Home › Forums › Timely, Effective Assessment and Feedback (Week 6) › Reading and reflection (Activity 6.1) › Reflecting on my own approaches to assessment
- This topic has 4 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 11 months ago by
ColetteArmstrong.
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May 23, 2013 at 8:25 pm #4002
GraphDesProject
MemberIt seems quite hard to state which approach is generically used – like the Kolb learning styles it seems many of us move between one approach and another as the activity requires. I could not say with certainty where I’d be most based (though probably constructivist) but indeed use all methods when appropriate.
Would this end up being confusing for a learner, or helpful, do you think?
Sancha
May 24, 2013 at 11:21 am #4010Stephen Brown
MemberI agree that its difficult to say which approach is used most because the approaches used tend to reflect the intended learning outcomes rather than my personal preferences, so the mix will change depending on the curriculum and the student cohort. That feels right to me, as the whole thing is about learners and learning rather than me as a teacher. Asking whether using all these different approaches confuses students is a very good question. Even though I talk to them explicitly about knowledge construction and the social dimension to this they seem to find any deviation from standard lectures and essay writing a bit mysterious. They have referred to their experiences on my module as “learning by stealth” which they explain as meaning they feel they learn a lot but can’t easily pinpoint when or how it happens because there doesn’t seem to be an awful lot of teaching going on in the module. I guess you could say that is confusing in terms of their conscious understanding of how they have been learning but at the same time helpful because they have nevertheless acquired a lot of tacit knowledge about learning as well as explicit knowledge related to the course.
May 24, 2013 at 12:38 pm #4014Linda Creanor
MemberThis is an interesting example Stephen, and I agree with both you and Sancha that there is a place for different theoretical approaches within the same learning context.
An example that comes to mind for me is from a colleague who teaches journalism. He makes use of a range of technologies in his teaching and has developed an effective way of using wikis as part of the postgraduate programme. In media ethics for example, he’ll seed a wiki with a description of a controversial situation (usually taken from a real news item) and invite the students to add their views, backed up by relevant links, photos and other resources. The students are graded individually on their contributions, based on a set of criteria which they agree to beforehand. Like Stephen’s example, this reflects both situative and social constructivist approaches. It also highlights the importance of what Gilly Salmon calls a ‘spark’ to engage students and encourage participation.
Assessing these types of approaches is challenging though. In my own experience, I’ve found that involving the students in agreeing the assessment criteria can help with the level of engagement and the quality of contributions. This is also something which David Nicol recommends too, backed up by findings from the REAP project http://www.reap.ac.uk
Linda
May 27, 2013 at 12:53 pm #4065ColetteArmstrong
MemberThere’s a lot of food for thought in the readings. I use a variety of assessment approaches and find that many students are interested in the summative aspects of the assessment only, even though detailed feedback is offered face to face.
The point that video is preferable to written feedback is interesting and points to a need for skill development in this area.
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