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Good enough
A behaviouralist (re)learns some lessons
The thin veneer of a little specialist knowledge does not stop an observer of human behaviour exhibiting pretty much the same patterns of behaviour as everyone else. In fact, it can be most enlightening to reflect on one’s own behaviour. Gather round, and listen to my story.
For the last two years, I have been the co-instructor of an online course at an American university. Each term, students need to produce four written assignments, together representing more than half the marks for the entire course. Even though the grading rubric is known to them, some of the papers submitted suggest that not all of the students seem to understand quite how they should interpret it.
It always starts with a good intention
When, last term, one of the students delivered an outstanding final paper, my colleague and I thought we might use it as a kind of exemplar for the students. However, simply making the paper available didn’t seem the best way forward, as we suspected they might just try to copy its style (if not its content). Instead, I proposed to make a video in which we would show snippets of the paper to illustrate what the grading rubric called for. So far so good — this was in May of this year, and the next course would not start until October.
