Welcome
to the MAF blog – and to MAF itself. We look forward to exploring assessment
and feedback with you…
This
module asks you to investigate the theory and practice of Assessment and
Feedback – and to relate that to your own practice. It is intended to help
staff develop their current practice in ways that are helpful to them and to
their students and to make assessment part of the learning dialogue: wrestling
with assessment of, for and as
learning. Each week there will be some preliminary reading and/or viewing to do
before the class – which will be explored practically and dialogically in the
session itself. This opportunity to work with others across the disciplines is
what people value most about the course itself – and we can see already
that this is a lively group with much to offer (see also arguments for a ‘flipped’
approach: https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eli7081.pdf).
Assignments
Group
presentation (40%): explore an aspect of assessment that intrigues you and
produce a multimodal presentation or resource (5mins) that presents an issue, argument and/or ‘case’
to the class – with short critical commentary.
Individual
project (60%): develop a sustained argument about a specific aspect of
assessment related to your own context and perhaps extending an issue that
arose in exploring the group project. Typically presented as a formal essay, we
are open to creative interpretations of that genre.
Tip:
Re-visit the module Learning Outcomes – and the notes you made when we
discussed these in class. List the ways that YOU might be able to demonstrate
that you have met each of the LOs.
Bring
your own context
We
started with a brief free write and longer discussion on what we like about our
current assessment and feedback processes, what areas of curiosity and concern
we have – and what we hope to gain from the module itself.
What
we like
Thoughtful
and transparent assessment design was valued: where the assessment is clearly
relevant to the LOs; where it is weighted and balanced well across criteria; and
where students can clearly see, ‘This is what they are looking for.’
Some
liked tried and tested ‘safe’ or known methods of assessment – the essay and
the exam – others argued that the ‘not safe is best’ – where the outcomes of
the assessment are not fixed in advance – but the participants can argue or
make a good case. The analysis of a Case Study was cited here: where the
students are not led to a given answer – but must interrogate a case study and
come up with their own diagnosis or draw their own conclusions.
There
was an argument offered for a diversity of assessment instruments across a course:
presentations, short tests (including online) and course work – so that all
participants would have an opportunity to showcase their learning or harness
their own preferred learning strategies.
A
few offered arguments for what might be called the emergent graduate identity approach
(Len Holmes: http://www.graduate-employability.org.uk/)
– where thought is given to the ‘skills’, capabilities and capacities required
of the graduate – and the course is worked backwards from there. Examples cited
were the Montessori course where participants have to produce lessons plans,
group presentations and give peer feedback – and the prospective Science
teacher set many small stakes assignments – that could lead, say, to the
planning and leading of a trip to the science museum.
This
connected with arguments around developing self-assessment and the students’
ability to evaluate their own work; possibly enhanced where the learning and
teaching clearly feeds forward into the assessment – and where the students
make their learning conscious: in blogs and by illustrating the session and/or
their learning in some way (this paper explores blogging to learn – in the
context of two LondonMet modules – available from Investigations – or this link
to Academia Edu: https://www.academia.edu/9117059/Disrupting_learning_landscapes_Mentoring_engaging_becoming_in_Investigations_in_University_Teaching_and_Learning_Vol_9_Spring_2014_pp15-21).
Finally
– it was argued that re-designing the assessment could provoke positive change
in the learning and teaching processes.
Concerns
How
do we know that a particular assessment instrument is valid and fair? And – how
on earth do we know what students are ‘making’ of the feedback? Here again
there was discussion of the use of assignment change to provoke positive change
in pedagogic practice – and the invitation to re-investigate assessments
alternative to the essay – that involve the equivalent rigour, critical engagement
and endeavour.
What
we want MAF to do
Overall
it seems that most people want to use the module to investigate what
constitutes successful assessment – defined as tasks that that help students
both to learn what they need to – and that help them transition to the next
level of study. A bonus would be the opportunity to explore the assessment
tools in WebLearn – and to work out how to make a good case for assessment
change that would convince a line manager.
TMD:
Cheating: friend, foe or scapegoat
Our
getting to know you activity was a Topic Mediated Dialogue (TMD) session
– where we investigated teaching, learning and assessment through the lens of ‘cheating’.
After paired discussions, participants had to draw a representation of their
partner – and use that to introduce them to the class.
NB:
TMDs can be structured around any topic with which you want to engage - we also
use the same TMD prompts to get students to explore their own thoughts on ‘cheating’:
https://becomingeducational.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/becomingeducational-w16-analyse-that-now-this/.
Thank
you!
Thank
you for an engaged and engaging first session – we have already touched on key
aspects of assessment and feedback that the rest of the course will explore in
ever greater depth… We are looking forward to taking this MAF journey with you.
