The Tempered Radical has a post entitled, “Master and Performance are NOT the Same Thing.”
This is a confluence of readings. Perhaps I am noticing them because I am already reading on the topic. But today I was reading Drive by Daniel H. Pink about mastery and have read several other books recently about it.
Tempered Radical’s article says:
My thinking started when Dean Shareski challenged me to make self-assessment a larger part of the work that I do in my classroom. It was pushed further by a candid confession from one of my students that her determination to “do well” distracts her from actually learning anything.
Wow. That does sound familiar. At Location 2059 of 3487, Pink is finishing up his discussion of self-assessment, which he frames as a monthly performance review.
Tempered Radical’s Bill Ferriter’s differentiation between mastery and performance reminds me of Pinks discussion at Location 1922 regarding purpose goals versus profit goals, and their impact on life. It also reminds me of something else I’ve been reading (or maybe Pink and I just can’t find it) about performance goals versus learning goals. Students with learning goals do better than students with performance goals. (So making an A is not as strong a goal as “learning all about Old English literature” in my Brit Lit I course.)