Grading and my hybrid Camry

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welcome to reteach a place where professors know that student equity gap can be closed. And I willing to put in the work to figure it out. We are dedicated to our teaching, and our students were passionate about improving our classrooms and our communities. We can make a difference. We will make a difference. I am your host, Bruce Hoskins, in my mind and heart are ready to learn. So what's up, everyone? So, look, this episode is gonna be about grading as it pertains to my freaking hybrid Camry that I just got finished buying a couple months ago. And the stupid thing keeps on grading me. And it inspired me to do this episode and look before I go off on my hybrid Camry, which, by the way, I really like the car itself. But this grading system that it has is pissing me off. I'm telling you that. And so let me ground this first into, like, you know, like, really teacher stuff and say I'm really trying to help folks be more transparent when we're grading right and then second, I want people to be as objective as possible in our grading right, and then thirdly off for us to become aware of hidden curriculum in our grading. Right. Okay, so those are the three things that I'm going to do as I am freaking ripping apart my hybrid cameras grading system in regards to how I drive that damn thing as a look is I'm telling you, this thing is so frustrating to me. I'm not even kidding, as so for you to understand what I'm going. And I wish I could do this on a video or something like that, but I can't. And so But I need you to understand, right? It's so and so when I'm driving my cameras so well, First of all, I have ah, hybrid Camry and it's grating me on how I drive because in order to drive it in the most fuel efficient way possible is trying to like let you know is like, look, you want to do certain behaviors you want to not do certain behaviors s. So that's where the grading system is coming in. Okay. And there's three things that is that is great. And me on is great and me on starting, stopping and on cruise, though that's the title of the three areas that is grating me on. Okay, now, here's the deal. The first thing that I want to say is be transparent in our grade, and it's so so this is what happens. So when the guy with the used car dealership, the car dude was selling this this car, he told us about starting like what that meant, right? And so what's starting in this base? Right. So this is supposed to be the objective measures that starting that supposed to mean e be easy on the gas pedal because if you just kind of, you know, slammed the gas down and try to and go real fast. Well, that's gonna be a bad grade. The hybrids, they don't That's not good. That's not gonna get you the most fuel economy for your Camry hybrid, right and whatnot. And look, I'm just telling you, it's like, Look, this is really just like to me. This was like, you know, the cultural capital, that I was lacking in regards to, like, school and whatnot because to going to college, because you know what it's like in the car that I drive the non hybrids that I drive that I have, you know, mostly experienced in my life. You know, whether I got the most fuel efficiency out of it or not. It's like I knew that it wasn't gonna be that big of a deal, because it just you know, that's just the way people drive. Right? But driving a hybrid is definitely a different set of driving rules, if you would and whatnot s. So I had to be socialized into driving a different way, right? And so that's what this grading system is there for us. So starting like, easy on the gas pedal. You don't want to go super fast right out of the gates and all that stuff, which that's the way I normally drove. I'm not gonna lie to you, right? And so But then he also told us about stopping Is that you want to stop gradually. You don't want to slam onto the brakes and everything like that. And so I thought I was doing a real good job of stopping in my other cars as a kid into this car, though the break is so sensitive that every time I pushed on it, it felt like I was like the car was lurching forward, right? I mean, literally like, it's just to me. The slightest touch on this thing may just think lurch forward. And so I'm like, Yo, this is not good. But you know what? I'm buying this this freaking car, so I better get used to it. Now, here's the deal. He never really explained us what Cruise men. And I'm not gonna lie to you what I thought Cruz Matt was You want to hit a speed where you're gonna hit cruise control? And so if you hit, if you get into cruise control, then this is a good thing, then this is a good thing for you to get into cruise control. That's how I thought about it. And honestly, I think about that because that is completely wrong, by the way, as completely wrong in regards to what cruise meant. What cruise means is to drive within, like, this zone the echo zone, if you would in regards to getting the most efficiency out of your car. There's this dialogue on the left hand side that that has, like, you know, it looks like it's not a speedometer or whatever, but it kind of looked like a speedometer. And so you have, like, charging. And then it says Echo Zone. And then it says Power zone or something like that, right? And so if you're driving in the Echo Zone, I thought, Right, you write the echo zone. I thought that was good, right and whatnot. And but he never explained. He didn't explain that us. I kind of had to kind of figure that out for myself. And I'm like, Well, this looks like this. This seems like Why would they tell you Echo zone if that's not what this means, right? I mean, it's so literally. That's how I'm interpreting the space and I kind of figured that out, right? But But I really did think that cruise control was actually important in regards to like, If I get into cruise control, then that means that that's a good thing. That's a good thing for me to get in cruise control. I should get my driving score should go up. But this is what I