Matt’s Notes
Hey there! Happy Sunday… or whenever it is, wherever you are! We’re pleased as punch you’re taking an interest in Episode 16 where we are all about… Assessment and, to a lesser degree, Evaluation.
We covered lots of terrain on this episode. Apologies for any academic or rhetorical slips…
- I wanted to clarify that Dr. Greg Graffin… singer for popular American punk band Bad Religion… completed his Ph.D in Zoology… as opposed to Anthropology which I believe I said in the recording…
- Dr. Graffin has lectured at UCLA and Cornell University… while writing a number of books and articles in his area… and touring the world with Bad Religion.
- And… just because I found this really touching and funny…. here’s Dr. Graffin’s “Rate My Professors” page… with the most recent rating being for the fall 2019 semester… spoiler alert: he’s popular!
Anyway! My rabbit holes are abundantly on display in both the recordings… see the end of the video for references.
I was very taken with the “unlearning” path we went down… and hopefully will be revisiting in coming episodes.
Doug’s Notes
Assessment – Why are we doing this to people?
The rise of the measurement culture in education has had a profound impact on educational practice, from the highest levels of educational policy at national and supra-national level down to the practices of local schools and teachers.
Biesta, G. (2009). Good education in an age of measurement: On the need to reconnect with the question of purpose in education. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability (formerly: Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education), 21, 33-46.
In very truth, we have become an ‘assessment society’, as wedded to our belief in the power of numbers, grades, targets and league tables to deliver quality and accountability, equality and defensibility as we are to modernism itself. History will readily dub the 1990s when this journal was born—as well as the early years of the new millennium—‘the assessment era’, when belief in the power of assessment to provide a rational, efficient and publicly acceptable mechanism of judgement and control reached its high point.
Broadfoot, P., & Black, P. (2004). Redefining assessment? The first ten years of assessment in education. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 11(1), 7-26.
The intensification of measurement leads to forms of authorization and endorsement of certain outcomes, people, actions, systems, and practices, thus marking out what is claimed to be truthful. It also involves increasing automation, which shapes human agency and decision-making – automated systems of computation are taken as objective, legitimate, fair, neutral and impartial, and impact on human judgement.
Williamson, B., Bayne, S., & Shay, S. (2020). The datafication of teaching in Higher Education: critical issues and perspectives. Teaching in Higher Education, 25(4), 351-365.
Word of the podcast:
Datafication
Question of the podcast:
Is more evaluation leading to better education, or does it just better record of what is being “covered” in class?
Thanks so much for visiting today! We hope you will join us again soon!
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