On Grades and Instructor Identity: How Formative Assessment Saved me from a Midlife Crisis

Abstract

In recent years, I have cultivated an almost pathological resistance to grading. Here I explore the reasons why and describe how I eventually recovered. In particular, I propose that although grading, or more explicitly, effective assessment of student learning, is a challenging component of a mathematics instructor’s job description, reflective use of formative assessment can substantially relieve the pressure, as it allows the instructor to focus on what matters most: student learning and growth. To this end, I describe my experiences with formative assessment in a diverse selection of courses (ranging from calculus to introduction to proofs to mathematics for liberal arts). I conclude that formative assessment can help an instructor move toward a more intentional pedagogical stance, and a more constructive professional identity.

Keywords:

• Formative assessment
• student-centered instruction
• metacognition
• instructor identity

Funding

This work was partially supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Notes

1 Here, I use ranking in the same way as Elbow [12]: “By ranking I mean the act of summing up one’s judgment of a performance or person into a single, holistic number or score. We rank every time we give a grade or holistic score. Ranking implies a single scale or continuum or dimension along which all performances are hung.” In Elbow’s schema, evaluating is a good alternative: “By evaluating I mean the act of expressing one’s judgment of a performance or person by pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of different features or dimensions. We evaluate every time we write a comment on a paper or have a conversation about its value. Evaluation implies the recognition of different criteria or dimensions–and by implication different contexts and audiences for the same performance.” In the context of mathematics education, a similar distinction is made between sorting / certification and diagnostic assessment in [30], where the authors argue that these are fundamentally incompatible goals.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gizem Karaali

Gizem Karaali completed her undergraduate studies at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey. After receiving her Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of California Berkeley, she taught at the University of California Santa Barbara for 2 years. She is currently an associate professor of mathematics at Pomona College where she enjoys teaching a wide variety of courses and working with many interesting people. She is a founding editor of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, an editor of the Springer book series Mathematics in Culture and the Arts, an associate editor of the Mathematical Intelligencer and Numeracy, and serves on the editorial board of the MAA Carus Monographs. Gizem Karaali is a Sepia Dot (a 2006 Project NExT Fellow).