mean, right? Is that when when you're we're talking about grading just off the bat off of this example of this real life traumatizing examined is not traumatized, but just for really it is a TTE. The very least is bothersome to me. And that is for us to stay our expectations clearly right from the word go right, right on day number one, or you know, when you're talking about an assignment to make it clear, what it is you're looking for would make it clear what it is. The expectations of the assignment are and what not. And to me, what that also means is to make it clear as to what it is that a paper looks like. Make it clear what a be paper or a C paper or whatever looks like. Or maybe you just want to show an a paper or whatever, but to give your students examples of what a CZ look like like, this is this is an a response. This is an A paper or something like that. If you could do that, I really think that it really helps out all along on a student. I mean, it's just gonna make things easier for you as a teacher to make things easier for students on what not to see a format and everything. And yet, at the same time, I would say it means even more so to historically marginalized groups. Because if you're been through the K through 12 system and things like that, you might not even be at a space where you have seen the kind of work it is that ah, college professor is asking you for right? And so that's something that is very real. And we want to make sure that we're stating our expectations as clearly as possible because, like I said, this whole cruise control thing that really messed me up, it really messed me up. And so the reason why I'm so frustrated is because I'm I'm here. I'm looking at Stop Cruise, right, Start, cruise and Stop and I'm looking at the end. There's like bars next to him, and so it's like there's, like, five bars. And so if you got five bars, that would be 100% right. Yet for that would be 80%. I'm in everything. And so I'm looking at these bars and everything, and I'm looking at the echoes own thing, and I'm thinking to myself, I got a pretty good handle on this. But but time after time after time at the time of the time, it's time. At the time I kept on getting scores that were like Dees and below like like a 60 something ah, score or 50 something school or 40 something score. And I'm like, What in the world is going on here? I'm not even kidding, folks. I really am frustrated with this car in regards to how it's grating me. It's like I don't get why and then occasionally I would get like a C or something like that. And all of that stuff was literally, like, enshrouded in mystery to me because I didn't get how this thing was grading me. There were times I thought that I did a great job driving, and then I wind up getting like a 50% or something like that on the thing right and so, so frustrating on so many different levels. And this brings me to point number two, and that is to be a subjective as possible in our Grady, right? And so this is what winds up happening. So we take the car in for, like, you know, it's not a tune up, but it's like, you know, it's it's maintenance cycle or something like that, and there must have been some kind of upgrade that happened because when we get the car back now, there's this kind of like a thing on there that's like That's almost like like it functions as a tutor right above the scoring bars. And so they're start cruise and stop. But right above that is now this bar that's letting me know, like the Echo zone on and then how I'm driving within it and I don't have to go looking off onto the left hand side anymore. I can just kind of like, just look right at the bars, and it made my life so much easier in regards to trying to figure out how this thing was scoring my driving. I still haven't gotten to 100% yet, but I got like just getting this thing made it easy so much easier just for me to get a B, right? I mean, just, you know, 80% or something like that. It made it so much easier just to get that because now I could see Maur directly. What is it that I was doing and what behavior is like the immediate ramification of the behaviors that I was doing in the space. And so one of the main the main things that was happening with this tutor is that it would actually graded it. Showed me that the car was doing something that I had no idea that it was doing the car. The computer on the car was actually great in me. In small snippets. It wasn't grading the entire drive. It was grading me in small little parts. And so so every start, stop every start, full stop cycle. It was great. It right? And so if I'm leaving my house on and I start well, but then you know the cat jumps across the street and I slam on the brakes or something like that. That's gonna be, you know, one. You know, start stop cycle, right? It's like if I keep driving from there and then I get Tau stoplight or something and that's another start, stop cycle. And so it's great in me, and smaller parts is great and me far more frequently than it was before. And now it was way easier for me to, like get like a high C or low B or something like that. It was almost automatic. And this is what I keep on. This is what you know when we think about Grady. Is that giving students assignments that are smaller and more frequent, right, smaller Simon's that are more frequent. This allows students to overcome big mistakes in the beginning, right, because if, like for my media analysis, I have 10 of those media analyses. And so a lot of these assignments, if they get if they mess up big time and get a 10 out of 20 points, right? I mean, that's an F. The thing is, though, is that since there's so many of them, even if they mess up big like that, if they just stay consistent and do better as we go along here than that 10 points if they only missed that 10 points, will they get, you know, 100 90 points out of 200? And so then, right. So even that big mistake was actually surmountable was actually something that could be overcome, right? Also, when you have smaller and more frequent