Hi David

I’ve not been able to follow the whole thread, so apologies if I’m repeating someone here. But one of your phrases has really stuck in my head:

It seems to me that there has to be a point at which we need to expect that people will be able to understand fairly ordinary words.

You have said something that I think has been bothering me, though I think I would say it rather like this:

Why are our students (who after all are intelligent and thoughtful human beings) finding themselves so disempowered that they are unable to trust their own understanding and judgement of that understanding? What is it about how ‘the academy’ relates/talks to students that makes them doubt that they can understand or interpret words such as ‘explain’ and ‘discuss’? Words which we, with all of our confidence, know are ordinary? Why do our students think that these words might be mysterious and difficult?

Joanne

From: learning development in higher education network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Hardman
Sent: 17 December 2013 14:39
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Criteria writing and meaning

On 12 December 2013 09:59, Elizabeth Thomson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

[...]

Many assessment criteria seems to include a proliferation of abstract nouns, such as information, contextualization, techniques, evidence etc. but very little to help students understand what they mean - what Len describes as symptoms,  but I would basically describe as examples - e.g. - in order to contextualize a piece of artwork you need to consider the time and place that it was made, and the ideas, theories, politics, technical considerations in that time and place that influenced the artist etc. Detailed examples can be given in lectures, seminars etc. but just breaking the terminology down can help.

[...]

To be honest, my heart sinks at the suggestion that words such as "evidence" need to be explained to students. If you try to provide a definition of such a word, you most likely end up using other abstract terms, which then themselves need to be defined, and so on ad infinitum. If you try to explain using concrete examples, then you add considerably to the wordage of a module handbook (which someone else in this thread already identified as a problem), and there is also the risk that a student will not spot the relevance of the example to the concept you are talking about (Oops!! I used the word relevance there, which someone else identified as a problematical word. How am I going to explain that...?!)

I do take the point that some of this elaboration can happen in class, although how much time do you give over to this kind of activity? Most of us want to use seminar time to discuss ideas; if seminars simply become sessions on "how to write an essay" then it seems to me we lose a bit more of what HE is supposed to be about.

It seems to me that there has to be a point at which we need to expect that people will be able to understand fairly ordinary words.

 -- David Hardman

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