{"id":14,"date":"2020-06-23T19:41:52","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T19:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abbymullen.org\/hist390fall2020\/?page_id=14"},"modified":"2020-08-03T18:47:27","modified_gmt":"2020-08-03T18:47:27","slug":"assessment","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/abbymullen.org\/hist390fall2020\/assessment\/","title":{"rendered":"Assessment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This class is all about moving you from wherever you are, in terms of history and technology, to someplace further along both of those lines. It&#8217;s not about you meeting an &#8220;objective&#8221; standard, but about making progress that feels meaningful to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That said, there are skills in this class that have to be done &#8220;right&#8221; in order for the ideas to work. But in the tech world, and in the history world, learning is iterative: in other words, you get more than one shot to learn something. Sometimes an initial failure helps you learn and remember the right way even better. So in this class, you&#8217;re going to get as many attempts to do the major projects as you need. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By contrast, discussion is something that has to keep moving in order to really be effective. So you don&#8217;t get more than one chance on discussion; you just move on if you miss something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, how are we going to move together from novice to not-as-novice? We&#8217;re going to use a process called &#8220;Contract Grading.&#8221; In this system, you and I agree together on how much work you&#8217;re going to do, and what will happen if you don&#8217;t, and we agree on what grade that work will merit. You&#8217;ll have one chance in the middle of the semester to revise your contract to change your grade, if you like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How does contract grading work?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By <strong>Monday, September 7<\/strong>, you&#8217;ll need to submit a grade contract to me, using <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/forms\/d\/e\/1FAIpQLSdZ3DVv1o2lNSASoWjRrHjbM22Yc6PL7Zw0s9Xj9pI5M7vsfw\/viewform?usp=sf_link\">this form<\/a>. It needs to include four things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The grade you want to contract for<\/li><li>The specific things you&#8217;ll do in order to achieve that grade<\/li><li>The penalties you&#8217;ll assess on yourself for not meeting your contract obligations (and the ways in which you&#8217;ll show me how you assessed that penalty)<\/li><li>Anything I need to know about you in order to help you achieve your goals<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This isn&#8217;t completely individual: I&#8217;ll mandate some of the things you have to do; you&#8217;ll select from some options. <strong>You may not contract for a D or an F<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>To receive an A<\/strong>, you agree to these things: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Satisfactory completion of Small Projects 1-3<\/li><li>Satisfactory completion of <strong>three<\/strong> of the <strong>four<\/strong> remaining small projects (4-7)<\/li><li>Satisfactory completion of final project, going above and beyond the requirements to create a really excellent project<\/li><li>Completion of at least one response per week<\/li><li>Participation in group discussion at an A level (which you will assess yourself)<\/li><li>Respect for your classmates&#8217; persons and ideas in both synchronous and asynchronous communications<\/li><li>Completion of self-assessment<\/li><li>Completion of scheduled office hours visit<\/li><li>Any other thing you wish to have assessed<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>To receive a B<\/strong>, you agree to these things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Satisfactory completion of Small Projects 1-3<\/li><li>Satisfactory completion of <strong>two<\/strong> of the four remaining small projects (4-7)<\/li><li>Satisfactory completion of final project, going above and beyond the minimum requirements<\/li><li>Completion of at least one response per week, but you can take one week off<\/li><li>Participation in group discussion at a B level (which you will assess yourself)<\/li><li>Respect for your classmates&#8217; persons and ideas in both synchronous and asynchronous communications<\/li><li>Completion of scheduled office hours visit<\/li><li>Completion of self-assessment<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>To receive a C<\/strong>, you agree to these things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Satisfactory completion of Small Projects 1-3<\/li><li>Satisfactory completion of <strong>one<\/strong> of the four remaining small projects (4-7)<\/li><li>Satisfactory completion of the final project with the minimum requirements<\/li><li>Completion of at least one response per week, but you can take two weeks off<\/li><li>Participation in group discussions at a C level (which you will assess yourself)<\/li><li>Respect for your classmates&#8217; persons and ideas in both synchronous and asynchronous communications<\/li><li>Completion of scheduled office hours visit<\/li><li>Completion of self-assessment<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is your professor&#8217;s part in this contract?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every contract has stipulations on both sides; both parties agree to certain terms. Here are the terms you may either tacitly or explicitly acknowledge in your contract that you will get from my part in this contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By accepting your contract, I (and my TAs) will promise these things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>I will promptly provide constructive feedback, not attacking you as a person but only seeking to make your work better.<\/li><li>I will be responsive to your questions, comments, and ideas. <\/li><li>I will create high-quality materials that will challenge you and educate you about the topics of this class. <\/li><li>I will be your advocate, not your adversary; I will work <em>with<\/em> you to overcome the difficulties that hinder your success in this class, whether that difficulty relates directly to the class content or not.<\/li><li>I will be respectful of your person and your ideas.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What happens if you don&#8217;t meet the terms of your contract?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First of all, I will be working with you throughout the semester to make sure that you do meet the terms. I reserve the right to lower your grade by 1\/3 (so, a minus grade) if I feel that you have technically met the terms of your contract but have not demonstrated a good-faith effort to be involved in the life of the class. By the same token, I reserve the right to raise your grade by 1\/3 (so, a plus grade) if I&#8217;m extremely impressed with the work you&#8217;ve done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But it may be that things go catastrophically wrong. If they do, I do reserve the option of giving you a D or an F if you fail to meet the terms of significant portions of your contract. These grades will likely be the result of a breakdown of communication between you and me. If you&#8217;re talking to me about your situation, I can help you. If you&#8217;re not, I can&#8217;t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This class is all about moving you from wherever you are, in terms of history and technology, to someplace further along both of those lines. It&#8217;s not about you meeting an &#8220;objective&#8221; standard, but about&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-14","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbymullen.org\/hist390fall2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbymullen.org\/hist390fall2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbymullen.org\/hist390fall2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbymullen.org\/hist390fall2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbymullen.org\/hist390fall2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/abbymullen.org\/hist390fall2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208,"href":"https:\/\/abbymullen.org\/hist390fall2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions\/208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbymullen.org\/hist390fall2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}