 I don't know, language clarity. And what would 00:21:41.880 --> 00:21:43.460 you have scored had that been on your rubric? 00:21:44.039 --> 00:21:47.130 Stuff like that. So when you say presentation, 00:21:47.329 --> 00:21:49.269 are you talking about like the document formatting? 00:21:49.609 --> 00:21:51.269 Like, is that what you mean? That's a kind of 00:21:51.269 --> 00:21:54.970 presentation. Yeah. How do they know what the 00:21:54.970 --> 00:21:59.589 sort of platonic ideal of their genre or whatever 00:21:59.589 --> 00:22:02.529 their project is? Do you have them find, here's 00:22:02.529 --> 00:22:06.369 an example of a great cookbook that I can use 00:22:06.369 --> 00:22:09.750 as a model? Or like, how do they know what those 00:22:09.750 --> 00:22:13.619 qualities are? Well, I think in conference leading 00:22:13.619 --> 00:22:17.279 up to this point, we've talked about examples 00:22:17.279 --> 00:22:21.299 and trying to emulate an example. That sort of 00:22:21.299 --> 00:22:26.380 ties into the imitation part of the course. And 00:22:26.380 --> 00:22:30.599 so if you're writing a cookbook, let's just Google 00:22:30.599 --> 00:22:35.460 image some cookbook pages. And here's what this 00:22:35.460 --> 00:22:38.960 recipe looks like in this cookbook. Compare that 00:22:38.960 --> 00:22:41.559 to what you've got in this Google Doc. How can 00:22:41.559 --> 00:22:44.299 you make this, if you like the way this looks, 00:22:44.559 --> 00:22:46.920 how can you make this look more like that? Stuff 00:22:46.920 --> 00:22:50.299 like that. And also the clarity of the writing. 00:22:50.339 --> 00:22:53.299 The cookbook particularly was interesting to 00:22:53.299 --> 00:22:56.799 workshop because it brought up a lot of things 00:22:56.799 --> 00:22:59.619 like the need to pay attention to detail. You 00:22:59.619 --> 00:23:02.640 can't just... make stuff up when you're giving 00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:05.660 someone a recipe and your instructions have to 00:23:05.660 --> 00:23:08.000 be very clear and you almost have to write it 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:10.259 like the person is an idiot and they don't know, 00:23:10.339 --> 00:23:12.279 you know, they've never cooked a day in their 00:23:12.279 --> 00:23:15.359 lives. So, um, yeah, I think a lot of it came 00:23:15.359 --> 00:23:18.430 up. It's come up. over the course of the term. 00:23:18.509 --> 00:23:20.630 Like when they were first thinking about what 00:23:20.630 --> 00:23:24.170 they wanted to compose, I introduced them to 00:23:24.170 --> 00:23:26.589 research. We used the databases. We talked about 00:23:26.589 --> 00:23:29.250 why we might want to prefer to use those instead 00:23:29.250 --> 00:23:33.849 of Google to sort of learn about our subject 00:23:33.849 --> 00:23:36.130 if we want to become an expert on something or 00:23:36.130 --> 00:23:38.250 to learn about the genre that we're interested 00:23:38.250 --> 00:23:42.539 in. And so they... kind of gathered some sources 00:23:42.539 --> 00:23:45.220 I also put together some guidelines based on 00:23:45.220 --> 00:23:46.819 like once I heard what everybody was interested 00:23:46.819 --> 00:23:49.880 in I built out some resources for each of those 00:23:49.880 --> 00:23:53.099 that did include examples of things so that they 00:23:53.099 --> 00:23:55.859 would have an idea of what to aim for and then 00:23:55.859 --> 00:23:58.099 and then as we've workshopped it's just kind 00:23:58.099 --> 00:24:02.559 of come up again as a case -by -case basis of 00:24:02.559 --> 00:24:05.619 like well what makes a narrative you know, a 00:24:05.619 --> 00:24:08.319 strong narrative effective? What makes a short 00:24:08.319 --> 00:24:10.759 story effective? How can we make sure that this 00:24:10.759 --> 00:24:13.700 person isn't plagiarizing these sources? So I 00:24:13.700 --> 00:24:15.660 thought it was interesting that you did incorporate 00:24:15.660 --> 00:24:19.299 the departmental rubric a little bit. How did 00:24:19.299 --> 00:24:21.460 that work out? Did the students end up using, 00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:25.460 just out of curiosity, a lot from the rubric 00:24:25.460 --> 00:24:28.619 or no? So we've only just taken that first step. 00:24:29.119 --> 00:24:31.599 And next week, we're going to spend a lot more 00:24:31.599 --> 00:24:33.980 time crafting their rubrics. I really, this week, 00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:36.059 I just want to to plant the seeds like you need 00:24:36.059 --> 00:24:38.579 to start thinking about this here's how everyone 00:24:38.579 --> 00:24:40.960 else is going to be graded this is the language 00:24:40.960 --> 00:24:45.599 our department uses to talk about writing which 00:24:45.599 --> 00:24:49.069 I think they need to know that moving on right 00:24:49.069 --> 00:24:53.329 like anyway so um it was a it was a good conversation 00:24:53.329 --> 00:24:57.569 like we talked about what holistic means especially 00:24:57.569 --> 00:24:59.730 because i have a lot of english language learner 00:24:59.730 --> 00:25:02.470 