What they say… What we see

Throughout my experiences in education I have had to sift through and decide what I am truly going to buy into. Just as we teach our students to critically think, I was learning to do so myself. Immersed in University culture with Professors, with more letters behind their names than I can count, I rarely disagreed with what I was being told in an absolute manner. Finally, I experienced a disconnect in practicum. 

One of the new trends that we began to hear a lot about as “teachers to be” is that students no longer care about marks. This never sat well with me. How can they not care? Not only was this hard to wrap my head around as an educator but also as a student. I care about marks. I also care about the process of learning. After all that is why I was sitting in this class taking it all in and trying to wrap my head around this concept of “not caring about marks”.  

My understanding evolved this day to realize that it wasn’t that they didn’t care about marks. It was that they were more concerned with the recognition of completing the work. I struggled to have students complete work for the sake of practice or simply to learn. They needed a sense of gratitude. If I asked for students to submit their work at the end of the period to me I found that I was getting results. Students were not only eager to complete work but to do a good job and ask questions along the way. By me acknowledging that they completed it they were appreciative, and in return provided me with material to collect. 

Unfortunately, I found myself quickly overwhelmed. How do I balance this method? I can’t collect everything and I certainly can’t mark everything. This is where I dabbled with the idea of the student’s perceptions of marks. When I returned there work rarely did they look for a mark. They looked for evidence that I had read through their work. That  I took the time to appreciate the work that they had put in during the period even if it was completing a worksheet together as a class or working on an in class activity and making a reflection on their learning. Through the use of comments, feedback, praise and guidelines for improvement I had found that balance. I asked students to submit the things that were most important for their learning. The tasks that consolidated learning, encompassed the big ideas and demonstrated to me that they were engaging in learning within the class. In return I made time to look at each piece and provide feedback in some capacity in return; sometimes a grade, a level of completeness, questions to probe further thinking, a sticker or even a homemade good. Just a little something for them to know that I recognized their effort and ability and through this I put the theory I was preached into the practice I had to establish a mode that worked for my students and self.

“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.”

-Jan L. A. Van De Snepscheut