Ive been prompted by a question about my reflections on my approaches to assessment to reflect further on what the student experience is like. Sancha de Burca @GraphDesProject asked “Would this end up being confusing for a learner, or helpful, do you think?”
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.
Ex-OU, EX-BT Distance Learning. Currently Visiting Fellow Centre for Distance Education, University of London , Head of School of Media and Communication, De Montfort University, Leicester and Professor of Learning Technologies.