Re: [Phys-l] What are your answers for this teacher?

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 04/09/2011 02:35 PM, Josh Gates wrote:
> Scoring them separately lets the kids, tutors, and parents know where
> the real problem is.
>
> You can't get around some implication here, but an appropriate amount
> of splitting these into reasonably small standards is very useful.
>
> It looks like you're looking at a state standard list.  These aren't
> usually worth much.  Write your own.

I like that answer better than I like the answer I gave earlier.

As a minor point, I would like to point out that the two answers
are fully compatible.  They can be reconciled as follows:

At the end of the process, the students need to achieve certain
goals, and they will be judged on whether they have achieved those 
goals.

However, as a means to that end, it is good pedagogy to break
things down, i.e. to use the building-block approach ... and it
is worthwhile to keep track of progress toward proficiency on
each block separately.

I find SBG to be a clumsy term for expressing the idea of keeping
track of building-blocks separately ... but the idea is the same
either way, and the idea is entirely reasonable.  Lots of folks
have been doing block-by-block tracking for years.

It is important to keep in mind that in many cases it does not
suffice for the student to do well on "most" of the building
blocks.  There is no standards-based-grade-AVERAGE when it comes
to these building blocks.  It is more of a conjunction than an 
average.  The student must master all of the building blocks, 
and then put them together to form the required edifice.