Assessment and The Game

Yesterday afternoon, Seminar I, Assessment and Placement, commenced.  Our lecturer is Dr. Ed Morante, a retired college administrator, a psychologist, an expert on assessment, and famous -- or infamous -- for his annual Trivial Pursuit game, played nightly in the common area of Newland House, under the auspices of a team building and morale strengthening exercise.  Dr. Morante has a lot of excellent things to say about assessment and placement, and he started his four-day lecture yesterday, going until after 4:00, giving us three readings to do for this morning, and requesting that we return at 7:00 p.m., for his team building. 

Joseph Kaye gave me a thorough heads-up on this Kellogg tradition, and I took his advice and partook in the optional activity.  Last year’s entry ticket was beer; this year seems to be wine.  We have a wine crowd this year at Kellogg.  I also brought mangoes – yes, mangoes from my very own tree in Southwest Florida – for my classmates from all over the country.  So, it was wine and mangoes and Trivial Pursuit and Dr. Ed Morante.  It was just as Joseph had described, kind of weird and kind of cool and actually a lot of fun and a great way to get to know everyone.  Ed counted us off 1-2-1-2 … we were two teams – the 1s and the 2s.  I was a 1, and we put up a good fight with my suitemate, Nancy, as our spokesperson.  The 2s won.  More tonight.  Oh boy.

Today was Kellogg shirt day; we dressed as clones for the official group photo.  The shirt is very nice.  Apparently the color is different each year.  Last year’s was cardinal.  This year’s is black – with a lime green Kellogg logo.  We assembled for the photo and took several shots before someone noticed that Hunter and Patrick were missing … they joined us, three more shots, and we were done with another annual tradition.

Much more on assessment and placement tomorrow, as we delve deeper into this fascinating and vast topic.  In a nutshell, at community colleges and at state colleges like Edison, the “open door” policy is supposed to mean both access and quality.  The corollary to that is that both access and quality are achievable, and with that is noted that persistence.  Obviously, the successful completion of high school courses does not necessarily indicate proficiency.  Morante believes the “right to fail” is "pernicious," which means he believes it is dangerous to allow students to place into courses for which they have no skills. According to Morante, placement of developmental students must be mandatory, “since it borders on the unethical to know that a student lacks basic skills but is still allowed to enroll in college courses requiring the skill.” 

I took about eighteen pages of copious notes ... I shall post much more in my next entry.  I am off, now, for dinner, a research seminar in the library at 7:00 (that most of the Ph.D.s are skipping, but I don't want to miss anything...), and another round of trivia at 8:00.  Then a bunch of stuff to read for tomorrow ...