July 15 - July 29
Facilitated by Stephanie Batkie (English, Writing Across the Curriculum)
Click here to register.
In this 2-week mini-course, participants will investigate how hybrid course design opens opportunities for re-thinking how we approach grading and assessment in our classes. The course has 4 main objectives; participants will
* experience what is it like to work within Brightspace as a student and as an instructor, and begin to build course content within the LMS
* revise and workshop syllabi and assignments to create transparency around grading and course design
* experiment with a number of alternative grading schemas (both internal and external to Brightspace)
* build an honest and open conversation about the way we approach assessment as faculty members and as an institution, including thinking about how implicit biases in grading systems can threaten our commitment to inclusive classroom experiences
At the end of the workshop, the goal will be for faculty to have a grading structure and assignments in place within Brightspace for at least one of their fall courses; this structure should seek to increase the engagement and ownership students feel that they have in the class, as well as reduce the amount of time and labor faculty dedicate to assessment. This is, it must be said, a reasonable and achievable goal. What is more, this course argues that this should be front and center as we think through how we adapt courses to hybrid or remote formats.
As we move away from traditional instruction, even temporarily, we have the opportunity to think critically about how grading can be where significant parts of our teaching happen, rather than seeing it simply as a necessary result or outcome. To this end, the course will provide the space and the tools to help faculty reconsider the role grades play in their courses – for themselves and for their students. We will think through different approaches to grading (ranking vs. evaluating), systems that move beyond traditional letter-grades (specifications grading, contract grading, ungrading), structures offered by Brightspace and other technologies (portfolios, rubrics, discussion boards, quizzes/exams), and how approaches to reflection and meta-cognitive assignment structures can transform the relationship between students and course requirements. Assessment in both the Humanities and STEM classrooms will be equally prioritized, and we will think through how disciplinary conventions and course evaluations tend to shape our grading approaches in productive (and unproductive) ways.
The course will be held from July 15th-July 29th, and welcomes faculty of all ranks from across the college. Meetings will have both synchronous and asynchronous components, and will ask for a time commitment of 6-8 hours a week. Synchronous meetings will be held from 9-10 in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays (but not each M/W/F of the course dates). Finally, this course can serve either as an extension of some of the conversations occurring in the Course Redesign Workshop from the CFT or as a stand-alone offering, depending on faculty preference.
