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Fink, B., & Brown, R. (2016). The problem with education technology (Hint: It’s not the technology). Boulder, CO: Utah State University Press.

By Justin Vaught, University of Alabama

Note: This is part one of a two-part review.

For the first time in ninety years, students across the country face a fundamentally redesigned SAT. Among changes meant to address the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and “provide a more accurate measure of a student’s college and career readiness” is the replacement of the required essay with an optional, longer prompt focused on textual analysis (Domonske, 2016). The adaptations this infamous exam has made to CCSS requirements bring to light many current conflicts in assessment practice, several of which are addressed by Ben Fink and Robin Brown’s The Problem with Education Technology (Hint: It’s Not the Technology) (2016). The latest installment in Utah State University Press’ Current Arguments in Composition series, this short publication discusses and critiques the mechanical nature of modern education. Fink and Brown explore the computerized scoring systems that have been created to evaluate student writing, and inform readers about some of the most controversial contemporary debates in writing assessment, including the mechanization of human graders, the socioeconomic implications of standardized testing, and the reprehensible conditions with which elementary and contingent faculty must cope. This first post offers an overview of the book; the second will offer my critique.

Fink and Brown ease into these contentious issues by first reviewing two prevailing narratives surrounding technology in the classroom: the “teachers versus technology” binary (p. 4) and its counterpart, the “teachers get offered a break” trope (p. 13). These narratives frame the book’s focus on Automated Essay Scoring (AES) systems, which are described as having the potential to eliminate the modern writing teacher and as labor-saving devices. However, Fink and Brown are not primarily concerned with the merits of these assessment systems. Instead, they use AES as an example of current educational attitudes and practices in their critique.

Noting that in education, “labor saving devices haven’t worked, don’t work, can’t work,” the authors discuss the immense labor investment required of teachers to produce what Bordieu (1990) called “durable dispositions”: enduring and effective ways of observing and engaging with the world (pp. 16-17). Such dispositions help students determine effective, appropriate ways of evaluating and responding to novel, challenging situations. Typically second-nature and often intangible, these dispositions rely more on tacit understanding than stated rules and standards. Modern educators may recognize these “habits of mind” as enumerated in the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing, which features concepts such as “persistence”, “responsibility”, and “metacognition”. These “ways of approaching learning that are both intellectual and practical” are gleaned through observation and emulation, and they are difficult to directly examine; however, students with greater command of such dispositions are more able to apply these abilities when confronted with scholastic assessments.

Less privileged students, in their attempts to replace these dispositions, often turn to alternative means to make up for their deficiency in labor investment. Among these means is the “fake industry” (p. 18), which purports to help students master strategic formulas that “ensure” success on standardized tests. Fink and Brown argue such formulas cannot replace durable dispositions, and instead claim the fake industry illuminates a fundamental flaw in mechanized assessment and other labor-saving educational strategies. Specifically, they demonstrate that in most cases this industry only further enables those who already possess the necessary cultural capital to succeed. Struggling students continue to flounder while those with better command of durable dispositions simply fold new formulas into their extant constructs; in other words, those “who could successfully fake it [are] the ones who [are] already pretty much able to do it for real” (p. 18). This means a focus on labor-saving education and assessment methods results in testing which measures whether students are “privileged enough: lucky enough to have had all the necessary labor invested in [them]” (p. 20, emphasis original). Students fortunate enough to enjoy a more specialized and individualized education are likely to excel in these standardized testing environments, making quantitative markers of success easier to attain while also increasing the availability of future academic opportunities, including collegiate placements and scholarships.

Meanwhile, students of lower socioeconomic status are restrained by these tests. Because of educational experiences that include a lower degree of teacher labor investment, these students have likely encountered fewer opportunities to develop durable dispositions. Systematic examinations implicitly emphasize many of these dispositions by prioritizing formulaic structure and content over unique or creative student responses, and thus exacerbate the labor-related shortcomings of these students. AES is particularly at fault here, as such systems are the worst offenders in this dangerous prioritization. The result is an automatic disadvantage in assessment amplified by mechanization: The more mechanical a system’s methodology, the more it hinders students who are unaware of, or unable to appeal to, systematic features. Although their abilities may extend elsewhere, less privileged students who lack consistently effective means of engagement with examinations are unfairly assessed.