assignments that they learn what's good early on right and they can correct that behavior as they're going through the semester early on, right? That's that's That's something that's really important thinking about right. If you only have three, you know, two midterms in the final. That's why it was at UCSD in the in the quarter system health is in. Sorry about that. But in the quarter system that I was in, that was how it was at UCSD. Two midterms in the final. And so you didn't even get a chance to breathe. You didn't get a chance to recover from mistakes. That was like, Look, you make you mess up on that first mid term. Good luck. You know, trying to pass the clouds with, you know, a B or above buff, smaller, more frequent assignments allows students to learn what's good early on so that they can build on that so that they can build on that goodness, you know, right on the one night you can reinforce that type of behavior and then also, you know, this is just, you know, an ad on in here. Well, I don't know if it is at all, but something to think about is that if you have smaller, more frequent assignments, it also allows you to use the technique of dropping lower scores right of dropping the lowest score. It was not so. You know, if you only have three assignments, can't drop one because that's, you know, 1/3 of the material that's going on in the class of whatnot. But if you have 10 assignments right, dropping the lowest score or giving him a chance to improve. But that's a whole nother thing, right? But if you have smaller, more frequent assignments that allows you to, like I said, t drop a score or something like that is as ah ah, way too kind of, you know, just deal with the fact that life happens to students, right? Like, Well, life happens to all of us. And so the fact that we don't build in two, um, into our into our actual classroom into our structure kind of like these fail safe's right to where ah student can have a bad day. They can have a bad week and they can still recover and do well in your class. That's something that we as community college teachers, specifically us as community college teachers, I would argue we need to build into our into the way that we teach into our classroom designed and whatnot. Don't misunderstand. Everybody has life problems at the four year level at the U. C. Level at the Cal State level. I get that. And yet at the same time, at the community college space, right, this is, you know, the what could be happening here could be much more of a Things can knock you off. Not just your car breaks down, but your car breaks down. And what does that mean for the rest of your livelihood? What's that mean for writers like your your car? Could be. You're the way that you're employed with uber or whatever it is that you're doing well, why not? It's so just saying, right, that's that's the thing, S. So this tutor was amazing and what it really helped me understand was that how to get in a should not be shrouded in mystery or something like that. It shouldn't be shrouded in mystery like it should be clear, right? We hit these objectives in this thing than that should be a. I would argue that that's how this should go, right? It's like, you know, if you're trying to pass the P e class, you should say, Hey, you need to do five pull ups in order to be able to pass this class so that people have that thing to kind of a Matt. I'm maybe five Pulitzers too much, but I'm just throwing that out there as a number, right? But you shouldn't say to students like this would this would be the equivalent of how a lot of us great it would be. You need to do a lot of pull ups in order for you to pass this class within A was like Then what is a lot mean? That's what I'm trying to say, right? In regards to getting an A shouldn't be shrouded in mystery. It should be something that we should be ableto work towards. Clearly, when we're doing this, we need to be consistent as consistent as possible and regards to Howard grading things. And so what with pisses me off about my camera as that there were times when it was wholly inconsistent that I couldn't even see in regards to what where the echo zone was in on the driving and that literally there were behaviors there were things that I were out of my control that it didn't like for whatever reason and that almost no matter what I did, I was going to get messed up in all of that, as so you know, again, I keep on thinking about this in the classroom setting of, you know, students are doing the best they can with what they got. And they've been trained and socialize a certain way through the K through 12 system. And there are other life experiences and whatnot. And we need to be consistent and objective as possible so that we can make sure that even if we have something that they're not used to doing that they can at least know what it is so that they can adjust to that space, right? It sold in. The last place that I want to address is to become aware of hidden curriculum. You're Grady. Now, this is you know, this is a tall order, especially we're all coming into the space and where literally, we're repeating a lot of the things that you know, just repeating Ah, lot of the techniques that have been taught to us in the past and things like that. So we're not really thinking about what we're doing. We're just thinking, Well, this is how I was. You know, this is the class that I went through and I learned a lot. And so therefore, this is a good way to conduct the class on everything that so just to be very aware of the hidden curriculum and this is how it happened with my freaking stupid camera. And that is what I found out is that my Camry, my hybrid camera, is really privileging people who live in flat areas. There's no other way to say that not to me is like that is like your standard, like middle class, white, male, hetero, you know, heterosexual sex, gender type of, you know, curriculum, if you would. That right does that. If you wanted to really think about right, the privileges of being in a flat area, well, that's