Self assessment in the methods class.

Abstract

This paper discusses a self assessment activity in a methods course for preservice English teachers. Students are asked to strategize responses to writing assignments of their own design and critically assess the quality of their assignments. Ultimately, students fail to move beyond practical considerations in their assessments. Examination of methods students' struggle with critical self assessment is necessary to effectively train teachers for reflective practice.

Introduction

The methods course, in the broadest sense, faces this staggering challenge: How can one class best engage content area knowledge with theories and strategies of teaching? When we talk about methods, we must acknowledge this balancing act of theory and practice. While I doubt there is any one perfect formula, students must acquire applicable skills in a framework that continuously incorporates the changing values, needs, and circumstances of their future classrooms. These challenges are cross-disciplinary in scope and particularly pressing for those of us with commitments to both content area training and pedagogical theory.

Self assessment is a crucial site of intersection between theory and practice in methods courses, particularly because it asks students to think about classroom practice from a reflective, critical stance. The ability to assess their work with an eye towards relevant concerns of democratic education, curriculum standards, student experience, and the importance of critical thinking is a skill that teachers need for successful practice. Self assessment is not only about making technical revisions to one's work. It is also about thinking through the experiences of struggling learners, and trying to understand what a given pedagogical approach will mean for their skill level, their creative and diverse perspectives, and their current developmental needs (Jokinen and Saranen 1). I will discuss my effort to engage students in critical assessment of writing assignments they designed for my methods class in teaching secondary English. I will investigate the difficulty of this effort in hopes of suggesting revised strategies for effectively teaching self assessment in the methods course and exploring the dimensions of our responsibilities as teacher educators. My experiences, though grounded in the English classroom, suggest that we must train future teachers to recognize the theoretical complexity of the "texts" they produce, such as writing assignments, lesson plans, grades, and written commentary. This valuing of teacher work through critical self assessment has resonance for methods classes in all disciplines; it is about understanding teachers' instructional tools as equally important to disciplinary content. In my methods class, students analyzed William Faulkner's "Barn Burning" with great depth, but assessed the writing assignments they designed on the story with superficial and overly practical observations.

Scholarly efforts to bridge the conceptual gap between the theoretical and practical objectives of the English methods class have opened up valuable dialogue. In their 1995 study, How English Teachers Get Taught: Methods of Teaching the Methods Class, Peter Smagorinsky and Melissa Whiting examine seventy-nine sample English methods syllabi. The authors contend that many faculty learn to teach the class by "informal lore" and that more clearly articulated approaches to the course are necessary. They write, "With little formal knowledge of how preservice teachers are educated, all we have left to fall back on is our own experience in teaching the course and our shared conversations with peers about how we go about our business" (Smagorinsky and Whiting 2). The project then surveys varied approaches to the course, including activities, assessments, and the theoretical concerns of the syllabi studied. Lack of communication between scholars in composition and English education may be to blame for at least pan of the instructional lore of methods. Dan Royer and Roger Giles, in their discussion of methods for teaching writing to English education students, note:

   The comp/rhet folks have been perceived by English ed folks as short
   on practical experience and overly theoretical, whereas the English
   ed folks have been perceived by comp/rhet folks as overly concerned
   with lessonplan formats and 'what to do on Monday' (Royer and Giles
   106).

What remains is a serious split between issues of theory and practice in the methods class. While this split has been long felt by teacher educators across disciplinary lines, its reverberation in the training of new teachers deserves immediate attention.

The task of instilling reflective practice in new teachers is a key component of the theory/practice divide and one that continues to receive scholarly attention from teacher educators. Recounting his pioneering work in the Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) English program at the University of Chicago, now the theoretical foundation for very recent work in teacher education, George Hillocks writes:

   Even from the being, I wanted my MAT students to be able to evaluate
   the effects of their own teaching in the moment of teaching, making
   their teaching open to revision immediately in class and later in
   the quiet of their own thinking and planning. Finally, I hoped that
   this kind of thinking would allow my students to be
   teacher-researchers who would continually invent, test, and revise
   their materials, curricular ideas, and teaching strategies (xx).

Hillocks' intentions here speak to the potential intellectual depth of reflective teaching, its capacity to position teachers as researchers and generate new curricular and instructional approaches.

Training teachers for reflective practice has its roots in the methods class with teacher educators' demonstrated modeling of the practice. In his recent work, Developing a Pedagogy of Teacher Education (2006), John Loughran describes a methods class in which the teacher educator openly shares his own struggle after a demonstration lesson. He writes:

   For the problematic to be seen as problematic, teacher educators
   must accept the responsibility of teaching in ways that continually
   focus attention on not only what is being taught, but also on the
   complexity of how and why it is taught; regardless of the perceived
   success or otherwise of the practice at that time. In that way, the
   problematic nature of teaching is more likely to be made more
   'tangible, real and normal' for students of teaching (42).

