Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 15:38:57 EDT
From:         rselfe@MTU.EDU
Subject:      Evaluating changes--long message.

>Dick: those are good ways of looking at what we want our kids to be able to
>do as a result of what we ask them to do.  Dare I ask the next question (of
>course I dare!): how will you and I know that we've done it and worse yet
>how will we know what it is that we did that did it.  (My objective is
>changing pronouns into nouns.)
>Myles
>

HMMMMM,

Well first I would like to agree with previous comments about the
commitment necessary from both sides of hte hegemony ridden teacher-student
relationship.  What I 'expect' and what actually happens are usually worlds
apart.  I hope to set up learning situations that are likely to work for a
good many students, optimize for success, as it were.  But what were
'success'?  Miles' first question is easiest, I believe.  How will I/we
know that we've done it?

>Improve their use of terminology.

Ask them how confident they feel early in the quarter and late.  And
compare their early attempts to describe documents and how well they are
written and designed against their final attempts.  OOOOh, didn't I tell
you?  These are tech. communication students learning how to design and
manage publications.

>I expect to give them and give them a chance to practice ways to approach
 communication problems.

This one seems simple to me.  I present and organized their efforts; they
practice and give me feedback (via anonymous Interchange sessions this
quarter) on how useful the communication model is that I've given them.  It
changes a bit every year.  I hope the C model discussion continues on MBU.
Very interesting, MER, Jim, Eric, others.

>I expect them to practice looking at the world around them and generate
 solutions to those >problems--in my class, I ask them to make the problems and
 solutions pro bono publiko (sp?). Lawyers >aren't the only ones with that
 responsibility.

They sort of have to do this in order to come up with projects in the
class.  I push them hard at the beginning of the class to generate lists of
interests, concerns, organizations with which to work.

>I expect them to come away from the class with new eyes, more demanding,
 critical eyes as they look >at the communication solutions all around them.

This is a tough one.  I ask them at the end of the course.  I have class
critiques and have them give feedback to other projects and watch who says
what and who writes what on their mockup publications.  That gives me some
idea.  This year I may have several people open an Interchange session
dedicated to feedback on each person's project so that those who are
hesitant to join the verbal fray, and it is a fray, will have a less public
forum to use.  By the way, many of the suggestions students give at the end
of the quarter have to do with the tone of the message, the appropriateness
considering diverse audiences, environmentally considerate paper choices,.
. .   Do these indicate a "critical" perspective?

>I expect them to be technologically more sophisticated or at least more
 practiced.

I ask them.  There's almost universal agreement that this is the case.  The
problem is that they often come away a bit overwhelmed by what there is yet
to learn!

>I expect them to try to get to know each other as people and professional
 resourses.

(I added this one after my last message.  Can you beleive it?)
This is very tough to measurement, but I could ask them how many classmates
they know and how well (in the beginning and at the end).  I always ask
them to evaluate their groupmates.  I could also ask them hwo they choose
the people they work with (again, both early and late) to see if their
methods of choice seem to grow more sophisticated.


Myles' second question: "How will we know what it is that we did that did
it?"

They could do all of this on their own.  Much of the social learning, the
creation of community, will probably come from sharing the same working
environment late at night as they work on all the assignments for the
class.  But using the lab as their work environment was part of my plan as
well, so . . .  I don't k now, Myles, if what I do does it.

Thanks again for the questions, though.  I can feel my already massive
policy statement growing bigger, and     BIGGER, AND
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