For this capstone professional writing class, ENGL 515, we have been assigned a normal project with a unique twist, which makes the project more realistic. This semester, we were supposed to write five to six blogposts, which is a common writing task assigned to students on multiple levels of education. Usually when teachers or professors assign a blog post or a discussion post, it is supposedly for a community or audience of at least peers, but what typically happens is that students read the prompt or question and only interact with the posts of their peers if it is required.
For the 515 blog, that is not the case. This assignment is vastly different from a short-essay answer on a discussion forum or website. This group blog on Blogger acts as both an assessment and a teaching tool. It is what Bruce Frey refers to as an Authentic Classroom Assessment: "a classroom assessment task that involves the student deeply, both in terms of cognitive complexity and intrinsic interest, and are meant to develop or evaluate skills and abilities that have value beyond...the assessment itself” (Frey, 2012, p. 14). The reason that this blogging assignment is different than the others and the reason that it matters is because it gives us skills that are valuable outside the classroom. The blogging process goes like this: getting and writing down ideas, drafting, revisiting, creating it for public consumption, readying it for publication, checking it post publication, and advertising. This list describes many more skills than one gets by responding to a discussion forum once a week. The key part here is the process. Students have to think of an idea, then they take notes, then they revisit their notes, draft up a blog for an audience, and start the publication process. This process is educational, teaching students the processes of creation and publication.
It also is a form of differentiated learning, giving the students choice in what they write about and what roles they choose in the Blogger team. Some students are more inclined to lead. Others want to edit. And others are social-media savvy. We're all writing, critically thinking, and collaborating–but we're choosing our route. This differentiates the assignment by allowing multiple relevant paths to success. Everyone learns differently, which is why student choice is such a powerful tool. This is a great way to intrinsically motivate students, which is difficult to do in pandemic school.
Those of us in the English crowd learn early on that the goal of every literary character is self-knowledge. It is also the goal and an important intrinsic motivator in education if a teacher intentionally fosters it. Instead of maintaining the school-to-job mindset from the industrial revolution, we should foster the development of self-knowledge through interaction with content. Let’s create education that matters to the soul of the learner. With assignments like this class blog, in which we analyze the world around us and write about it, and with the team-building and publishing tasks that we choose, we are engaging with our education in order to grow and learn about ourselves–and that carries far beyond the classroom!
Source: Frey, Bruce B. “Defining Authentic Classroom Assessment.” Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, vol. 17, ser. 2, 2012, pp. 1–18. 2, doi:https://doi.org/10.7275/sxbs-0829.
For the 515 blog, that is not the case. This assignment is vastly different from a short-essay answer on a discussion forum or website. This group blog on Blogger acts as both an assessment and a teaching tool. It is what Bruce Frey refers to as an Authentic Classroom Assessment: "a classroom assessment task that involves the student deeply, both in terms of cognitive complexity and intrinsic interest, and are meant to develop or evaluate skills and abilities that have value beyond...the assessment itself” (Frey, 2012, p. 14). The reason that this blogging assignment is different than the others and the reason that it matters is because it gives us skills that are valuable outside the classroom. The blogging process goes like this: getting and writing down ideas, drafting, revisiting, creating it for public consumption, readying it for publication, checking it post publication, and advertising. This list describes many more skills than one gets by responding to a discussion forum once a week. The key part here is the process. Students have to think of an idea, then they take notes, then they revisit their notes, draft up a blog for an audience, and start the publication process. This process is educational, teaching students the processes of creation and publication.
It also is a form of differentiated learning, giving the students choice in what they write about and what roles they choose in the Blogger team. Some students are more inclined to lead. Others want to edit. And others are social-media savvy. We're all writing, critically thinking, and collaborating–but we're choosing our route. This differentiates the assignment by allowing multiple relevant paths to success. Everyone learns differently, which is why student choice is such a powerful tool. This is a great way to intrinsically motivate students, which is difficult to do in pandemic school.
Those of us in the English crowd learn early on that the goal of every literary character is self-knowledge. It is also the goal and an important intrinsic motivator in education if a teacher intentionally fosters it. Instead of maintaining the school-to-job mindset from the industrial revolution, we should foster the development of self-knowledge through interaction with content. Let’s create education that matters to the soul of the learner. With assignments like this class blog, in which we analyze the world around us and write about it, and with the team-building and publishing tasks that we choose, we are engaging with our education in order to grow and learn about ourselves–and that carries far beyond the classroom!
Source: Frey, Bruce B. “Defining Authentic Classroom Assessment.” Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, vol. 17, ser. 2, 2012, pp. 1–18. 2, doi:https://doi.org/10.7275/sxbs-0829.
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