Contesting our taken-for-granted understanding of student evaluation Paper currently under review Co-authored by Janet Rankin, Lynn Malinsky, Betty Tate and Linda Elena Presented by Lynn Malinsky and Diane Jacquest

“ Somehow grading and evaluating is distracting from my teaching...I can’t be in the moment, be present with the student while making judgments about her practice at the same time. I don’t always remember to take notes and then at the end of our session I have an overall feeling of ‘things will be ok’ or ‘I hope things will be ok’ or ‘this could be trouble’ but can’t always retrieve specific examples. I can’t think about teaching at the same time as I am gathering evidence. It’s frustrating...”

Four Areas for Discussion  Institutional Ethnography: A Method of Inquiry  The Research Team Work  Our Preliminary Findings  Rethinking our work with students

Institutional Ethnography: A Method of Inquiry  Social organization of knowledge  The social world is constituted in the activities of people  IE takes the stance of those who are experiencing the trouble to learn how it is being organized  “To explore how knowing relates to power, institutional ethnographers study how one’s knowing is organized—by whom and by what.” (Campbell & Gregor, 2002, p. 15)

Institutional Ethnography: A Method of Inquiry  IE pays attention to texts that when activated in people’s work organize things to happen in certain ways  When we investigate how texts operate to socially organize us we begin to discover how they rule our work  To accomplish the explication of people’s lives, IE research relies on the formulation of a problematic to guide and ground the research  The guiding questions are : how does this happen as it does? How are these relations organized?

The Research Question “How does it happen that within a curriculum that is designed to be emancipatory, transformative and embedded within caring relationships, teachers describe serious tensions and contradictions arising in their evaluation experiences?”

Research Team Work  gathered detailed descriptive data about day-to-day activities that teachers engage in with students, professional colleagues and administrators  took field notes, conducted interviews, wrote personal reflections  collected forms and documents (texts) identified from the field notes, interviews and reflections  worked systematically through each piece of data in person, by teleconference and WebX

Research Team Work  Used Maxqda to organize data segments into clusters of similar work activities  used data and our knowledge to show the connections between everyday experience and organizational processes (hallmark of IE)–analytic process shows how practice is ideologically organized (around particular ideas and knowledge)  purpose is to see how practice is invisibly and anonymously coordinated with other work

The Regulation of our Work  created pictorial representations of the context that is shaping our everyday practice  identified institutional and regulatory groups and processes that had some connection to our routine evaluative practice  produced schematics of two regulatory regimes intersecting our work with students : 1.Regulatory Nursing Regime 2.Regulatory Education Regime

Regulatory Nursing Regime

Regulatory Education Regime

Ontological Shift  The ontological shift happened when we unravelled our ordinary everyday activities to see how they are linked into institutional practices.  We began to understand on the surface, the regulatory regimes (ruling relations) within our institutions that were shaping our work.  At the same time, we had the “insider” knowledge of nurse educators committed to a relational pedagogy that builds supportive relationships and facilitates student learning.

Ontological Shift  The social organization of our evaluation work places us on a line-of-fault between the regulatory demands of the institutions and our teaching intentions. ...to illustrate we use a data excerpt that brings to our attention the due process of student evaluation

Data Practice teacher: The student was not prepared... I don’t want it to be about me working harder than student. Teaching colleague: Could she tell you verbally what should be in the care plan? Practice teacher: No. Teaching colleague: Is she overwhelmed?

Data Teaching Colleague: In the care plan, what are her foci statements? Teaching Colleague: Do you need another set of eyes to see what is passed (met the requirements)? Teaching Colleague: We have this bar and we don’t let them in [to practice] until they make the bar. Practice Teacher: How can we maximize the student’s potential?

 T  T he data excerpt reflects the teachers’ intentions, but our analysis reveals the infiltration of regulatory requirements. THERE IS A DUEL WORK PROCESS HAPPENING HERE  T  Teachers are committed to supporting student success, AND when the data is scrutinized to explicate the taken-for- granted enactment of competent teaching, the disjuncture emerges.

 We identified a point of contention in teachers’ work when guiding a student’s learning is overtaken by activities directed towards gathering evidence to fail.  We uncovered the built-in contradiction that is supported by the nurse educator’s comments in the introductory comment:

“ “Somehow grading and evaluating is distracting from my teaching...I can’t be in the moment, be present with the student while making judgments about her practice at the same time…. I can’t think about teaching at the same time as I am gathering evidence. It’s frustrating...”

Formulating the Research Problematic  We formulated a research problematic at the juncture  The problematic provided the focus for our second stage interviews

Rethinking our work with students We have come to realize that we are involved in a consciousness-raising project that requires us to rethink our work with students.

Rethinking our work with students  How does due process work in student evaluation?  Is it actually a fair and transparent set of activities that are organized in the interests of students?  Or is it a relation of ruling that protects universities and colleges?  What do you think?

Acknowledgements Research Partners: Marilyn Chapman, Vancouver Island University Laurie Crawford, Aurora College Ruth Dubois, Selkirk College Diane Jacquest, North Island College Mary Lougheed, University of Victoria Lynn Malinsky, UBC Okanagan Donna Malyon-Ginther, Kwantlen Polytechnical University Mary Anne Moloney, Vancouver Island University Janet Rankin, University of Calgary Linda Shorting, University of Calgary Betty Tate, North Island College Coby Tschanz, University of Victoria Funders: 2006 Malaspina University College Research Award 2007 WRCASN Research Award 2007 North Island College Common Professional Development Fund 2008 UBCO Department of Health and Social Development Internal Grant