congestion pricing

my late summer read was james surowiecki's the wisdom of crowds which describes how crowds (large numbers of independent people who share a common interest or goal) when left to their own devices seem to make pretty intelligent decisions and how gives some descriptions about they arrive at them. also later in the the book he gives some interesting examples of how governments have tried to change the path of the herd. after reading about singapore's traffic incentive plan led me to reconsider how I grade and assess my musicianship students. basically they(the govt) increase the price of diving in the city center at peak traffic times during they day. if there is heavy traffic you can expect to pay 10x the regular toll to encourage you to drive an alternative route.

overall the musicianship classes are going very well and i have much of it already organized the way i like. each class is divided up into 4-5 segments in which the students sing diatonic sequences, harmonic patterns, melodies as well as play simple folk songs in all 12 keys. so about 90% of the time the class is singing either individually, in groups of 2-3 or as a whole. the biggest problem is the 'congestion' that arises from testing. many of the skills i teach are really a pass or fail type proposition. i already ask students who do poorly to retest later until they can really do the skill to combat laziness i have reserved the 'A' grade for the first test, but still want to encourage improvement. like most classes it only gets harder and after a while it becomes almost impossible to advance after a certain point unless a student is consistently working on the material.

the problem with having 4-5 'test' days during the semester is the amount class time spent on individual assessment. my plan is to try and alleviate this with 'congestion' grading. The students already have a subject calendar, those who go early will get extra points. 2 weeks ahead even more. i'll still teach at the same pace, but i bet enough will take me up on the offer so that class doesn't have to drag to a halt for testing.