students and they they worry so much about like 00:25:02.470 --> 00:25:04.509 is my grammar gonna mean i get an f you know 00:25:04.509 --> 00:25:06.910 it's like well not if we're looking at it holistically 00:25:06.910 --> 00:25:09.549 but we talked about how these criteria, while 00:25:09.549 --> 00:25:12.130 we're separating them, they all work together 00:25:12.130 --> 00:25:16.369 so that, you know, if your language is a hot 00:25:16.369 --> 00:25:20.470 mess, your purpose isn't clear. So we had a good 00:25:20.470 --> 00:25:23.990 talk about all of that. And I think, I'm hoping, 00:25:24.170 --> 00:25:26.569 you know, that they're, I'm hoping they're thinking 00:25:26.569 --> 00:25:30.230 about it when we're not together, but I don't 00:25:30.230 --> 00:25:32.609 know if they are. So we'll see next week how 00:25:32.609 --> 00:25:35.450 it develops. But I think it was a good exercise 00:25:35.450 --> 00:25:38.359 in just thinking about criteria that they could 00:25:38.359 --> 00:25:42.720 use and then also just understanding how your 00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:44.859 teachers are going to look at your work. Okay, 00:25:44.900 --> 00:25:48.619 so I have a question. I know you probably haven't 00:25:48.619 --> 00:25:51.759 dealt with this yet because you haven't done 00:25:51.759 --> 00:25:54.839 the self -evaluation yet, but at the end, what 00:25:54.839 --> 00:25:58.440 will you do if a student's self -assessment differs 00:25:58.440 --> 00:26:03.059 wildly from your assessment of their work? I 00:26:03.059 --> 00:26:05.960 think both Monica and I have addressed directly 00:26:05.960 --> 00:26:07.900 with our students that At the end of the day, 00:26:07.940 --> 00:26:10.799 it's still our decision. We want to make this 00:26:10.799 --> 00:26:14.680 as co -evaluation as possible with each student. 00:26:15.119 --> 00:26:19.480 But if it comes down to a wild disagreement between 00:26:19.480 --> 00:26:25.039 the quality of the work, we're going to make 00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:28.500 the final decision ourselves. And having done 00:26:28.500 --> 00:26:30.759 I haven't done it like in the context of this 00:26:30.759 --> 00:26:33.099 kind of experiment, but I do have my students 00:26:33.099 --> 00:26:35.519 self -evaluate a lot at the end of the semester. 00:26:35.519 --> 00:26:38.180 So I've already had some practice with those 00:26:38.180 --> 00:26:43.160 conversations of like, no, actually, no. And 00:26:43.160 --> 00:26:46.359 it's just, you know, I think. Most students do 00:26:46.359 --> 00:26:49.579 rise to the occasion of being able to reflect 00:26:49.579 --> 00:26:53.420 and evaluate themselves in an honest way. But 00:26:53.420 --> 00:26:56.160 sometimes you just have that student that they 00:26:56.160 --> 00:26:57.839 haven't been paying attention to anything all 00:26:57.839 --> 00:27:01.460 semester. So, of course, they're wildly out of 00:27:01.460 --> 00:27:04.640 line with their self -assessment. And that's 00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:07.670 a lesson that they still have to learn. Sometimes 00:27:07.670 --> 00:27:10.490 by repeating the course. So but I don't know 00:27:10.490 --> 00:27:12.950 my feeling because I feel like I've gotten to 00:27:12.950 --> 00:27:14.829 know my students so much better this semester 00:27:14.829 --> 00:27:20.470 than ever before. And I just don't foresee that 00:27:20.470 --> 00:27:23.289 much discrepancy. I think there are going to 00:27:23.289 --> 00:27:25.210 be some realizations in the next week that are 00:27:25.210 --> 00:27:27.750 going to help some of them understand that. Like, 00:27:27.789 --> 00:27:30.390 no, they probably didn't. Their product probably 00:27:30.390 --> 00:27:35.079 doesn't earn an A. But. You know, we'll cross 00:27:35.079 --> 00:27:37.980 those bridges as we come to them. Yeah. Yeah. 00:27:39.720 --> 00:27:42.900 I know. It's like we're so close to the end, 00:27:42.940 --> 00:27:45.299 but I feel like there's still so many like question 00:27:45.299 --> 00:27:49.619 marks. It's the fun of doing these podcasts as 00:27:49.619 --> 00:27:53.960 we go. I know. Yeah. Yeah. I can't wait to find 00:27:53.960 --> 00:27:56.119 out how it all turns out in the end. Neither 00:27:56.119 --> 00:28:00.180 can we. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you very 00:28:00.180 --> 00:28:02.079 much, Audra, for joining us today. Oh, thanks 00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:05.930 for having me. Thank you. Thank you, listener. 00:28:08.589 --> 00:28:21.529 Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the 00:28:21.529 --> 00:28:25.170 English 101 Experiment. Special thanks to Christopher 00:28:25.170 --> 00:28:27.869 Nicotera, Instructor of Music Business at Delgado 00:28:27.869 --> 00:28:29.990 Community College, for his recording assistance. 00:28:31.049 --> 00:28:34.170 All music heard during this episode comes from 00:28:34.170 --> 00:28:37.690 the free music archive. Specific titles and artists 00:28:37.690 --> 00:28:40.869 are listed on the English 101 Experiment website.