This issue is complicated by the financial benefits of labor reduction: although labor-saving devices don’t work for teachers and students, Fink and Brown recognize that such devices are attractive to the legislators and administrators responsible for making budgetary decisions (p. 22). The authors problematize the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), another labor-saving alternative to the traditional classroom. MOOCs, though attractive for their affordability and accessibility, are academically unsatisfying as they lack both substantial content and constructive interaction between students and teachers, and feature low rates of student completion (pp. 20-21). They, like AES systems, are not an effective shortcut to labor reduction; however, in an observation reminiscent of Bousquet’s How the University Works (2008), Fink and Brown mention “the history of education policy […] is the history of cuts,” and so MOOCs continue to be emphasized in budgetary decisions (p. 22). It is in this discussion of MOOCs the authors reach their central argument: By prioritizing labor-saving devices as cost-reducing alternatives to institutional labor, educators “tacitly consent” to a construct which reinforces and solidifies socioeconomic disparity (p. 23).

References

Bordieu, P. (1990). The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Bousquet, M. (2008). How the University Works. New York: New York University Press.

Domonoske, C. (2016). Students Across U.S. Take New SAT A) Saturday B) Sunday C) None Of The Above. The Two Way: Breaking News from NPR. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/05/469307788/students-across-u-s-take-new-sat-a-saturday-b-sunday-c-none-of-the-above

Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing (2011). CWPA, NCTE & NWP.

Source: jwa

Journal of Writing Assessment Editorial Team will be at the 2017 Conference on College Composition and Communication this week.  We’d love to see you and talk with you about your ideas for publications with JWA!

On Wednesday, March 15 from 1:15-2:30 PM, Diane Kelly-Riley will be at the Research Network Forum’s Editors Roundtable in the Oregon Convention Center, Portland Ballrooms 256, 257, and 258.

On Friday, March 17 from 12-1 PM, Carl Whithaus will be at the Independent Rhetoric and Composition Journals table in the Exhibit Hall in the Oregon Convention Center.  We’ll be in Booth 303.

Our JWA Editorial Team will be at 4C17–keep an eye out for Diane Kelly-Riley, Ti Macklin, Jessica Nastal-Dema, and Carl Whithaus.

We’d love to meet with you to talk about your enthusiastic ideas for potential publications with the Journal of Writing Assessment or our the JWA Reading List.  Email us at journalofwritingassessment@gmail.com to set up an appointment!
via GIPHY

Source: jwa

• high school graduation requirements;
• articulation agreements among community colleges, comprehensive state universities, as well as public and private research universities; and/or,
• students’ paths through postsecondary writing curricula, particularly those influenced by guided pathways models proposed by Bailey et al.

Source: jwa

• high school graduation requirements;
• articulation agreements among community colleges, comprehensive state universities, as well as public and private research universities; and/or,
• students’ paths through postsecondary writing curricula, particularly those influenced by guided pathways models proposed by Bailey et al.

Source: jwa

Journal of Writing Assessment will be at the upcoming 2016 NCTE Annual Convention in Atlanta, Georgia later this week!

On Friday, November 18, attend session C.23 from 12:30-1:45 pm for the rountable discussion on “Impacts of the Common Core State Standards Assessment on Secondary and Postsecondary Writing Instruction” in room B301.

This roundtable examines the impacts of the CCSS assessments on secondary and postsecondary students’ learning and writing, continuing conversations begun in last year’s Journal of Writing Assessment (JWA) Special Issue. The roundtable makes connections between research and advocacy work about educational policies, writing assessment, and curricula. 

The session will be chaired by JWA Editor Carl Whithaus, University of California, Davis.  Several of the authors of articles in the Special Issue will provide perspectives for discussion.  

Roundtable Leaders include Doug Baldwin, Educational Testing Service; Angela Clark-Oates, California State University, Sacramento; Brad Jacobson, University of Arizona; Duane Roen, Arizona State University; and Carl Whithaus, University of California, Davis.

Kathryn Mitchell Pierce, St. Louis University, will be the respondent.

If you would like to talk with Carl Whithaus during the NCTE conference, email him at cwwhithaus [at] ucdavis [dot] edu to arrange a meeting or you can tweet him at @carl_whithaus. 

Alternately, we’re always looking to hear from you about publication ideas for JWA or for the JWA Reading List.  Please contact us at journalofwritingassessment [at] gmail [dot] com.  
Source: jwa

Journal of Writing Assessment will be at the upcoming 2016 NCTE Annual Convention in Atlanta, Georgia later this week!

On Friday, November 18, attend session C.23 from 12:30-1:45 pm for the rountable discussion on “Impacts of the Common Core State Standards Assessment on Secondary and Postsecondary Writing Instruction” in room B301.

