I am not sure how useful this is. Your post reminds me of a term
assignment that I did when I was doing an urban geography class. Instead
of the usual term paper or research project, we were asked to choose a
book and then do a book review about it, something like a textual
reading of urban landscapes in that book. The objective was to link the
book with concepts and ideas learned during the course. The book could
be chosen from a list that was given (covers a wide range from Dickens
classics to contemporary novels), or other books could be used after
running it past the course instructor. The book review was short, I
think, only 5 pages. This assignment would require students to actually
finish reading an entire book but they may be persuaded that it is
leisure reading...
Cheers,
Karen
----------------------------------------------
Karen P.Y. Lai
Department of Geography
National University of Singapore
1 Arts Link, Singapore 117570
Tel: (+65) 6874 3831
Mobile: (+65) 9745 0105
Fax: (+65) 6777 3091
Email: [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for critical and radical geographers
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nick Blomley
Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2004 12:57 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: class assignments/pedagogy/tyranny of grading
I'm trying to re-work one of my undergrad courses, and the age-old
problem (for me) of class projects has come up. I set the conventional
assignments - a term paper/essay and a final exam. While these have
their uses, including teaching students to research and write, I wonder
whether they're there simply because they are what is expected, and
because they allow me to come up with nice numerical scores to plug into
grading spread-sheets.
I wonder if people have some creative alternatives? For example, I've
noticed that one of the biggest challenges that people seem to face
(myself included) is defining a research project. The execution is often
fairly straightforward. Could the former be an assignment? Group
projects are also something I've experimented with, but while these can
be productive, I know some students find them challenging.
Nick Blomley
Nicholas Blomley,
Professor,
Department of Geography,
Simon Fraser University,
Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, CANADA
604-291-3713
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http://www.sfu.ca/geography/people/faculty/Faculty_sites/NickBlomley/ind
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