This morning I took part in leading a round table discussion on student self assessment. The vast majority of folks moving through this table administered self assessment by providing the students with a rubric, and having students self mark.

As a teacher, I fairly strongly value delta, which is the volume of learning that took place in my classroom. As an example, I will use a day on meiosis because it’s an easy to define unit, and apply this to 3 students.

Student A: This student has come to UBC from out of the province or maybe is an international student. They have never learned meiosis to any substantial degree. At the end of the day, they can successfully move chromatids through meiosis and explain the resulting diversity in gametes.

Student B: This student learned meiosis fairly recently, and mostly remembers what student A learned. After a quick brush up, they are ready to learn about non-disjunction and/or details around spindle fibre assembly.

Student C: This student knows meiosis well. Maybe they work in a research lab already. Today this student learns how parthenogenesis might work under different situations and/or how telomeres are re-set during reproduction.

Because these students come in with vastly different prior experience, I expect they will learn different things. The details of what these things are is not important to me. (In fact, as a measure of delta, all 3 students learned roughly the same amount and I would honor them justifying earning the same grade).

This nuance is what rubrics miss, and what I personally value most about learning. Coming in with prior knowledge should not give a student a pass. We are in the business of *learning* not performing. When students self assess in my class(es), it is actually more difficult for students that come in with prior knowledge because they need to push themselves to learn something new and justify that to me.

I am once again informed by UBC’s Indigenous Strategic Plan which calls on teaching and learning to “support [students] to achieve success,however they choose to define it.” Success can look different for each of us.

Teach on, my friends!