Narrative, Self-Assessment, and Reflective Learners and Teachers.

A classroom research project investigated whether having students tell their own stories about learning might provide a mode and a context for self-assessment of their formal work in relation to their experience and growth as learners. Two courses involving sustained reading of major segments of the Hebrew Bible/Christian Old Testament taught at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a transition course for transfer students at Alverno College in Wisconsin were refocused from teacher assessment of students' products to student self-assessment, understood as both process and product. Students were asked to: (1) tell an initial story about an experience of learning; (2) provide vignettes of their experiences in preparing assessments or exercises in the course; (3) tell their stories as learners based on these materials and other experiences; and (4) compare their own stories as learners with either the film "Educating Rita" or the novel "The Chosen." The teachers of these courses found time and again that what the students said in their own words was compelling. Many of the students' stories showed that what they learned about was learning about themselves as learners, in different disciplinary or curricular contexts. As students came to reflect on and assess their learning strategies, the teachers found themselves challenged to do the same as teachers. (A figure representing the connectionism, dynamism, and interaction of the project is included; 19 references and examples of each of the 4 types of student-generated stories are attached.) (RS)