Wendi's Reading Notes #6

Academic honesty—Lang’s chapter 9 and Davis’ chapter 38 both addressed academic honesty and while I think it is important, I think that we have already touched on prevention methods and practices in class.  We have discussed the importance of including an academic honesty statement in our syllabus and the University’s policy.  These practices are in line with recommendations made from both Lang and Davis.  (P.S. I even liked that Davis referenced Lang in her opening sentence! J)  I think some students will cheat, but I agree with both authors that students should be given the benefit of the doubt first (L.209) and proceed in a non-accusatory manner (L.209 & D.358).  CAP had previously mentioned the giving a quiz over the syllabus and Davis (348) mentioned a similar practice with the academic policy statement.

Reliability & validity of assessments—I often wonder how some teachers justify only using tests, quizzes, and exams that “came with the book.”  This implies a one-size-fits-all approach to assessing students.  (1) Do they truly gauge the validity of a test (D.363)?  (2) Is a course so structured all the time that teachers might opt to take the easy way out (by using the pre-written test) instead of adapting their assessments based on the current students and issues directly influencing their curriculum?  That would address validity, but if we do adapt our assessments, (3) how does that effect reliability?  This is something that I struggle with.

Variability of assessments—We discussed various assessments last week in class.  Davis (364-370, ch.41-42) described some of the assessments we listed which was helpful (and vital), but I do not think this is something we need to discuss further.

Attendance/Participation: to grade or not to grade?—I have noticed that we are again coming back to the question of whether or not to include attendance and participation in course grades.  Davis (409) once again stressed grading students on academic achievement rather than attendance or participation.  However, we also talked in class about how some students would not participate or possibly attend if it were not required.  (1) Can you make participation and attendance a requirement without including it in their grade?  (2) Isn’t participation the same thing that Davis is describing when she talks about how to handle effort (428)?  This issue has come up multiple times and, based on our classroom discussion, I do not think there is a “right” answer to including/not including attendance and participation in course grades.  I believe that the justification has to come back to several other issues we’ve discussed already, but most importantly the issues of (1) properly justifying the reason for including this factor in the course and grading and (2) using a variety of assessments to properly gauge student learning achievement.