Re: grades/authority/community, etc.

[Neal Lerner <nlerner@acs.bu.edu>]

Thanks to Lynne and Dr. Debby for reinvigorating the grade thread.  One 
thing Debby wrote struck me as a central conundrum:
[snip]  Authority, to me, is giving students 
> what I do know to combine with what they know, so they can then assume 
> the authority for their own methods, their own ideas, their own 
> discourse. [snip]

This strikes me as a wonderful definition of authority.  Nevertheless, I 
wonder how we know when students have successfully "assumed" such 
authority.  And I also wonder if this is what we could or should base our 
assessments on?  I ask because I think I try to do this in a way, but I'm 
also concerned that it's not very different than doing something Paula 
Gillespie has talked about:  our judging the "honesty" of students' 
voices.    Neal Lerner  nlerner@acs.bu.edu

P.S.  Happy birthday, Paula!!