Summary: This article focuses on "the kinds of discussion and negotiation that take place around student writing in portfolio norming sessions" (219). The system at the school is that trios of teachers exchange portfolios and pass or fail each other's students (high stakes!). Before these evaluations, larger groups of teachers meet to norm. The authors provide transcripts of key conversations that took place during those norming sessions, illustrating the questions teachers had and the dissensus that often resulted. They see these conversations as productive and natural ("grading papers [is] another act of reading, as complex and varied as all acts of reading" (224)) opportunities for instructors to reflect on why they value what they do in writing and why they make the judgment calls they do. The authors examine the tension between trying to assure uniform standards and value the different perspectives in a group of teachers.
Response: This is another quite interesting snapshot of the realities of an assessment program. When the stakes are so high--students can pass or fail based on an outside reader--it's no wonder teacher tensions are also fairly high. There may be a bit of cross-over between this article and Martin's, so we may be able to cut one.
Uses: Assessment, but also professionalization of faculty.
Yeah, one of the articles I read gave a specific example of how tension between teachers because of different things (TA versus adjunct teaching) can manifest itself in these situations. I've wondered about that. Our ESL program has an exit test where the decision is made by outside readers but I've never heard of (or thought about) specific tensions between faculty manifested in thsi way.
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