This roundtable examines the impacts of the CCSS assessments on secondary and postsecondary students’ learning and writing, continuing conversations begun in last year’s Journal of Writing Assessment (JWA) Special Issue. The roundtable makes connections between research and advocacy work about educational policies, writing assessment, and curricula. 

The session will be chaired by JWA Editor Carl Whithaus, University of California, Davis.  Several of the authors of articles in the Special Issue will provide perspectives for discussion.  

Roundtable Leaders include Doug Baldwin, Educational Testing Service; Angela Clark-Oates, California State University, Sacramento; Brad Jacobson, University of Arizona; Duane Roen, Arizona State University; and Carl Whithaus, University of California, Davis.

Kathryn Mitchell Pierce, St. Louis University, will be the respondent.

If you would like to talk with Carl Whithaus during the NCTE conference, email him at cwwhithaus [at] ucdavis [dot] edu to arrange a meeting or you can tweet him at @carl_whithaus. 

Alternately, we’re always looking to hear from you about publication ideas for JWA or for the JWA Reading List.  Please contact us at journalofwritingassessment [at] gmail [dot] com.  
Source: jwa

Stenberg, S. (2015). Repurposing composition: Feminist interventions of a neoliberal age. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado.
 
By S.D.C. Parker, University of Alabama

In an academic climate where adjunct has become a dirty word, Shari J. Stenberg offers a timely look at how neoliberalism and a profit-driven academy can be harmful to pedagogical principles in composition. Stenberg’s Repurposing Composition: Feminist Interventions for a Neoliberal Age (2015) considers a growing, though certainly not new, concern for scholars—how do post-secondary educators address the conflicting goals of the academy as a place for job training and as a place to “help students become active and thinking civic members of society” (p. 8)? Assessment practices for student writing are driven by these conflicting goals, and a student’s ability to conform to neoliberal aims does not necessarily produce meaningful and thoughtful work. But even in this somewhat dark educational climate, Stenberg offers hope. She calls us, as researchers and educators, to alter the neoliberal timeline by changing our pedagogical practices, or rather, by repurposing composition through feminist practices and ideologies, including shifting from an accountability logic to a responsibility logic when assessing student writing.

Stenberg defines neoliberalism as the “set of economic principles and cultural politics that positions the free market as a guide for all human action” (p. 4). To repurpose the educational guidelines and standardizations inspired by these neoliberal aims, Stenberg asks us to challenge “the habitual or status quo” by departing from it and enacting “new purposes” (p. 17). Feminist scholarship has a rich history of highlighting and criticizing practices that appear “neutral”; when we see our assessments as impartial, we are more likely to undervalue the work of students whose voices are already marginalized. Stenberg believes we must continue to identify the “cloak of neutrality” Adrienne Rich (1973) observed, which leads to a renewed focus on marginalized voices in the academy (p. 10).

Repurposing requires teacher-scholars to consider the ways in which race, gender, ethnicity, and other identity markers are not accounted for in the academy, and as a result, not accounted for in writing assessment. Chapter two considers emotion and emotional management as a critical part of feminist repurposing. Rather than support the reason/emotion binary advanced by classical rhetoric, Stenberg offers a more complex view of emotion, a concept she claims is often feminized and therefore devalued in the academy. Stenberg, however, reframes emotion as a feminist site of “resistance, inquiry, and new knowledge and writing practices” (p. 42), rather than as an “impediment to rationalism and productivity” (p. 41). Importantly, Stenberg identifies how quickly students dismiss emotion in written texts from marginalized groups, which not only upsets the student’s ability to engage with that text, but worse, condemns the text as “not worth engaging because of the writer’s presumed emotional state” (p. 57). For example, Stenberg quotes a student describing a passage from Gloria Anzaldúa’s work as “too angry to be useful” (p. 58). Her solution to this kind of dismissal is a repurposing of emotion—in the case of Anzaldúa, asking students to engage with how and why this emotional response can be seen as a rational, rhetorical move.

The act of recognizing the use and necessity of emotion in both authored and student texts is in keeping with the larger trend toward emotional education. Stenberg argues the importance of valuing our students as not only intellectual, but emotional individuals, and supports the emotional education movement that has grown in education for the past thirty years, which includes a feminist repurposing of writing practices. Stenberg traces how rhetorical practices have been remade according to traditionally masculine concepts such as cutting “excess,” and notes, “women’s rhetoric will often sound different than the self-assured, strident voices that have long defined the tradition” (p. 23). As a teacher, I encourage the kind of writing that comes from this masculinized tradition, just as I was trained and encouraged to do. Yet Stenberg’s arguments force me to evaluate how my own practices, some of which I had considered to be “neutral,” may actually represent gendered, ethnic, racial, and other standards that are decidedly not neutral. What we see as assessment according to “neutral” guidelines (essentially, the rules and restrictions that accompany academic discourse or Standard American English) may actual reinforce writing standards that potentially discriminate against marginalized identities.

