Student Evaluation as Communication

Contributed by: Ellie Kaplan

I have long disdained testing and grades. The focus on judging students based on a rigid set of standards always felt at odds with the goal of ongoing nuanced learning and individualized improvement. Thus, when I first started reading Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate Into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation by Saundra Yancy McGuire with Stephanie McGuire for our winter GTC meetings, I was dubious that I would learn much from the book, given the author’s frequent references to students’ numerical grade improvements. Especially towards the beginning of the book when McGuire wants to convince readers of the usefulness of her methods, she tells anecdote after anecdote of students raising their grades from D’s and C’s to B’s and A’s. Yet, the book, alongside our group discussions, ended up surprising me by giving me both an arsenal of specific teaching strategies and making me rethink how I mentally approached teaching in general. More specifically, it convinced me that frequent evaluations can actually benefit student learning if we see them as a form of student communication, instead of just components of a grade.

            Communication sits at the heart of successful teaching. This statement seems pretty obvious, but McGuire’s book helped me see just how much more communication we need to fully reach our students. First, I learned to start my lessons at ground zero, instead of expecting students to enter my classroom knowing all the basics already. As a history teacher, this means not expecting my students to automatically know what I mean when I use phrases like “thesis statement” or “analyze the evidence.” Especially if we want college to help level societal inequalities that impact K-12 education, teaching assistants need to enter the classroom prepared to break down complicated ideas to their core components. This process requires having realistic teaching goals given the time allotment and constant communication with students about what they understand. Getting frequent feedback about what students are actually comprehending, through both verbal conversations and written work, allows teachers to cater their lessons to student needs and ensures that the information necessary for student success is not only heard, but actually understood.

            Integrating student-teacher communication into the heart of a class is only possible with buy-in from the professor leading the course. The class I TA’d for this past quarter required weekly short writing assignments, one of which students rewrote into their final longer paper. This structure was quite different from the two unrelated essays that students are usually assigned in lower division history courses and it worked so much better. Having weekly papers ensured that students did the reading, allowed students to practice the writing skills we discussed in section, and gave me opportunities to provide feedback throughout the quarter. In addition, the papers were graded on a check-scale, thus giving a low stakes space to work on their writing with me without the pressure of a numerical grade. However, I recognize that I don’t have the power as a TA to single-handedly enforce this type of assignment structure in all my future classes. Instead, I need to open up a conversation with the instructor of record to integrate this type of teaching approach into the course. The GTC helped grow my confidence to have these types of conversations and I look forward to continued growth with this community.