Holidays

Elves again, originally uploaded by Jodi3425.

I've read your reflections and posted the grades. The reflections have been really interesting. They've opened up my thinking about assessment: what is the best way to grade someone's work in a course, particularly a course like ours? As most of you noted in your reflections, there were some basics (like I pointed out early in the course): blogging, class participation, the final project. But there's also more than that, again, as ya'll noted in your papers; there's what you put into the course in terms of time and effort, a time and effort that can be assessed in terms of specific reading and writing, but a time and effort that might not strictly correspond to reading specific writings.

I confess that the work (or lack thereof) of some students made me think that the format was too open-ended. Without an emphasis on strict rules, it seems to me, some students will fail to turn in assignments, ignore deadlines, completely drop the ball. But then I recall that this happens even in cases where there are draconian rules (but actually not as much). At the same time, a number of people really excelled, pushing themselves to think a little differently, to adapt to a different academic environment. These students make me think that the experiment worked and that it might be possible to push them further in future iterations of the course.

At any rate, thank you for an interesting semester. This has been a unique experience. I admire your sticking with it after the shock of the first day.

Face to face does matter, but we don't realize quite until we aren't face to face.