Annotations from Chapter 7, How do they treat their students?, Bain, 2004.

Berkeley, Wednesday December 12, 2018 11:55 AM

Assessing students

The teachers in the study used assessment to help students to learn, not just to rate and rank their efforts.

Practices

Evaluation is use to find out as much as possible about their students, “not so I can make judgements about them,” one instructor explained, “but so that i can help them learn”

Using examinations

The goal of examination is to help students to think about their own thinking so they can use the standards of the discipline or profession to recognize shortcomings and correct their reasoning as they go. It isn’t to rank students/ Grading on a curve, therefore, makes no sense in this world.

Evaluation of teaching

While this is an excellent method for keep professors learning, a problem has been that there is a pattern on focusing those evaluations on what is expected to the professors to do, rather than if the students learned. Teaching evaluations should be often revised and updated to make progress in the disciplinate and to help instructors and students in their learnings.

References

Bain, K., 2004. What the best college teachers do. Chapter 7. How do they evaluate their students and themselves? Harvard University Press. pp. 150-172