Many of you must have seen the movie ‘3 Idiots’ and must have discovered the need for excellence! Well, not just the movie but everyone speaks about this excellence. But no one defines it. What is it? And how do I reach it? These must be questions in your head. How come some students seem to perform better by their own initiative? Or are they really more intelligent or excellent by nature? Colleges and schools are also not able to provide the definition for this excellence though they identify excellence when they see.
I will make life easier for you by defining excellence and letting you scale the heights of performance. And you will also discover that you need not put someone else down to make yourself excellent. This state can be reached by everyone who wants to. Remember, if you are measuring your excellence by your position in class – there can be only one FIRST IN CLASS. So, if you have to be excellent, many others have to be unsuccessful. But excellence is not just your rank. It is the quality of work that you produce.
Let me start with a small example. Take the case of solving a mathematical problem. Now every student doesn’t solve the problem in the same way. Take for instance, four levels of performance. (See Table 1) If you were given this kind of a table for all the tasks that you have to do in your learning, wouldn’t it bring clarity on how to excel? Can everyone not move up this ladder wherever he or she is? If you are already at ‘good’ level, with little effort, can you not become excellent? In fact, these are not the only ways to be excellent. There may be many other ways in which your solution could be superior to the ‘good’ one. I have given only a sample. Another This table of performance levels can be made little more structured by having more parameters for assessment. For example, if you are asked to write and execute a program, there are many sub parts of the task that need to be assessed. These parts may have different relative priority or weightage. These priorities may change during the learning process. For example, initially when you are beginning to write programs, you may be very low on independence, but later you need to be independent. The teacher can decide these things. But notice that such a detailed rubric gives you a specific feedback on which areas are strong and which need to be improved. You don’t need any teacher to assess you, you can do it yourself. (See Table 3)
Such rubrics are available for various subjects and at school and college levels. You can assess yourself in Group Discussions, in presentations, in subject related tasks, team work, project work and what not.
Professionals have also like this concept and are using it to make the performance appraisal more useful. It is not an end-of-the-year event but example is that of an explanation (written or oral) for any concept or idea with the same ratings as before. (See Table 2) it starts with setting goals and performance criteria in the beginning of the year.
You can look at my site www.inspiting-teachers.com under Student Powerà Path to excellence for more resources on rubrics and how you can assess yourself and move towards excellence.
While you are there, it is a good idea to remember and thank some of your excellent teachers and give us their names by filling a simple form under ‘Thank a Teacher’. Some of the selected ones will be felicitated on Teacher’s day by YOU. We will provide the platform and the awards, but you will talk about them on the stage.
Great to go from ‘3 Idiots’ to ‘3 Aces’!!
-Uma Garimella
The author is an expert on teaching learning process and regularly conducts workshops for teachers and students. She is a consultant at Centre for Education Technology and Learning Sciences, IIIT-H and Honorary Director, Centre for Faculty Development and Management, NMREC, Hyderabad.