In the third chapter, “Repurposed Listening,” Stenberg leans heavily on Krista Ratcliffe’s (1999) work, and asserts that corporate leaders have appropriated the act of listening for their own means—that listening becomes an act to gather client intel and gauge consumer desire and satisfaction. Listening is marketed as a skill needed for individual success. But through a feminist repurposing of listening, Stenberg identifies the act as a generative practice, one that encourages the reciprocity of speaking/listening to create new knowledge (p. 77). For this practice to be successful, however, it becomes necessary to understand how the speaker and listener are rhetorically situated through power dynamics, cultural differences/similarities and assumptions, among others (p. 77). Teacher-scholars must encourage students to create “arguments that listen,” a concept that acknowledges and accounts for a multiplicity of voices and viewpoints within the argument. This listening includes finding a located agency, wherein teachers and students take responsibility for their own positions and subjectivities as a way to understand how marginalized positions can serve as resources for “teaching, learning, and knowing” (p. 100).

Readers of this book will not, however, find a set of instructions on how to assess student writing. Rather, Stenberg’s solution calls us to shift from an accountability logic, which compares student writing to an external, predetermined norm, to a responsibility logic, which relies on transparency between educators, students, and community members to generate, rather than simply follow, a standard approach used for writing assessment. Repurposed responsibility is itself “grounded not in compliance” but rather in relation to dialogue and responding well to the individual (p. 137). By inviting multiple audiences into discussions about assessment, teacher-scholars can include rather than excluded public audiences and marginalized voices within a particular community (p. 135). Just as students should invite a multiplicity of voices into their arguments, so should teacher-scholars invite a multiplicity of voices into their assessment practices.

Overall, I find Stenberg’s Repurposing Composition a critical read for current teachers of writing, and an important text for providing real and practical examples of how feminist practices can be implemented in the writing classroom. As Stenberg herself admits, this repurposing is not easy; it requires reflection, listening, dialogue, and potentially failure (another concept Stenberg argues needs repurposing). Accountability methods can feel safe, because we have a norm from which to assess. Responsibility methods, however, view students as individual subjects and provide a much improved approach for assessing writing in the reality of a diversified academy.

Source: jwa

Stenberg, S. (2015). Repurposing composition: Feminist interventions of a neoliberal age. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado.
 
By S.D.C. Parker, University of Alabama

In an academic climate where adjunct has become a dirty word, Shari J. Stenberg offers a timely look at how neoliberalism and a profit-driven academy can be harmful to pedagogical principles in composition. Stenberg’s Repurposing Composition: Feminist Interventions for a Neoliberal Age (2015) considers a growing, though certainly not new, concern for scholars—how do post-secondary educators address the conflicting goals of the academy as a place for job training and as a place to “help students become active and thinking civic members of society” (p. 8)? Assessment practices for student writing are driven by these conflicting goals, and a student’s ability to conform to neoliberal aims does not necessarily produce meaningful and thoughtful work. But even in this somewhat dark educational climate, Stenberg offers hope. She calls us, as researchers and educators, to alter the neoliberal timeline by changing our pedagogical practices, or rather, by repurposing composition through feminist practices and ideologies, including shifting from an accountability logic to a responsibility logic when assessing student writing.

Stenberg defines neoliberalism as the “set of economic principles and cultural politics that positions the free market as a guide for all human action” (p. 4). To repurpose the educational guidelines and standardizations inspired by these neoliberal aims, Stenberg asks us to challenge “the habitual or status quo” by departing from it and enacting “new purposes” (p. 17). Feminist scholarship has a rich history of highlighting and criticizing practices that appear “neutral”; when we see our assessments as impartial, we are more likely to undervalue the work of students whose voices are already marginalized. Stenberg believes we must continue to identify the “cloak of neutrality” Adrienne Rich (1973) observed, which leads to a renewed focus on marginalized voices in the academy (p. 10).

