Better Assessment

Yesterday’s chat was our second on how to grade publications classes. Just as it did last year, the topic brought with it lots of questions and lots of ideas. No two advisers seem to grade the same way, though many feel the same way about grading – shouldn’t it be enough to let the students produce the product, run the staff and work among themselves to improve both? Why do we have to stick a letter label on it?

The reality is, however, that we have to. Kids need those grades on transcripts and we have to find the best way to reflect how they are meeting expectations of the class. Check out the archive to relive the conversation. Lots of valuable discussion there.

– @snidesky

Prepping for a new school year in pubs (not the drinking kind)

Oh, the lazy days of summer. But they have to end at some point. Somewhere mid-July, most of us start to realize that the new school year is just around the corner. What prompts this crazy thinking when we’re supposed to be getting some rest as prompted by our district superintendent (or was that just mine?)? Could be the workshops we’ve just completed, the ones coming up or the ones we see our Twitter friends tweeting about that we wish we’d gone to. Or, maybe, mid-beach-novel, we get up to mix another margarita, and it slams us full-frontal: This bliss cannot continue. At some point, we have to be teachers again.

Whatever the case, most of us have started making lists or planning get-togethers with staff editors. Maybe you’ve changed yearbook publishers and are trying to wrap your head around new plug-ins or a new e-design concept. Maybe you’ve decided this is the year your paper goes online, but you don’t quite know where to start. Maybe you know your grading system isn’t what it should be, but the thought of a total revamp sends you back to the blender and margarita salt.

It’s time, though, to start making plans, and who better to get great ideas and motivation from than your journalism adviser PLN? If you did or if you didn’t join us for this morning’s chat on prepping for the school year, click on the archive tab and scroll through the convo. Bet you’ll find something helpful.

– @snidesky

Giving design fair play

Besides discussing how to present design basics in class and where to get the best ideas from, much of Thursday’s discussion centered on giving design some prime time in the classroom. Many think of journalism skills as writing skills, and students must certainly learn how to report and write in the journalistic style, but if content is not presented in an eye-pleasing way or in a way that aids the reader in finding the information easily, then the writing skills don’t much matter.

Several advisers share their publication links as well as links to sites great from which to steal ideas. Click on the archives tab and find the design discussion.

December 12 will find us talking about grading strategies with Evelyn Lauer. And who couldn’t use some ideas on that? Join us at 8 p.m. ET on #jerdchat.

– @snidesky