Week 13: The Athletics of Grades

As the end of the semester quickly approaches, I have grades on my mind. My students in 1301 are expecting their grades in a timely fashion, and they're scrambling to do last-minute work to get their grades where they want them to be. At grading time, I always think a great deal on the notion of "fairness." As an exemplary student, I've rarely been treated normally. I seek to treat each of my students as a gifted student as I have most frequently been treated. In recent discussion with a colleague, we debated whether ENGL 1301 should be treated as a "weeder" course. I vehemently said, "No." Our job in 1301 is to coach students. My athletic experience tells me coaches drive students to work their hardest. Coaches model the behaviors they expect from their students. Coaches have high expectations. Coaches are direct, frank, and honest. Coaches prepare athletes for the upcoming game.

I find myself building students up and giving them feedback with pointers for the future: "I appreciate the work you've done here. It works well because.... These aspects will help you as you continue through the university.... I've been lenient here, but you won't have that luxury in 1302, so be prepared to turn everything in on time or early...." As I wrap up the semester, I have to give a lot of thought into fairness in assigning grades, which are in many ways subjective. Each student shines in his/her own way -- some in writing and online discussion, others in class discussion. I noticed that a few of my best in-class students are performing "poorly" when measured by the traditional methods of grading. Missing written work has been balanced by exemplary participation in class. I've revisited my syllabus several times this term to make sure I've provided space (see Parker Palmer & Mary Rose O'Reilley) for each student to develop independently and collaboratively (see Windsor). I return to ask myself whether my grading is "fair" if I'm measuring students by their understanding and meeting of the course objectives, whether in their own form or according to some formulaic objective standard that may not represent real life.


Many students who are just under the passing "C" grade don't seem worried, while others just under the "A" grade are extremely worried. At times such as this, I am appreciative of the grading scale offered by the university in these courses, 90-100% is a 4.0, though I know some students have worked far more than others to revise and perfect every one of their papers and to earn high 90's, while others have relied on previous knowledge to get them into their comfortable "A zones." At this point, it is really upon my shoulders to know our system and to know how each of the students has shone independently. If I am put into a position to defend my grading, I can say with confidence that I have measured fairly each student against the course objectives. I can provide concrete examples of the students' work and communications in addition to personal struggles each has overcome to perform in my class. This is how I measure "fairness" in a subjective world of grading.

Week 12: Miscellany

Before I began studying pedagogy, I studied graphic design and marketing, thinking I'd be able to "justify" the entrepreneurship I had done for many years. It turns out I didn't need to justify myself. I needed to find myself and recapture my lifelong dream of becoming an instructor. In today's blog, I want to revisit some of the things I often recall from my experiences and things that were reiterated by Stephen R. Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. These things made me a better entrepreneur, teacher, and student.

Covey's 7 habits are:
Habit 1: Be proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind
Habit 3: Put first things first
Habit 4: Think win/win
Habit 5: Seek to understand, then to be understood
Habit 6: Synergize
Habit 7: Sharpen the saw

The full title of the book is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. When I first read this book, I had recently made some radical life changes. Though I've never felt I've needed these 7 habits as reminders of how to improve myself, I felt fortunate for the great deal of leadership training I had/have received in my life, and I often reflect upon these habits, whether through Covey's lens or my own experiences, to measure myself as an entrepreneur, a leader, and an instructor. One of the hardest roles I have ever had in life has been humbling myself to that of a formal student, often working with instructors my age or younger. I have gained an incredible appreciation for my own background knowledge and for those who must find creative ways to instruct me when I don't fit the mold of "traditional" in many respects. Through this and my childhood learning experiences, I have developed a passion for teaching those who cannot be defined by boxes society traditionally asks us to draw.

