{"id":6966,"date":"2008-06-25T22:30:32","date_gmt":"2008-06-25T22:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/25\/washback\/"},"modified":"2008-06-25T22:30:32","modified_gmt":"2008-06-25T22:30:32","slug":"washback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/25\/washback\/","title":{"rendered":"Washback"},"content":{"rendered":"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>

D. asked me about this term yesterday, and I had never heard of it before,
\nperhaps because I haven’t taught many courses where tests were involved.
\nAs I now understand it (freshly, sketchily), washback<\/i> describes
\npedagogical revision, the on-the-fly adjustments teachers make after they have
\nevaluated a set of exams. The test, depending largely upon how well it is
\ndesigned, should report general strengths and weaknesses among the group;
\nwashback is how the future lessons and activities are adapted in light of the
\npatterns indicated by the test. <\/p>\n

I don’t know whether I will get much use out of the term, but it did get me
\nthinking about similar phenomena in writing courses. There is a kind of
\ngoing back over things–something like washback–that sometimes happens
\ndepending on how a sequence of assignments is envisioned. It reminded me of a
\nmild tension in my MA program between those who thought a complete course of
\nstudy–including all writing assignments, prompts, and activities–ought to be
\nlaid out from the outset and those who thought a course of study should be
\ndesigned to allow for those inevitable contingencies. To the extremes: the
\nfirst type is top-down, water-tight and risks being inflexible; the second type
\nis like taking to the air without a flight plan: improvisatory and roomy.
\nThe first regards the contextual peculiarities (and surprises!) very little; the
\nsecond sets out with the proposition, "How can I devise the second unit of the
\ncourse until I know what happened with the first?". One values teaching
\neverything as if it is channeling toward week fifteen; the other lives and
\nteaches for today and wants not to overdetermine the what’s-to-come.<\/p>\n

I am, at times, drawn to each of these extreme positions; they appeal to me
\nfor different reasons. What I have come to understand is that, in moderate
\nforms, both are simultaneously possible, and good teachers understand–and
\nperform–them–a balancing act of managed flexibility. By now I have
\nwandered away from washback as it relates directly to tests and measurements,
\nbut I only wanted to generalize it to the scenes of teaching I know best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>D. asked me about this term yesterday, and I had never heard of it before, perhaps because I haven’t taught many courses where tests were involved. As I now understand it (freshly, sketchily), washback describes pedagogical revision, the on-the-fly adjustments teachers make after they have evaluated a set of exams. The test, depending largely upon…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[163],"tags":[434,855,278,272,856,291,857,140],"class_list":["post-6966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dry_ogre_chalking","tag-assessment","tag-flexibility","tag-pedagogy","tag-reflection","tag-rigidity","tag-teaching","tag-washback","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nWashback - Earth Wide Moth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/25\/washback\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Washback - Earth Wide Moth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: 2 minsD. asked me about this term yesterday, and I had never heard of it before, perhaps because I haven’t taught many courses where tests were involved. 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