Presentations, Positivity and a Pedicure

manfredsteger via Pixabay

Today was my final final for spring semester. My development classes did their presentations yesterday and the day before and I ended the semester today with presentations from my positive psychology class. Their task was to create a project wherein they paid their positive psych knowledge forward, sharing an activity, idea or some other takeaway with friends, family or some other audience. (There were many good-natured roommates involved).

It's one of those ideas that sounds a little hokey at the outset but when you hear 20+ presentations about gratitudes, savoring, kindness, personal strengths and a wide variety of both outreach and self-care, it's a pretty powerful two hours. Couple that with visuals illustrating everything from how to create a vision board to the creation of a new psychology superhero, and it's an excellent way to end the semester.

Semester ends have their ups and downs. Some bring projects like this one, others bring plagiarized papers (yes, it happens). I've always been an advocate of assessing understanding in a variety of ways but, with the advent of hybrid instruction, I've steered away from exams entirely in favor of projects like this one. I've been exploring online posting tools, infographics, presentations -- and, yes, the old reliable paper -- and it's been quite an adventure. This summer, I'll be teaching fully online for the first time, and continuing to add to my arsenal of alternative assignments.

Though they're much easier to grade, I don't know if I'll ever go back to exams. There's something about visuals and discussion boards and even the tried-and-true paper that allows students to let their personality shine through along with their knowledge, giving me a peek into who they really are as well as what they really understand and what they only kinda sorta know.

It's been a long day, making this post late again, but I can't complain. I'm down to the last few papers, which I might have completed if I hadn't taken advantage of one of my Mother's Day gifts -- a mother/daughter pedicure -- but that would have been very silly.

Tomorrow is another day. I wonder what I'll discover in those last few papers.