The logic behind assignments

They provide the opportunity to do things differently, obtain feedback and build skills and insights.

A while ago, I was chatting with a former student and the conversation veered toward the familiar — my rant about how little effort young people seem to put into their assignments.

“I can see that they write their essays at the last possible moment, almost as if they are doing it just to fulfil the formality of the submission,” I complained.

“But that’s exactly what they’re doing,” she said, asking how much that particular assignment was worth in terms of marks. When I told her it was five marks (out of the semester total of 100), she laughed. “Then of course, that’s why — it’s only worth that much effort.”

Most students work through a process of elimination — how many marks will this question or task be worth? Is it enough to demand that I spend time on it? How selectively can I apply my effort and time? If it’s a multiple choice test, I have a one-in-four chance of getting something right. So how much reading will help me maximise those odds? Exams and tests become something of a gamble.

Call me naive, call me impractical, but, to me, thinking this way seems to defeat the whole purpose of education. I agree that much of what goes as education in our country is about toting up enough marks to get a decent grade so that we can qualify for the degree. So, young people spend entire decades looking at courses as nothing more than marksheets to be filled with the right numbers. The way in which classes are conducted does nothing to change this.

But, occasionally, one is presented with the opportunity to do it differently — and this happens more often than one realises.

Let me draw from my own experience here. I teach a class on writing, and, in the course of sixteen weeks, I hope to expose my students to a variety of forms of professional writing. On an average, they are required to submit twelve weekly assignments, and these tasks amount to 40 per cent of the grade. If a student calculates the value of each task in terms of marks, it works out to less than 4 marks each. That’s not very much, right? It is okay to miss a couple or not to take a few so seriously — it’s not going to affect the grade that much. Besides, there is still the 60 per cent that one can focus on to make up.

But what, really, is the “value” of each of these assignments? It is the opportunity to (however briefly) attempt a certain kind of writing task. If one misses a particular assignment, then what is lost is not just the 4 marks, but the opportunity to learn or practise that particular kind of writing.

Unfortunately, the structure of evaluation doesn’t allow me to count marks beyond 100, and, in my view, there is so much to be learnt that I have to build in many tasks — a situation that leads to several short assignments, each really “valuable” in my estimation in terms of learning. When a student approaches the task only in terms of the marks it represents, we both stand to lose. The student loses that learning opportunity that exists in the doing and in the receiving of feedback. I lose the teaching opportunity that exists in reading and giving feedback.

We do need to be smart about allocating time and effort in our busy lives. There’s so much to do and so little time and space to do it. But one can also get overly calculating about assigning value. Assignments or classwork have certain logic to them. That logic is not really measured in terms of the marks, but the learning opportunity they represent.

So how does one really evaluate this value? Think carefully about whether and what you will gain from doing the task, setting aside the marks it will fetch. Is it a repetitive task that aims to build skill or is it a creative or reflective task that aims to build insight and understanding? Clearly, you will learn more from the latter but it also takes more time and effort.

Courses are a jumble of learning opportunities, and these come in different shapes, sizes and forms, defined by marks, time, interest and effort/engagement. You may not always be able to judge the real value just in terms of the marks. That is a somewhat arbitrary measure that teachers are forced to apply.

Source | The Hindu | 23 August 2015