A great advantage of pseudonymous academic blogs is honest talk about the teacher-student relationship and pedagogy that works with real students. Dr Crazy’s been writing about her pragmatic rather than pedagogically idealised teaching lately, and today there’s a very specific post at Confessions of a Community College Dean detailing how he changed his assessment strategies to suit his real rather than imagined students. I could connect this to the “quality reform” in Norway, but I’ll let you join the dots instead.

Pity, really, that to do the kind of assessment Community College Dean is talking about (underveisvurdering is the Norwegian term) really doesn’t work well with the wonderful Norwegian system with external examiners who grade portfolios, term papers etc with the teacher at the end of the semester. I love sharing the responsibility for grading, I like the chance to discuss the course design with an objective peer and it’s a really good way of ensuring a certain consistency in grading around the country.