ABSTRACT
I am teaching a class called “American Culture,” but the course in practice is really a course in US history with some cultural components integrated into the curriculum as motivated with historical topics. It is an ESL class in the Intensive English Program (IEP) at the college where I work, and it is intended for intermediate-high to advanced level profi ciency students. There are 24 students in my class from six different language backgrounds-Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai. The students are from ten different countries. We are about halfway through a 15-week semester, so there is a college expectation (but not a requirement) that teachers will give midterm exams. Midterms are to occur either this week or next week. As students have several short assessment opportunities throughout the term and as I am required to give a fi nal exam, I have decided not to give a midterm. Instead I have decided to give my students the option of pursuing projects. This is a huge experiment for me, and I must admit that I am a bit nervous. I have prepared a set of guidelines for the students and provided a shortlist of possible projects they might pursue, including creating their own midterm exam based on the content of the course to date, asking peers to take the exam and provide feedback, compiling a summary of the feedback, and making a short class presentation about what they learned. I also included ideas for projects such as resource papers that would go beyond the information we covered in class and creative projects that involved incorporating art and music into their subject matter. The list is not meant to be exhaustive, and I will encourage the students to propose original projects. They are also required to create a rubric for the evaluation of their project and grade themselves against the rubric. As we have used rubrics in class, students are familiar with the concept. I am requiring that they review the rubric with me in advance so that I can work with them on their indicators of effectiveness. They can work alone or in groups of two, three, or four persons. I’m thinking that I should also give students who want to take the midterm exam the option of doing that; however I don’t think that anyone will take me up on that. [Christison, research notes]
Task: Refl ect
Why do you think the teacher in the vignette decided to use a task-based or project-based assessment for her students instead of a midterm exam? Why do you think she would allow some students to take the midterm instead of doing a project? Why do you think the teacher required a rubric for the project? If you were the teacher in the vignette, what kind of project options might you give your students? Do you agree with the teacher that projects would be a good option for students in lieu of a midterm exam?
