Reflective Teaching and Portfolio Assessments

We've been reading about assessments recently in both ED432/330 and ENGL481.  Meanwhile, Sarah and I have been engaging in a robust dialogue via email that centers on assessment.  While reflecting on these texts and emails, I found myself returning to a point I explored in a spontaneous back and forth with Prof. Olson in ED330/432 a couple weeks ago.  Specifically: what will we do as teachers if (when?) our students resist the progressive methods and/or techniques many of us hope to employ?

The specific conversation regarded not assessments but small group work.  Prof. Olson was pointing out that research suggests small group work is better for student learning than individual work.  (While it's not in the scope of this post to review/critique the applicability of these studies across cultures, I would be interested to know the cultural, national, and socioeconomic backgrounds of the subjects; whether or not these studies have been carried out in many different cultures internationally and many different SESs here in the States; what the student/teacher ratio was in these studies; and whether the researchers were present or hidden from the students in these experiments since the presence of adult figures in the classrooms could effect student behavior.  Suffice to say: I'm suspicious of absolutes.)  Having said all that, even if we accept this research to be absolutely true across all cultural, national, economic and gender groups, what do we do when the student consensus in the class is for individual work? Do we ignore Paolo Friere, assert our authority as teachers and impose the progressive educational inter-personalities on them by force?  Doesn't that undermine the "progressive education" part?  

Back to assessment: what if we want to follow Smagorinsky and assess via portfolio, but the students come to a consensus against this?  What of the students prefer multiple choice and short answer tests, believing it will better equip them for the ACT and, ultimately, college?  Do we force portfolios on them in a top-down hierarchy, allow them to dictate assessment, or (as Prof. Olson suggested) allow them to come to a consensus within top-down, hierarchically dictated parameters?  What if one student prefers to be assessed in multiple choice or essays while others prefer portfolios?  Do we differentiate?  

These thoughts evolved into me wondering whether I agree with Smagorinsky when he says, "[i]deally...grades will correspond to student's learning" [Kindle loc 5536].  I'm not sure if that's the case.  I had very many negative experiences in grade school, but one very positive experience I had was in eighth grade language arts.  We had to submit a Young Authors text, and my teacher said the class couldn't do poetry.  (The implication was because students would use poetry in order to avoid writing a full length text.)  She made on exception: me.  She explained that this was because I'd already excelled in writing the lengths of texts the assignment required and that she knew I was taking an interest in poetry outside of class.  There were some complaints (she did not run a Frerian-style classroom and didn't claim to), but I felt both special and pressured to deliver something worthy of that exception.  I reviewed all my poems.  Chose those I wanted to include.  Thought about the process.  Not because I was trying to prove that I had learned something for an A nor for the A itself (she'd basically given me free rein).  It was because I knew I already had an A.  (As this was a language arts class, I don't think this is "mobile-making" assessment.) 

In my email exchange with Sarah, I came to realize I believe in something I call the academic hierarchy of needs (which is basically just a wholesale appropriation of Maslows hierarchy of needs).  That is: it seems to me that academia can (more or less) correspond with the hierarchy:

Physiological ≈ is the student in the academic system at all (school, online learning, etc.)?

Safety ≈ does the student feel as though they are in a safe space both literally and academically?  That is to say: do they feel not only literally safe, but safe that at least their teacher won't judge them for asking a weird question, that their effort will correspond with good grades, and that an A is attainable for them?

Love/belonging ≈ does the student have at least a small core of peer friends or significant other who will support them through a comment the rest of the class laughs at, or a quirky interest in the something or other the class covers?  (Here, I think of my private hobby while I was the captain of the soccer team: rose gardening.  A lot of relevancy was lost in biology because I, correctly from a real-politic social sense, withheld that information from even my close friends...and certainly my science teacher.)   

Esteem ≈ does the student feel like the class in general (not just their close friends or peers) will be respectful of them as a meaningful, legitimate contributor to the class?  (At least enough to feel safe and confident speaking up in class-wide discussion without having to be called on?) On a school wide level, does the student feel that they can join both the chess club and the football team?  The debate team and pom squad without having to choose or be judged?  

It seems to me that here, once the previous academic needs have been met, do we have opportunities for academic self actualization.  (Of course, there's a whole other conversation to be had, using the Maslow's actual hierarchy, about how ridiculous it is of our society to expect students to effectively learn academics (which generally involves the "self-actualization" level) while not providing them the literal (not academic) "safety," "love/belonging," or "esteem" supports.)

It seems to me, when I reflect on my own academic history, that my most meaningful learning experiences were not times when I was working to attain or demonstrate student learning. (I remember I stayed up all night to pass the physics bridge project junior year, which required I apply and demonstrate the physical properties used in my bridge design, and the ones I used  were...um...gosh...can't remember....glue?    I was working from a place of fear.)  My most relevant academic experiences occurred when I knew I had an A already (and, later, when knew I was passing a pass/fail college course) and was being allowed freedom to work on something I considered relevant for a teacher who respected me enough to give me that freedom.  But here's the necessary risk: if some students (after demonstrating the assessments or benchmarks of A work) blossom under assurances of As plus freedom and relevancy, some students will not.  

And having said all this, if my classroom rejects this structure in favor of one more aligned with Smagorinsky, Paolo Friere's spirit will be scolding me if I don't comply.