Repurposing requires teacher-scholars to consider the ways in which race, gender, ethnicity, and other identity markers are not accounted for in the academy, and as a result, not accounted for in writing assessment. Chapter two considers emotion and emotional management as a critical part of feminist repurposing. Rather than support the reason/emotion binary advanced by classical rhetoric, Stenberg offers a more complex view of emotion, a concept she claims is often feminized and therefore devalued in the academy. Stenberg, however, reframes emotion as a feminist site of “resistance, inquiry, and new knowledge and writing practices” (p. 42), rather than as an “impediment to rationalism and productivity” (p. 41). Importantly, Stenberg identifies how quickly students dismiss emotion in written texts from marginalized groups, which not only upsets the student’s ability to engage with that text, but worse, condemns the text as “not worth engaging because of the writer’s presumed emotional state” (p. 57). For example, Stenberg quotes a student describing a passage from Gloria Anzaldúa’s work as “too angry to be useful” (p. 58). Her solution to this kind of dismissal is a repurposing of emotion—in the case of Anzaldúa, asking students to engage with how and why this emotional response can be seen as a rational, rhetorical move.

The act of recognizing the use and necessity of emotion in both authored and student texts is in keeping with the larger trend toward emotional education. Stenberg argues the importance of valuing our students as not only intellectual, but emotional individuals, and supports the emotional education movement that has grown in education for the past thirty years, which includes a feminist repurposing of writing practices. Stenberg traces how rhetorical practices have been remade according to traditionally masculine concepts such as cutting “excess,” and notes, “women’s rhetoric will often sound different than the self-assured, strident voices that have long defined the tradition” (p. 23). As a teacher, I encourage the kind of writing that comes from this masculinized tradition, just as I was trained and encouraged to do. Yet Stenberg’s arguments force me to evaluate how my own practices, some of which I had considered to be “neutral,” may actually represent gendered, ethnic, racial, and other standards that are decidedly not neutral. What we see as assessment according to “neutral” guidelines (essentially, the rules and restrictions that accompany academic discourse or Standard American English) may actual reinforce writing standards that potentially discriminate against marginalized identities.

In the third chapter, “Repurposed Listening,” Stenberg leans heavily on Krista Ratcliffe’s (1999) work, and asserts that corporate leaders have appropriated the act of listening for their own means—that listening becomes an act to gather client intel and gauge consumer desire and satisfaction. Listening is marketed as a skill needed for individual success. But through a feminist repurposing of listening, Stenberg identifies the act as a generative practice, one that encourages the reciprocity of speaking/listening to create new knowledge (p. 77). For this practice to be successful, however, it becomes necessary to understand how the speaker and listener are rhetorically situated through power dynamics, cultural differences/similarities and assumptions, among others (p. 77). Teacher-scholars must encourage students to create “arguments that listen,” a concept that acknowledges and accounts for a multiplicity of voices and viewpoints within the argument. This listening includes finding a located agency, wherein teachers and students take responsibility for their own positions and subjectivities as a way to understand how marginalized positions can serve as resources for “teaching, learning, and knowing” (p. 100).

Readers of this book will not, however, find a set of instructions on how to assess student writing. Rather, Stenberg’s solution calls us to shift from an accountability logic, which compares student writing to an external, predetermined norm, to a responsibility logic, which relies on transparency between educators, students, and community members to generate, rather than simply follow, a standard approach used for writing assessment. Repurposed responsibility is itself “grounded not in compliance” but rather in relation to dialogue and responding well to the individual (p. 137). By inviting multiple audiences into discussions about assessment, teacher-scholars can include rather than excluded public audiences and marginalized voices within a particular community (p. 135). Just as students should invite a multiplicity of voices into their arguments, so should teacher-scholars invite a multiplicity of voices into their assessment practices.

Overall, I find Stenberg’s Repurposing Composition a critical read for current teachers of writing, and an important text for providing real and practical examples of how feminist practices can be implemented in the writing classroom. As Stenberg herself admits, this repurposing is not easy; it requires reflection, listening, dialogue, and potentially failure (another concept Stenberg argues needs repurposing). Accountability methods can feel safe, because we have a norm from which to assess. Responsibility methods, however, view students as individual subjects and provide a much improved approach for assessing writing in the reality of a diversified academy.

Source: jwa

Journal of Writing Assessment editorial team members will be attending the annual meeting of the Council of Writing Program Administrators in Raleigh, North Carolina, July 14-17, 2016.    Diane Kelly-Riley, Carl Whithaus, Jessica Nastal-Dema, and Ti Macklin will be at CWPA–please contact one of them if you’d like to discuss a potential project for JWA!

Source: jwa

Journal of Writing Assessment editorial team members will be attending the annual meeting of the Council of Writing Program Administrators in Raleigh, North Carolina, July 14-17, 2016.    Diane Kelly-Riley, Carl Whithaus, Jessica Nastal-Dema, and Ti Macklin will be at CWPA–please contact one of them if you’d like to discuss a potential project for JWA!

Source: jwa