According to Loughran, teacher educators' openness with their own pedagogical roadblocks encourages students to embrace inherent professional difficulties. When teachers understand their work as naturally complicated and challenging, experimentation and invention are more likely.

In addition to reliable modeling, Dozier et al recommend the use of journals to capture teachers' critical reflection and "emotional data" regarding various pedagogical approaches and experiences. They write:

   The immediacy of this structured reflection enables the teachers to
   organize their teaching experiences to inform future instruction,
   and to anticipate and productively address emotional threats to
   their instruction. The journals provide the space and the less
   tangible emotional data that enable theorizing about the difficult
   aspects of instructional interactions. These records are very much
   concerned with the business of becoming a teacher (129).

While emotional response is the focus of the journals, the authors argue that such data creates opportunity for theorizing and rethinking pedagogical approaches. Accordingly, we must understand the work of reflective assessment of one's teaching as grounded in both the practical and theoretical aspects of the classroom. In its best form, reflective self assessment exists on the dividing line between theory and practice. However, the challenge of maintaining this balance, of resisting the temptation to either endlessly tweak practical aspects of one's teaching or to over theorize an approach, is especially important for teacher educators to consider with preservice teachers in methods courses.

My interest centers on the importance of training preservice teachers to assess their own work from both theoretical and practical viewpoints. When teachers produce high quality materials for instruction, they do so with an understanding of ideology, disciplinary knowledge, and pedagogical theory, while simultaneously sensitive to the practical constraints of the classroom. Theory and practice are not mutually exclusive, as current scholarship demonstrates. In my own approach to the methods course for secondary English, I must ask the following question: Am I training teachers to recognize the rich layers and conflicting demands of their own work?

My Experiment

Early in the semester, English education students in my Fall 2005 methods course designed writing assignments for William Faulkner's short story, "Barn Burning." An overarching goal for the task was for students to experience the complexity of designing an effective, engaging writing assignment. I wanted them to think about students' possible interpretations of an assignment, about how students might engage with Faulkner's piece and the challenges to comprehension inherent in the short story. I encouraged them to "think creatively about what kind of writing you want students to produce for this assignment and why" (Restaino, writing assignment, 2005). After responding to and grading their writing assignments, I later returned copies of the assignments to students in the form of a take-home final exam. In this second stage, students were asked first to construct a response to their own writing assignment and then to write a critical evaluation of the quality of their assignment, including suggestions for revision. I will describe this process from the beginning, with particular attention to my expectations for both stages of the experiment.

Attempting to reinforce the seriousness of writing assignment design, I provided students with criteria outlining how I would assess their work on the initial writing assignment, noting that they should design creative and clear assignments, offer thorough assessment criteria, and demonstrate connection to state curriculum standards. I included questions to push their thinking more deeply into established guidelines. I wanted my students to feel a kind of "free reign" over this task, unimpeded by a sense that I was looking for them to address particular aspects of the Faulkner text, or that one type of writing might be valued over another (the essay, for example, over a series of journal prompts). My goal was to provide a comprehensive view of the initial assignment, as well as my assessment criteria, while at the same time allow for creativity.

Students were surprised later in the semester when their own assignments returned to them as a take-home exam. Original assignments asked for writing that approached Faulkner from various angles: race, class, family relations, sensory language, symbolism, and point of view. While many assignments demanded essay responses, others required creative reinterpretations of the text, including one calling for an inventive series of newspapers articles chronicling Faulkner's story from varied viewpoints. The take-home exam placed assignments back in students' hands by requiring them to construct responses to their own assignments in the form of an outline and corresponding introductory paragraph, and write reflective, critical evaluations of their original writing assignments. I wanted students to investigate the inner workings of their assignments after experiencing them firsthand. So, for example, what role does language play in creating a clear assignment or, conversely, one that is difficult to understand? If an assignment pushes students into the text in creative ways, how does this happen? Essentially, I want my methods students to know how to examine the instructional materials they produce, to understand what makes their assignments work, and what makes them not work. What are the parts, the relationships, the language, operating within assignments that create particular effects? How can the assignment be improved?

