Devil in the detail

So psychologist Guy Claxton believes that erasers are an instrument of the devil. I can understand why he thinks so. After all, erasers (or to use a term that Americans titter over - rubbers), cover up a multitude of sins. Children can quite easily work their way through a problem, erasing their mistakes as they go, and end up with a seemingly perfect piece of work. Claxton believes that erasers 'create a culture of shame about error' and believes it promotes dishonesty. OK, so this very much sounds like a storm in a teacup and a seemingly trivial battle to fight when there are much more important areas of concern to engage with in education. And yet, some would argue that Claxton has made an important point. Students can, and should, learn through their errors, and sometimes, showing a full working of a problem complete with errors, has a certain pedagogical power. Should errors be covered up? Students should sometimes be given permission to fail, because in so doing they learn how to do something better the next time. I wrote about this some months ago when I bemoaned the fact that only children's perfect pieces of art are seen on display in school reception areas. Little Sarah's picture looks wonderful, but you don't get to see the five previous, crap attempts she made to paint that beautiful swan. The school celebrates the product of her learning, but conveniently hides the messy process.

But if we start banning erasers from schools, what then do we do with computers? Will we need to remove the delete and backspace keys on all the keyboards in the ICT Suite? Do we need to deprive students of the provisionality that all wordprocessors offer? There would be Hell to pay if we did. After all, the ability to continually iterate versions of text or image is part of the creative process. Even better if each version can be preserved to be shown as a process of discovery or creativity that is equally valued alongside the finished product.

Clearly it is nonsense to ban any technology, even simple tools such as erasers, just because they seem to pose some threat to authentic learning. The product is important but so is the process, so why can't both be celebrated equally, and the technologies that brought our students to the point of success not acknowledged? Erasers, just like pencils, computers, whiteboards, sugar paper and pinboards, all have a role to play in the education of our students. The best teachers know that each resource should be used wisely for specific purposes, and none should be overused. There are often simple solutions to the complex problems academics raise. So for now, let's not ban the eraser, but if you insist, perhaps you should ask your students to work their problems through in indelible ink? The devil is in the detail.

Photo by Alex Morfin on Wikimedia Commons


Devil in the detail by Steve Wheeler was written in Liberec, Czech Republic and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The numbers game

When you mark a student's work, do you give them a grade or do you offer them advice? Both, do I hear you say? If you are offering both, then you're doing well. But not all teachers do, and I should point out that there is a big difference between assessment of learning and assessment for learning. Assessing students' work can be tedious and time consuming, and it turns out to be the bane of many teachers' lives. But it is a vitally important part of pedagogy.

Assessment of learning focuses largely on the student's work and offers metrics - awarding a grade with a numerical value - that reflect how the work is measured against specific criteria. By contrast, assessment for learning focuses on the student - particularly recognising that their learning is an ongoing process - and seeks to inform learners on how they can improve their work in the future. Some would argue that giving grades reflects a product-based pedaogogy, while offering feedback supports a process-based pedagogy.

Ever stopped to wonder why we give grades? What value do students place on numbers, or letters? What does it mean to get a 'B' for an essay, or to achieve 50% in an exam? In higher education, students' efforts - whether they take the form of essay, project or an exam - are 'marked' on a 100 point scale. Anything below 40 is a fail, and anything above 70 is a first class result. The majority of students achieve grades somewhere between these two scores, because more often than not, students tend to produce average work. Sometimes it's because lecturers mark conservatively and don't like to fail students (that could reflect badly on their own academic reputation) or draw attention by awarding an outstanding piece of work a 95 or even a 100.

Why do we need to attach a number to someone's work? Is the numbers game teachers play a meaningful exercise or a nonsense? To reduce a student's work - which they have often painstakingly constructed over a period of several weeks or months - to a single number, seems a little unfair. Although a student's grade can be accompanied by comments on their work, it is the grade that usually takes centre stage, because ultimately, over a period of time, grades determine the classification of degree the student will be awarded. Whether employers value degree classifications as much as universities, is a moot point, and to be debated elsewhere. Assessment for learning can also incorporate grades, but the emphasis is on the feedback (some might say feed-forward) which is a form of scaffolding to support students as they strive to do better in their academic endeavours.

In the final analysis, marking of students' work is either about how their work measures up against standards, or it is about how well the teacher can get them to understand what they need to do better next time. The two outcomes are vastly different. They represents a clash of ideologies on how education should be conducted. They have their roots in the same battle for education I have previously articulated. Unsurprisingly, there were a few antagonistic responses to these posts, because some disliked my argument that there might be a binary and saw it as too simplistic. The arguments remains - that although we can all choose how we teach and assess, our decisions are often influenced by ideology and the culture we find ourselves immersed within. Personal views on the purpose of education shape professional practice. In reality, a range of assessment practices do exist, but as educators we should acknowledge that personal philosophy in education drives everything a teacher does. Without adequate feedback, students find it difficult to progress. Simply placing a number at the top of an assignment does little to support their development as learners.

Assessment is at the heart of education. If measurement of learning is done well, not only can teachers be reasonably sure how well their students are doing, they can provide evaluation on the effectiveness of the curriculum, teaching methods and resources. However, we know there is no substitute for good scaffolding of learning, and useful feedback is central.

Photo by Andy Barrow on Flickr


The numbers game by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.