not even something that can control. I can't control being in the flat area. I could control whether I bought the car or not. And if I would've known that having a hybrid wasn't as conducive, like it wasn't as good to have a hybrid in a hilly area because, you know, I live in Southern California, but what not near the coast. And so there's a lot of hills and everything and literally, I'm telling you, it's like of you. If you're if you start, it's like if you had to stop and you're on a hill, there is no way. There is no way that you can reach the speed limit just by staying within the echo zone. There's no way. There's, like no way to do it or if it is. If you do, it is gonna take you, like 10 minutes to get the 50 miles per hour or something like that. And that's ridiculous because there's gonna be a whole bunch of people flying past you with everything and you're gonna feel really stupid, which should make us really think about how our students field in our classrooms right and how their friends are seemingly passing right by them while they're taking things slow in college. And it's it's going to definitely benefit him, but for us to be aware of that as they're going through. Hopefully some of us had those the same experiences and whatnot that we could relate to the students with. But if not understand, it's like for especially for look for historically marginalized folks. The vast majority of them are not even gonna have had, like, a parent or something like that that went to college, right? There's a lot of first generation folks that they're they're gonna be in the historically marginalized space, and everything is so how they see and interpret people whizzing past them as because they're friends, have a full time job. Now, while they're going to school and barely scraping by, their friends are getting married while they're still in school trying to get by what not their friends are out there having fun on the weekend while you're out there studying. This is a very real thing. And I'm gonna tell you from from my perspective, as you know, being in multiple historically marginalized spaces, um, that I felt lonely. That's the only word I can, I could tell you. I felt lonely. I felt like I was abandoning my friends and my family at times, although they told you know, my my family Anyway, they told me, It's like, Hey, I know, we know. You got to do what you got to do. But let's just say my friends, it's not that they were, you know, you know, less forgiving is just, you know, they wanted to go out and have fun. And I couldn't because I had some paper to write or I had some mouth homework to do or something like that. I'm telling you, that's hard and I get it. I get it, I get it. I get it right. Everybody has this experience. When I'm telling you is that when you're part of the historically marginalized group, the thing that's different in that space write me being a first generation college student and me achieving a college degree. I'm actually moving away, right. It's like I'm creating Maurin Maur educational distance, if you would, between myself and the people who love and support me right while if you're not part of a historically marginalized group, if you are not a first generation college student, when you're going to school and going to college, you are getting closer and closer to the people in your community, to the people who love and support you, and so that's a very different dynamic, and I hope that we all appreciate what that means, right in regards to how people are interacting in spaces and what not And to be like I said, as forgiving as possible as we're thinking about this. And so those are the kind of things that just like it just drove me nuts. When I figured that out and started looking at this tutor and seeing that there was a sliding scale, this moving scale, and I'm wondering what's going on in this space, right? And when it comes to our grading right, I really want us to think about it. When it comes to things like this is like, Are we punishing behaviors that we don't like or re reinforcing behaviors that we actually want to see in our students in our classroom? Right? I mean, this is simple. I think it's child of element or something, right? It's like punishment versus reward systems and stuff like that. But I don't even want to think about is like punishment and reward systems. Think about it is punishment and reward language like, how do you even right into students like, hey, you're doing really well here. This may not know this, and this may not have been a strong as it could have been, but this is really good. I really want you to focus in here right next time and whatnot, and I really think that that's not only encouraging right, but it is necessary and helpful to historically marginalized folks. Just students in general. Honestly, I just think that that's good teaching. But making sure that we do that with historically marginalized folks to make sure that you that you want to make sure that they that they understand that you see them, you see the hold them and you appreciate to hold them. And so when I think about hidden curriculum in our grading, I also you know, it's like I think about I've talked about this before, but it's like Do we do we make things excessively hard for someone who has a job, right? If that's the thing and I looked and again, I get it, I get it. People, some people are thinking, Well, you shouldn't have a job when you're in college. Well, I don't I don't know if you're like That's why I'm talking to community college professors because Greek quarters from from my data about ah about 2/3 of our students At least 2/3 of our students are working, if not more. Probably some, like 70% depending on the campus. Clearly it to beam or or less whatever. Right? Um, but if most students are working, the vast majority of students are working. Then what does it mean when we construct a curriculum? When we construct ah classroom? When we designed a class that doesn't take Dad and consideration, What does that mean when we know