During the semester, I gave students tools for assessing their own writing assignments through class discussion, readings, and my own guidelines on the take-home exam, itself. In class, we looked at a number of sample assignments, some notably flawed, and discussed the kinds of writing experiences they might produce. We talked about revising these assignments, and tried to understand why they might garner confusion and, more importantly, elicit writing from students that fails to fully engage in textual analysis. Students talked about writing assignments they experienced at various stages of their educational careers, noting both the positive and negative. We read Dave Bartholomae's foundational take on the "basic writer," as well as excerpts from the more recent National Writing Project (and Carl Nagin) work, Because Writing Matters (2003). Students read an account of the 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and ETS study of effective writing assignments, which identified the following criteria as essential to high quality assignments that encourage student writing development: content and scope, organization and development, audience and communication, and engagement and choice (NWP 47-48). A local high school teacher shared two sample assignments of her own, and eventually visited our class to discuss her perspective and experiences. I tried to integrate these varied vantage points into an open discussion atmosphere in our classroom. My own assignment for the take-home exam attempted to give voice to a range of considerations. The language of the assignment is quite broad, encouraging diverse approaches but perhaps failing to communicate my hopes of close analysis. Here are the directions for "Part II" of the exam:

   Now that you have experienced your own writing assignment, write a
   reflective essay that critically evaluates your work of writing
   assignment design. What were the strengths of your assignment? What
   were the weaknesses? In what ways did this assignment engage you
   with the text? In what ways did it keep you from it? How might you
   revise your assignment in the future? (If you'd leave it as is,
   why?) To what extent do you think the assignment, in practice,
   actually accomplishes the goals you'd set out for it, in theory? Why
   or why not? (Restaino, final take-home exam, 2005).

The tone of my assignment is somewhat casual. Questions like, "What were the strengths of your assignment?" seem to welcome far-ranging responses. However, my hope was that self assessment would encourage students to intellectualize the work that they produced. In other words, I wanted them to treat their work as we would any literary text: with a kind of inquisitive desire to determine how the parts work together to create the whole experience.

The Results

Despite my desire, and my admittedly indirect attempt, to have students engage with the tensions between theory and practice in their own work, responses to the take-home exam were somewhat disappointing. I should say, first, that this was a class packed with well-intentioned, thoughtful, largely successful students. They wanted to do well in my class; I was sensitive to the seriousness with which they took their work. However, self assessment lingered largely in practicalities. Students typically failed to explain theoretical goals in a context that exceeded passing references to critical thinking or an assignment's requiring students to read more closely.

Students often evaluated their assignments on the basis of whether or not they required honest and thorough reading of Faulkner's text. While there is real value in an assignment that encourages students to engage with the text, it is necessary for new teachers to understand the quality of such engagement. We could argue that even an assignment requiring a simple retelling of the story necessitates that students read, at least peripherally. One student, trying to safeguard her assignment against shortcuts, wrote:

   I tried to do what a student might when answering these essay
   questions and I checked on 'sparknotes.com'; I found there was
   nothing that would help me with the story on that site and not much
   information on the web to help with these [essay questions].
   Therefore I was satisfied with the complexity of the questions
   because they did require me to read the story (student exam
   response, 12/05).

When I first read this response, I thought the approach was clever. However, upon further consideration, I determined that it lacks analysis. For example, what does "complexity" mean in this context? To what extent is an assignment that requires students "to read the story" complex? What are the notable differences between this kind of an assignment and one that could be answered by reading only study guides like "sparknotes"? Further, is it possible for an assignment designed to safeguard against the use of study guides, perhaps one that asks students to find minute details in the story, to be not complex? When I first designed the take-home exam, one of my central goals was for students to explore some of their own ideologies, to investigate the sources and meanings of their language choices, and their goals for students' writing. However, exploration of this nature was rarely a part of students' evaluations of their writing assignments.

Emphasis on an assignment's ability to push students to read Faulkner's short story from beginning to end often obstructed potentially sophisticated analysis. Many students discovered that their assignments were more challenging than they had originally imagined. However, rather than determine the source of such challenges, inevitably students focused more attention on recurring concerns about reading. One student explained, "I felt that this assignment forces the reader to get more in depth with the text. I found myself identifying certain ideas that I did not see when I first read it. This assignment also forces the student to examine themes and ideas from 'Barn Burning' which they would want to discuss" (student exam response, 12/05). The student goes on to attest, "I did not realize the analysis involved in completing the assignment" (student exam response, 12/05). While her assignment exceeded her expectations and original intentions for sophistication, the student fails to identify the sources of such sophistication. Her mention of "themes and ideas" and "analysis" hardly brings to light the nature of what makes her assignment more sophisticated. Another student, whose original assignment required creative rewriting of Faulkner's story, explained, "With any of my questions, students will have to keep going back to the text to rethink ideas. This will keep them engaged with the text while at the same time reinventing it" (student exam response, 12/05). This notion of "reinventing" the text might be a sophisticated one, however, the student does not push her discussion any further. Consideration of the meaning of and expectations for reinvention, as well as the learning goals inherent in such a project, would acknowledge her efforts more fully and also allow her to consider more deeply the quality of her assignment.

