This is the first post in what will hopefully be a series about Crossing the Divide between research and practice. If you have topics you want to add to this discussion, email to OPIEWeb@gmail.com and we’ll get you set up to post them

ProfHacker.com is a blogging site that talks about technology for professors. They have a guest post this morning asking for folks to join a discussion on how to evaluate student performance. I can’t help but think the IO community would have something of value to add to the discussion. Personally, I agree with this statement from the intro:

While traditional grading tends to do a decent job of evaluating individual student work, it isn’t always the best means of measuring the kinds of skills that are valuable in the digital world, such as collaboration, creativity, and the use of emerging technologies.

I can’t help but think that there would be some similarities between student performance and that of certain classes of employee. Many undergraduate are put situations familiar to upperclassmen knowledge workers such as group work, research projects, report writing and the like.

What tenants, norms and practices from the business world do you think could be applied to evaluate students in a more holistic manner? Post your responses on the question side, or via email at OPIEWeb@Gmail.com.

Oh, and don’t miss their recipe for Potato Curry Soup. It looks great.