Evaluation

flickr photo by mikefisher821 http://flickr.com/photos/grade6kms/5146468921 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) licenseAbolishGrades

We really want to focus on learning as part of #Tec21 and this is how we are approaching grades in this class. We focus first on learning as an individual student with the instructor (and your fellow students) to help you on your learning path.

But we still need Partial and Final Grades!

Correct, each student will submit to the instructor (Ken) a portfolio of work with a requested grade (between 1 and 100). We will guide each other in that process with the knowledge that 70% (and above) is a "passing" grade allowing the student to continue to the next course in the series. In our first semester (Jan-May 2016) on this #AbolishGrading journey, we developed a rubric to help guide the students in this process and I will ask everyone for input on how to improve that rubric. Note that the danger of rubrics is that it can turn progress in "checkboxes" and we want to avoid that here.

What do I need to do to pass this course?

You learn the list of concepts in the course (see the Mastery Topics in the menus at the top). The official course outline shows that and is reflected in the list of mastery topics for this course. In order to justify your grade (requested by student, authorized by instructor), you should track the following information on your blog, on GitHub, in other digital or paper format:

  • Attend and participate actively in the sessions with our guest speakers. If you cannot make the session, you should be able to provide questions in advance for our guest speakers. You can do that by emailing Ken or leaving a comment in the post on our FB group for the week's guest speaker.
  • A blog post covering each of the main areas of the Mastery Topics, so that totals six blog posts of larger size than my past courses. You need to show mastery and knowledge of the sub-topics. You should be aiming to do one one every two or three weeks to finish them on time by the end of the semester (2 by partial 1, 4 by partial 2).
  • Other assignments (Hands On) as specified during the semester, most likely practical assignments (leaning towards DevOps) specified here on the course page and delivered via posts on your blog.
  • Three meetings each semester (1 by end of partial 1, 2 by end of partial 2, 3 by last day of classes) with Ken via the scheduling system at https://kenbauer.youcanbook.me