Sorry to have been off-line, I was writing a very interesting program to
automate the web site page generation that had formerly taken me hours
and hours to update. It isn't a very smart program, but it is a very
useful program, and there I agree with Jay that Technology has this
genuine promise of extending human abilities so that we are able to
accomplish more with less effort.
I also think Jay is right on the mark as far as the misguided motives of
U.S. Navy training procedures. I've seen it very clearly in the
"official procedures" for recreational Scuba Diving, which come almost
straight from Military training with only a reduction in the physical
conditioning.
But like my research on Scuba Diving, I think the "proper" training of
submariners isn't in role memorization, and in fact, like everywhere
else, much of the real learning occurs "on the job" at sea. Hutchins's
work on Navy Quartermasters gives us a strong indication that this is the
case to today's Navy, and the gallant history of submariners gives many
examples of inventing procedures as you go. Perhaps the best example, if
perhaps the most tragic, is the story of a Russian submarine that lost
the cooling system to one nuclear reactor while underway. The reactor
would have gone into a meltdown unless a new system was devised. The
Russian crew managed to jury-rid a alternative cooling system while at
depth. To do this, many men had to expose themselves to lethal dosages
of radiation. Yet, for the lives lost - the sub was saved, and an
ecological disaster was averted. I'm fairly confident that this
procedure is not to be found in the pages of any navies' training manual.
In a way, the military is the greatest example of the "shipwreck" of
trying to rationalize the world. Real war never follows the rules. The
poor initial performance of US armed forces in the Civil War, First and
Second World Wars, Korean War, and Vietnam War could be explained by an
over-dependance on doctrine and a failure to as Admiral Elmo Zumwald
(SP?) asserted: "make up your battle strategy as you go along."
Certainly the claim is even stronger for the French military in both
world wars.
In a way, my solution to the grading problem is very much one of "making
my rules as I go along," which of course incenses my students. However,
I think is a powerful means of resistance to the arbitrary means of
evaluation that is academic training. My grading schemes rely a series
of "trip-wires" - students are given tasks which if approached seriously
are no challenge at all, but if rushed or cheated will utterly fail. If
students take on the task of learning the material seriously, they'll
never notice the trip-wires. In my grading scheme, the process of
completing the course as designed, is in general a sufficient condition
to get an A. If students try to cut corners, are lazy, or focus on
getting a grade instead of learning the material, they get snared in my
traps. To grade the course, I just count up the number of times a
student are snared. Zero snares gets an A, 1 snare gets a B, and so on.
What this does is shift the burden of grading from the end of the course
to the front. You need to think about what constitutes sincerely
learning the material. However, instinct is a good guide, and I've never
had a problem either grading a course or backing up my decisions. The
system can even be giving a facade of a point system and each snare
serves to deduct some points.
It may seem insincere, but to my way of thinking it is the only sincere
way to teach. The only true goal of any teacher should be to keep the
student on the task of learning and facilitating that process in whatever
way possible. My "snares" are nothing more than breakdowns where the
learning process was disturbed. If I have been sincere in my end of the
learning partnership, then the other end of the partnership has to be to
blame. Indeed, if instead, I've let my students down, then the snares
work in the other direction and I give my students the benefit of the
doubt.
Sorry, this is very vague, but perhaps it give people an glimmer of
another way to approach grading that doesn't make robots out of us.
Peace, Edouard
+====================================================+
| Edouard Lagache, PhD |
| Webmaster - Lecturer |
| Information Technologies |
| U.C. San Diego, Division of Extended Studies |
| Voice: (619) 622-5758, FAX: (619) 622-5742 |
| email: elagache who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu" |
| web: http://canebas.dynip.com/~elagache/ |
+====================================================+
| If we insist on an eye for an eye |
| we will all be blind." --- Mahatma Ghandi |
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