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| [a] Gnarled RF |
This is one part of a multi-post introduction. Click below for the other posts:
Yes, you heard right. If you read yesterday's post, you know that my students take a quiz every single day that they have class. They spend the first fifteen minutes of every two-hour session engaged in written labor. This is thirty minutes out of every week's (four-hour) class time. That is a big chunk. I don't willingly give up thirty minutes of class time for anything. I begrudge interruptions (although I am polite about them), and I have many more plans for using our time than time to do them in (so to speak). Fifteen minutes—every single class session, every single week, every single term—means that the classroom experience is going to be different. In a nutshell, the opening volley in every pedagogical engagement with my name on it as instructor...starts with a quiz. |
| [b] Quiz show RF |
The clock is running, and there is a lot to cover. This had better be good, damnit.
And it is. As I finish my fifth consecutive semester of daily quizzes, I am very pleased with the form and the results. While they require me to be just a tad bit more organized than I normally would have to be (I have to have a quiz ready to print and distribute, after all), even that brings positive influence to the course as a whole. I know what to expect these days, but students don't. That is where my little speech comes in. Here is what I tell them the first day of every single semester (and then repeat weekly for the first few month or so of the term).
You need to forget your assumptions about quizzes. To the extent that you
think of a quiz as a way to find out what you did or didn't do—whether you
have been naughty or nice in your class preparations—you will be wrong...or
at least mostly so. These quizzes are only about revealing faulty preparation
in this sense. If you start seeing blank quizzes week-after-week, you might
want to take a look in a mirror and ask yourself if you are working the way
you could in this class. I'm o.k. with that; I think it's healthy. There is more,
though. These are "attendance quizzes." Silly though it may sound, you get
seventy points just for showing up. Yup, I mean it (and have my reasons).
Write down your name and then draw a big blank. Your score will be "70."
I can do that because I have a plan, and it will become apparent to you as
the term unfolds. Trust me on this one. Show up, and you'll pass the quiz.
I assume that your aspirations are higher, though, so there is more. The real
reason that the quizzes are organized in the way that they are is for breadth
and depth. It allows us to cover aspects of language, grammar, and other
"nuts-and-bolts" in a way that provides learning and review. The actual
questions (a combination of short-answers and small "essays") is the most
important benefit. I believe that real learning takes place when people see a
concept several times (five is my goal), and from different perspectives. It
works like this: you prepare for class, and get a sense of the sources. One.
Then you take the quiz. The questions are different; they focus your attention
in ways that might well differ from the manner in which you read the material.
Two. Next, we start discussing the ideas in class. You hear me lecture a bit
on the material on Tuesday. Three. On Thursday, everyone discusses the
sources, and every member of class speaks. You hear the material again,
and in a still different way. Four. Finally, a few weeks later, you write a paper
using the sources. Five.
Good stuff. That is why we have quizzes. Otherwise we would be stuck
with the unlucky (and not-quite-enough) number of four.
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| [c] Sense RF |
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This Round and Square "topic" will bring some of those quizzes to the blog in the coming semesters. The benefits of this are many. The most obvious use of quiz postings is for students in the context of
class. Yes, they have their actual quizzes to check, but they might be
able to see patterns if they look at them online and read some of the
explanations that go along with the questions—explanations that, while mentioned in class, might not make "real world" sense until the context is changed, and there are Round and Square mountains in the background. In other words, the blog can
enhance the sharing of information in wide-ranging sorts of ways, and also serve as classroom aids that provide continuity in the educational
experience. Blogs and education...what a concept.
Daily quizzes have another benefit, though, and it underlines what I already have stated as one of my deepest convictions. While professors are expected to share their scholarship, I feel that they should also share their pedagogy. I wish that we distributed everything from the course syllabus and assignments to even lecture notes far more freely than we often do.
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| [d] Teachers RF |
Further, it should not be only people who see themselves primarily as "teachers" who should share their teaching. While there is much to learn from their materials (and they are often excellent and highly-crafted), teaching is part of a larger configuration of demands on a professor's time. We need to hear from all corners of academia. People involved in ongoing scholarship have much to share in the teaching arena, and at least two of the reasons that they don't share their teaching materials are truly contemptible, and worthy of ridicule.
On the one hand, "scholars" often think of teaching as such a lowly enterprise that they do not deem it worthy of special attention. My loathing for this ridiculousness is ample, and it overflows when I see it institutionalized in departments and academic divisions (these are often called "university" and "research college"). There is one other little bit, though, and it is equally offensive, although less commonly observed. There is not a little part of the academy that sees things the other way—that takes an interest in scholarship to mean a lack of interest in teaching. This kind of "either/or" travesty works both ways, and it has hurt us all as we seek to learn more about how to teach well (and maybe even use teaching to learn to articulate our scholarly arguments).
Tomorrow, we'll take a brief look at what positives quizzes can bring, and at what cost, before wrapping up this introduction.
This is one part of a multi-post introduction. Click below for the other posts:
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| [e] Drop-by-drop RF |
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