that this is the case? Another thing we need to think about is is our culture is our culture, our morality, our politics, the standards that the standard that we use to judge student projects. Now here's the deal. So I told someone about my media analysis thing right, And there was it was at some conference or whatever and this this man was telling me that he did something relatively similar on, and I was like, really excited about that. I was like, Cool is like the thing is, though, that he told me, is that Hey, you know what it's like. Students can submit songs in different languages, but they have to translate the song And I'm like, Oh, why why? Why do they have to translate to song for you? And he's like, Well, so that I can understand It was like, Whoa, you don't have to understand the song to understand what the students are seeing, what they're using for the part that they're using 40 assignment and everything. So again, why are you asking them to translate now? I didn't go in on them like that, but I did ask him. It's like, Why are you asking them to translate? It sounds like more work. Eso literally. What you're doing is people from a different culture or people who like and appreciate things from a different culture. Your that's literally a punitive measure. There's no if ands or buts about that. That is literally a punitive measure, right? You are making them work Maur to do something that other people don't have to do right, and you're actually getting them to move away from what they're really interested in. Because I know about you. A lot of us would just say We'll just pick Another song is like, Look, that's the song I want to talk about. I don't understand why I can't talk about this song, right? And why I have to do more work and order to be able to talk about this song, right? As so, Like I said it, I will put that in a whole nother space of just saying It's like, Look, we got we got to make sure that we appreciate where students are coming from and what not. And when they use something from a different culture, So I don't punish them for using something from a different culture, don't don't punish them for the very thing that well, that we're supposed to want them to bring into the space. And that is diversity, diversity and their own experiences and things like that. Why would we do that? All right, another thing. So this is kind of more like the morality side of it. The same dude he was like, Oh, yeah, And I don't let them bring in anything that has cussing in it. And I'm like, Yo, see, now this is me as a sociologist, and I've made a decision to just not cuss on the on the podcast, at least not what people would traditionally understand This Custer or deny should say nowadays understand this custody. But if I must say damn and you know, on the other one I said I was like, you know, I talked shit for a living and stuff like that. Nowadays, those words barely register on anybody's radar as cuss words on would not straight up. No. If ands or buts about it, our society has moved to that space. As a matter of fact, you're allowed to use words like bitch on the radio and things like that, or ass and damn and things like that. That that back when I was young, those were clearly cuss words back in my day, right? Clearly there were customers. They were censored, They were beeped out. They weren't allowed to say them. And what not s so then You know, it's so when I think about cussing, I think about what you're telling students when you say I don't I will not accept something that has cussing in it. What? I'm what I'm hearing when you say that is Well, I don't want you to be I don't want you to tell me what you're truly interested in. I want you to still, you know, play this game if you would write, and I just I have a really hard time with that. I have a really hard time with that. And I'm telling you, if you allow students to just be themselves, they will regulate themselves. But if you say no cussing, Well, now I've just instituted myself and just became, you know, like the master in the space. I'm just saying, Why why would you do that when cussing is so not the same thing as it used to be? And if we want students to express themselves, why would we limit the way that they're expressing themselves? Now, I know some of you also like, hey, they gotta find better words to use and cuss words. It was like, if that's the word they got, though I thought that the most important thing was for us to communicate what it is that we're thinking not to make sure that we're saying it in a way that is gonna be You know, I don't I don't want to use the word not offensive, but like it uses the words that you want me to use. So you want me to use the word you want me to use to express my thoughts, Not the words that I would normally use in order to express my thoughts and feelings and whatnot. Okay, Cool. That's not gonna That doesn't help me in my class. And that doesn't help me with my students in regards to how they interacted with me and what's going on in the space. And so, um, anyway, so that so just, you know, saying of all from the top again, right? And so I'm hoping that this episode meant something to you, Ryan, and regards to us being more transparent and are grading to be the most objective as we possibly can in our grading and to become a aware we can with the hidden curriculum and are grading and everything. Anyways, this is all I got for this episode, folks. I hope you learned something. Peace. Thank you for listening to this episode of re teach. If you want to learn more about me or my open source introduction to sociology textbook, please go to Bruce Hoskins dot com in closing. I want to leave us all with the question. If you learn something today that you think would help closure student equity gaps. How long would it take to incorporate this into your classroom? A year? A semester? Next month. Today, no matter the time table, we must commit ourselves to becoming better. Teachers are students deserve it. All of them, not just the ones that are good already.