David,
In the California community college environmnent, "accountability" is used
more in the sense that Eric suggests and is linked with the notion of
"institutional effectiveness assessment". It's virtually impossible to hold
tenured cc faculty accountable for much of anything in the sense you're
using it. This should not be taken to mean that there aren't dedicated,
student-oriented, highly motivated cc faculty; it's just that when they're
not they don't have to be, nobody's holding them accountable. Maybe that's
why "accountability" is used at the institutional level.
Because of this I also wondered why you were separating the two terms.
Now I see that the terms aren't used the same at all in the two
environments-- it sounds to me like your focus environment in the K-12
range. I wonder how many other terms are really applied differently in the
different domains of education and how that influences our ability to
understand each other when we talk about things that use those words/terms.
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu>
To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2002 11:54 AM
Subject: Re: enculturation/instruction
>
> Eric asked:
> David,
> Aren't assessment and accountability both sides of the same coin?
Shouldn't
> the same methodology that assesses a student is grasping concepts and
> applying those concepts the same methodology that tells the teacher they
> are providing effective instruction?
>
>
> Eric,
> In the (rather skewed) way we've come to use these terms, accountability
is
> related to contractual, legal, and ethical obligations of the teacher to
> the student in assigning grades that enter into the public record and
> impact the students' future options. Assessment is related to the grasp a
> teacher has on the progress of students as a guide to evaluating her or
his
> own teaching. Obviously the two are related, but constrained by very
> different purposes and obligations.
> David
> PS. Perhaps we're better off chatting off-line to sort out our purposes
and
> terms.
>
>
>
>
>
> MnFamilyMan who-is-at a
> ol.com To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> cc: (bcc: David H
Kirshner/dkirsh/LSU)
> 02/23/2002 Subject: Re:
enculturation/instruction
> 12:31 PM
> Please
> respond to
> xmca
>
>
>
>
>
>
> In a message dated 2/23/2002 4:56:03 AM Central Standard Time,
> dkirsh@lsu.edu writes:
>
>
> Eric,
> I'm not sure what interests are driving your querries. It seems like your
> questions are about assessment, but your interest is in accountability.
>
>
> David,
> Aren't assessment and accountability both sides of the same coin?
Shouldn't
> the same methodology that assesses a student is grasping concepts and
> applying those concepts the same methodology that tells the teacher they
> are providing effective instruction?
>
> As i understand crossdisciplinarity in your paper to suggest is that
> regardless of discipline for constructing curriculum the bottom line is
> insuring that instruction matches concepts acquired by the student.
>
> Eric
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Mar 01 2002 - 01:00:21 PST