Following evaluation of their writing assignments, students were to discuss revision strategies, particularly in light of their experiences responding to their own assignments. While handing out the final take-home exam, I explained to students that grades were not dependent upon whether or not they assessed their assignment to be perfect, or even effective. Rather, I stressed that my interest was largely in their ability to critically explore their work. Still, revision ideas hovered around practical changes, rather than any rethinking of intellectual goals. One student wrote, "I do not think 1 would change much. However, I would make the required summary shorter, and I would allow twice as much time for them to complete the assignment because it involves a lot more analysis and reading than I had intended" (student exam response, 12/05). The allowance of more time falls short of any investigation of the "unintentional" difficulty of the assignment. Why not try to understand what is happening, intellectually, in this assignment in order to determine if its sophistication will be most beneficial to students? To what extent is simply adding more work time side-stepping a potential problem? Another student explained, "Now that I've done my own assignment, and realized that it is easy to grade based on relativity to the text, I would still keep my grading the same" (student exam response, 12/05). In this response, an assignment is deemed to be in no need of revision because it requires that students refer to the text repeatedly. Why are references to the text the only consideration? If such references are not the only consideration for assessment (and I would argue they should not be), it seems possible that other priorities are being grossly overshadowed. This student's relatively brisk and superficial assessment undermines significant moments in the assignment and disallows the possibility of important revisions.

Reflection and Suggestions: Valuing Self Assessment in the Methods Course

While I do not have a concrete explanation for my students' tendency to deal largely with practical concerns and avoid more challenging intellectual considerations when assessing teaching materials they created, I can reflect briefly on my own approach. In part, I take responsibility for failing to push students more earnestly into the complexities of their work. Perhaps if I had done more modeling of reflective practice throughout the semester, they would have confronted their own writing assignments with sharper, more critical eyes. Also, too, I believe my final take-home exam assignment is too indirect, a bit too open and casual, particularly since I did have specific expectations in mind. I do not know that I communicated those expectations as clearly as possible. Finally, the benefits of completing one's own writing assignment are questionable, particularly given the threat to objectivity. It is difficult to distance oneself from the expectations and ideas that are a part of any assignment of one's own design, although I do believe this can be a challenge worth taking on.

Ultimately, I can offer a few modest suggestions to teacher educators committed to training preservice teachers for reflective self-assessment. As indicated in current scholarship, sharing one's own pedagogical struggles as a model of reflective practice is at the core of encouraging preservice teachers to do the same. Hopefully, this exploration of my own teaching serves this purpose, at least in part. Regarding my self assessment exercise, a potentially useful revision involves allowing students to swap, construct responses to a peer's writing assignment, and then critically assess their own assignments after they have had the opportunity to observe another's approach to the assignment. This may provide just enough objective distance to allow students to more thoughtfully critique the expectations and influences at work in their original writing assignments. Although reflective self-assessment is a difficult, and at times frustrating, practice, I believe it is also fundamental to teachers' growth and thus an essential component to any methods course.

References

Bartholomae, David. "The Study of Error." The Writing Teacher's Sourcebook. 4th Edition. Ed. Edward P.J. Corbett, Nancy Myers, Gary Tate. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 258-272.

Dozier, Cheryl, Peter Johnston and Rebecca Rogers. Critical Literacy/Critical Teaching: Tools for Preparing Responsive Teachers. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2006.

Hillocks, George. "What I Have Tried to Teach My Students." Reflective Teaching, Reflective Learning: How to Develop Critically Engaged Readers, Writers, and Speakers. Ed. Thomas M. McCann, Larry R. Johannessen, Elizabeth Kahn, Peter Smagorinsky, Michael W. Smith. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2005. xi-xxi.

Jokinen, Hannu and Erkki Saranen. "Development of Student Teachers' Self Assessment." Changing Contexts of School Development: The Challenges to

Evaluation and Assessment. Eds. Hannu Jokinen and John Rushton. Jyvakyla, Finland: Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyvaskyla, 1998. 1-18.

Loughran, John. Developing a Pedagogy of Teacher Education: Understanding Teaching and Learning about Teaching. New York: Routledge. 2006.

National Writing Project and Carl Nagin. Because Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in Our Schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003.

Royer, Dan and Roger Giles. "Combining History, Theory, and Practice in the Writing Methods Course." Teaching Writing Teachers of High School English and First-Year Composition. Eds. Robert Tremmel and William Broz. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 2002. 105-115.

Smagorinsky, Peter and Melissa E. Whiting. How English Teachers Get Taught: Methods of Teaching the Methods Class. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1995.

Jessica Restaino, Montclair State University

Jessica Restaino, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of English and Associate Director of English Education at Montclair State University.