A short time ago, I was introduced to Mary Rose O'Reilley's Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice. As I read her 7 chapter inspirational, I projected Covey's framework of Habits upon O'Reilley's work. If I were to frame her work in Covey's terms, I would classify the 7 following teaching habits:

Habit 1: Create space
Habit 2: Teach within a contemplative frame of reference
Habit 3: Incorporate gestures of friendship
Habit 4: Listen like a cow
Habit 5: Exercise authenticity
Habit 6: Embrace dissonance
Habit 7: Know the ideal from reality

Whether you're considering a position in industry or academe, I highly recommend these two readings. These might come in handy for your teaching philosophy or for your leadership philosophy -- which I also recommend adding to your portfolio if you're going into industry. In life, we will be or we will encounter many different types of people who may or may not fit our expectations. These two books provide excellent scaffolding for the way we should think as leaders of all types.

Week 11: Learning Objectives

Review the learning objectives for this course. What's one thing you've learned that connects to an objective and to your future job?

• Diversity and multiculturalism. Students will generate the type and amount of information required by a given rhetorical situation. Measurement: active participation in classroom discussion and blogs.

Many opportunities have allowed me to engage with our visiting Chinese scholars in a book reading and discussion, curriculum development, and the presentation of my lesson plan. I intend to work with scholars abroad, so this has been an excellent opportunity to learn about the instructors and their students.

Additionally, I have engaged with freshman students at Anhui University in China. This has been an opportunity for me to engage TTU graduate students and students from my previous university in an online discussion forum. We have learned a great deal about the students, China, and the difficulties of engaging through "global" media that are not ubiquitously accessible. Multimodal learning holds different meaning in different places with varying access to technologies.

Week 10: Failure

Identify where you think students may fail in an assignment in your syllabus, and how you will use that at a teachable moment by design. If you didn't produce a syllabus, discuss the relevance of this week's readings to your future workplace.

I guess I'm pretty proud to say I have many moments of minor failure that I use as teachable moments. I've learned that mistakes are inevitable moments of opportunity. I'm still working on my syllabus for the course, so I'll reflect upon teachable moments in English composition that have taught me the value of the negotiated syllabus.

I have created detailed course schedules only to discover I scheduled an in-class exercise over a holiday. This is an important reminder to visit my syllabus frequently and at least 2-3 weeks in advance.

Sometimes I start an exercise the class isn't as interested in as I would like them to be. This is a good opportunity to have backup plans and secondary syllabus activities.

I think the key to success in recovering from most of my mistakes is being able to accept my failure in stride -- This sets an example for students and validates the mistakes they will make -- We are all "imperfect." Making mistakes shows my humanity and teaches students how to laugh at ourselves while on stage.

I have recently inspired by Becky Rickly's article "Failing Forward: Reflecting on the Research Culture of Graduate Students" in which the heroine realizes "failures" don't have to be fatal. I believe we only make mistakes if we take risks. The risks we take in academia are worth the possibility of failure because we're in a safe environment where recovery is a very viable option.

Week 12: Thesis of Paper

I am still working to refine the thesis of my paper for this course; however, I submitted the following abstract I'm hoping will be accepted for the Computers & Writing conference 2016:

Bridging Cultural Dimensions: Matriculation From the English Language Center to the University

Technical communication serves to bridge STEM and the humanities by moving writing instruction beyond stylistic levels of composition through the employment of computers in writing English for specialized discourses. Intensive English language centers prepare students linguistically and culturally, with intercultural competence, for matriculation into American universities. The framework of Geert Hofstede’s (1979) value systems indicates a need for multi-dimensional considerations as the university seeks to recruit and retain women, first-generation, and under-represented populations to STEM courses. Increasing numbers of international students call for increased international competence and carefully guided educational shifts leading to increased student success and retention of these special populations in STEM and STEM-related courses. Carefully guided recruitment and retention strategies could lead the university and the intensive language center to move from an ethnocentric to ethnorelative lens, per the work of Milton Bennett (2004, 2014), as specialized programs teach students to communicate in a global society through increased knowledge of technical communication as a STEM-bridging major. This study explores matriculation trends from a local/national intensive language center to a public research university and considers ways the university might begin to recruit and accommodate under-represented populations in technical communication, a field dependent on computer-generated writing, bridging majors in partnership with local/national community intensive language programs.