The Value of Reflective Writing in Masterybased Grading

The Value of Reflective Writing in Mastery-based Grading Systems Encouraging Effective Teaching Innovation, MAA Math. Fest 2019 Adelaide Akers, Assistant Professor of Mathematics Emporia State University

Mastery-based Grading

Concerns with Mastery-based Grading ? ? ?

Potential Remedy: Reflective Writing Build the activities of analyzing and fixing mistakes, practicing the skill, asking for help into the requirements for re-quizzing. Add a metacognitive element to it. Conjecture: Students will achieve mastery in fewer attempts.

The Value of Reflective Writing Educational psychologists indicate that reflective writing fosters good problem solving and writing skills, self-assessment, and selfregulated learning. (Nilson, Creating self-regulated learners, 2013) For mathematically-based problems, educational psychologists suggest having students write an error analysis of incorrect solutions. Then they should successfully solve it and a similar problem. (Zimmerman et al. , Self-regulated learning and academic achievement, 2011)

Implementation, Take One MA 734 Complex Variables, Fall 2018 Each homework problem graded Satisfactory/In progress/Unsatisfactory

Examples

Take-aways Had to do quite a bit of coaching on how to reflect. Met with quite a bit of resistance from students; some overcame, some did not. Mixed student reviews It did not seem that students achieved mastery in fewer attempts (seemingly dependent on quality of reflection) Actions on my part: Will need to be more specific regarding what I expect in the reflection Need to educate myself on best practices for implementing reflective writing Need to figure out how to measure "achieving mastery in fewer attempts"

Implementation, Take Two MA 262 Calculus II (Section B), Spring 2018 Collaborated with Dr. Tom Mahoney (Section A) Standards-based grading 25 total standards, graded pass/fail Students may retake at most two standards per week

Reflection Policy

Take-aways STILL had to do quite a bit of coaching on how to reflect. . . and follow my reflection requirements! Met with EVEN MORE resistance from students (some stopped reattempts altogether) Mixed student reviews It seemed that students who followed my reflection requirements achieved mastery in fewer attempts (but not adequately measured) Control group was not substantial Reflection quality became a barrier to student achievement Actions on my part: Will need to be more specific regarding what I expect in the reflection Need to educate myself on best practices for implementing reflective writing Need to figure out how to measure "achieving mastery in fewer attempts"

Conclusion The theory of learning indicates that there is value in reflective writing in the learning process. My ultimate goal is to successfully implement reflective writing in order to achieve this optimal value in mastery-based grading systems. Failure leads to more opportunity to inform and refine this approach