The Rhinoceros Test
When I was developing grade abatement as a new kind of assessment, I used Albrecht Dürer’s rhinoceros as a metaphor1. It serves the same function as saying, “Don’t miss the forest for the trees,” and it echoes the elephant test. It’s also related to Occam’s razor, or the law of parsimony.
If none of those hyperlinks interest you enough to do some ramiform reading, the basic idea (in here) is this: Often the simplest or most straightforward GAP evidence is more important than everything else.
The need for in-class focus has been covered ad nauseam this year, in everything from posts to posters, so there’s no need to repeat that. The other simplest element of the course is completing assignments, but you’ve known to do your work since you were in kindergarten2. Lapses in either category might significantly lower your GAP score at the end of three weeks. You know that, too.
Here’s the new stuff: Starting now, if you are significantly off-task during class, or if you are missing significant work, I’ll update your GAP score before the end of the three-week assessment period. Keep an eye on Infinite Campus. If your score updates suddenly, that’s feedback. It’s a sign that you need to adjust immediately.
The logic here ought to be clear, but to make it clearer: A student earning a fourth-tier profile needs until the end of a cycle to produce evidence. It takes consistent reflection and metacognition, for instance, to fit just that single criterion for a 9. But a student who isn’t meeting the basic requirements of the course has already provided enough evidence for a much lower score. That’s Dürer’s rhinoceros: We’ve seen enough to know what profile fits.
Let’s see if this sort of immediate-ish feedback helps. If you trigger the threshold mechanic that knocks you down to a 70, for instance, you probably still have time to show growth and drag yourself out of the second tier. If missing work puts you in the 5+/5- range, you probably still have time to improve the ratio.
You can ask questions about this below. Meanwhile, I will hold onto the quixotic hope that this will all eventually be rendered moot3.
One more note: The use of metaphors and images like Dürer’s rhinoceros helps us avoid clichés, especially thought-terminating ones. When we study George Orwell’s writing, he’ll call them dying metaphors. Some clichés have power — a rose on Valentine’s Day is still nice — but you should try to find new images, analogies, metaphors, etc, whenever possible. Clichés don’t bring any vividness or clarity to ideas, however easily they come to us.
This and the lead image come from Little Einsteins, one of the shows our children keep on repeat.
The first guide is here, alongside every Sisyphean High iteration up to this year. Dürer’s rhinoceros appears frequently, so it’s the mascot of grade abatement in the same way that the tardigrade is the mascot of interstitial teaching. Which means that we need mascot costumes of both, right? ↩
Remember, though, that we’re about the process more than the product. Most of your formal assignments in Google Classroom are a reflection of that belief. You won’t often be penalized for struggling to finish an essay, for instance, but you must always try to finish. ↩
Two words worth knowing: quixotic and moot. The former leads us to another metaphor for teaching and learning, since we sometimes tilt at windmills; the latter is one of those words with two accepted but contradictory meanings. ↩