Online Assessment and Feedback Workshop

7 November, 2013

Session Agenda:

What assessment need to be.

What feedback needs to be.

How can we best achieve this using digital tools? What can these digital tools afford the student and the tutor?

Assessments need to be:

TransparentReliableValidAuthentic

NSS surveys highlight assessment as one of the most significant areas for improvement in HE

Feedback needs to be:

TimelyConsistentOngoingActionableFriendlyTransparentGoal orientated

Self-regulation:

Grade-gazing!

Encouraging the use of regular feedback to help students self-regulate and improve

Online Questionnaires to Elicit Feedback...

Use of online feedback prior to or after summative assessments or formal submissionsSOS (JISC MAC):subject-specific feedbackoperational feedback (post questionnaire)strategic journal (possibly face-to-face with tutor)

Employability:

Assessments can demonstrate what skills a graduate has to an employer, how the skills worked and what is transferable to the employer.

Assessment can provide a key link between the world of learning and the world of work.

PRACTITIONER FEEDBACK

Practitioner feedback can be designed to prompt learners into self-regulation, for example, by developing learners’ understanding of the assessment criteria before they commence an assignment, by making feedback more of a dialogue than a one-way process and by ensuring that learners can act on the feedback they receive. Good results may also be obtained when learners apply assessment criteria to examples of completed work before producing their own assignments.

Peer and Self Assessment:Assessment of group work

Self-evaluation

Self-reflection

Learning from evaluating others’ work

cont...

Help focus on learning and assessment criteria

Recognise they are active agents in learning

Create a learning journal - dialogue with tutor

Student collaboration:

Working on an assessment in a group - even an essay

Improvements in awareness of assessment criteria and understand of learning objectives

Engagement with Feedback:

How can we use feedback more effectively?

What mechanisms can we use in Bb?

Related to learning objectives and assessment criteria

Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick (2006):The seven principles of good feedback:1. Clarify what good performance is2. Facilitate reflection and self-assessment in learning3. Deliver high-quality feedback information that helps learners self-correct4. Encourage teacher–learner and peer dialogue 5. Encourage positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem6. Provide opportunities to act on feedback7. Use feedback from learners to improve teaching

12 REAP Principles of Assessment and Feedback:

Audio Feedback

Rich feedback; tutors can expand on salient points, vary the tone, pitch and pace of the voice and add humour to build rapport, opening the door to an ongoing dialogue between student and tutor.

Generic podcasts ‘do it once and deliver it often’

Clarity, immediacy and personal quality of the feedback

Audio feedback quote:

‘We like the fact that you develop something once and deliver it often. And it has proved to be less time consuming than writing reports on drafts of the dissertation, which is where we have used audio the most.’

Tutor, School of Psychology, University of Leicester

Group work: Digital Affordances

What can technology enhance or enable in assessment and feedback?

What does the technology afford us in opportunities to give feedback and enhance assessments?

How can we measure its impact?

How Can We Ensure Feedback Leads to Improvement?Link to established principles of good practice:

- support personalised learning - self-review- engages students with assessment and - marking criteria- stimulate dialogue- focus on student development

The Future...Capturing the processes as well as the outcomes of learning

Supporting learners in self-monitoring and self-assessment

Activating peers to become both drivers and assessors of learning

Involving learners in the design of assessment and feedback