Donna, I mentioned this with you concerning the 'uncovering' pedagogical philosophy earlier, but Community-Based-Assessment Pedagogy rings similarly true: this is strikingly similar to the rabbinical teaching methods of Judaism.
I hope I don't bore you with this, but I find it extremely fascinating.
The most striking similarity I see is with the question and answer style teaching. Typical teaching today poses the answers - engaging students may develop their own questions to predict test material, but most simply regurgitate the answers given to them in a close to the original format as possible. However, in the philosophy of community-based-assessment pedagogy (from now on abbreviated to CBA) the students discover the answers as the instructor offers questions - many questions that do not have a single correct answer. The rabbinical teaching method was similar.
And here's what happens with this: unlike in the video we watched today, creativity isn't stifled. Because an authority figure is not imposing a correct answer upon students and expecting, in essence, clone-production of his/herself as a scholar, new and innovative ideas are not only accepted but implicitly encouraged. Not to mention the self-satisfaction that comes with realizing the answer yourself.
The second thing is the general atmosphere of the classroom. The synagogue as a learning center had a very unique aspect - everything spoken was confidential. It was an unspoken, yet enforced rule. A legend from the Midrash states that a scholar spoke of something that took place within the classroom decades before and was consequently no longer allowed to participate in the synagogue. Of course, what is learned can be brought forth from the classroom - otherwise no academic advancement would occur except within the classroom, and it would die with the instructor and students. Rather, it was the "who said what" that was confidential. This removed the competitive nature of learning and transferred the emphasis from the student onto the subject material.
This reminds me, in a peculiar way, of the classroom experience of CBA. By eliminating grades as a competitive edge and making every student an equally valued assessor, the emphasis seems to have been placed on the material learned, rather than the grade achieved, and, consequently, the ranking in the class and society. I could almost see an unspoken rule of confidentiality taking place in the classroom as well, beyond the professor's explicit confidentiality, that students must guard what other students express and not mock or misuse it outside the classroom. Why? Because every other student has the same advantage, namely, of having access to other students' personal expression in writing.
I have some cautions about this method - not that I do not appreciate it more than the current traditional methods, but that this still should not be conceived as the perfect teaching model.
My biggest complaint is that of time. This purely depends on the course structure, but I could see the class-time required for these endeavors to increase. And the students' workload could increase significantly as well. The assessment procedure operates very similar to a creative writing workshop experience, and while I loved these classes, I do recall a significant amount of time spent 'assessing' papers beyond my own coursework for the class. I do not say that these are flaws inherent to CBA, but rather that these elements need to be addressed.
For the time being this is all that I have, which is probably well enough, as I feel that I've been quite winded. And apologies for failing to address much of Elbow's work, but this article has spurred more immediate thoughts available for sharing.
Peace.
jds
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