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Research in Distance Learning: from present findings to future agendas. Evaluation and Assessment strand presentation. Dr Stylianos Hatzipanagos, King's Institute of Learning and Teaching, King's College London
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Closing the loop: identifying effective formative assessment practices in open and distance learning
Stylianos HatzipanagosKing's College London
Project team
♣ Paul Black (King’s)♣ Stylianos Hatzipanagos (King’s)♣ Ana Lucena (IOE)♣ Bob McCormick (OU)♣ Steven Warburton (King’s)
Closing the loop:
explored policy, teaching practices
and tutor views in three Open and Distance Learning environments.
investigated relationship between formative assessment and learning technologies
Formative (FA) and summative (SA) assessment Formative or assessment for learning
(Albon, 2003; Wiliam et al., 2004; Nicol & MacFarlane-Dick, 2004; Black, 2005)
Duality “SA/FA” may not represent opposite poles of assessment
(Hargreaves, 2005; Dylan, 2006)
FA is SA with feedback, which can be used by the learner (Taras 2005)
positive implications for student learning allows students to play a more active role in
management of own learning (Nicol 1997)
ODL
ODL environments : necessity for FA practices. proactive in FA practices out of need to
provide systematic feedback to students.
FA and technologies
learning technologies promote innovative assessment practices and lead to deeper thinking about how tutors conceptualise assessment in higher education (McCormick 2004).
assessment practices have been supported by technology for many years. However…
….main focus on developing tools such as objective tests rather than addressing fundamental issues, such as how they can be used to support effective assessment approaches (Nicol and Milligan, 2006).
Tutor engagement
Disjunction between beliefs, ambitions and pragmatic approaches to the use of FA. Practitioners’ attitudes to FA context-dependent and sometimes discipline-oriented.
Classification of approaches in two substantial groups and one smaller:
The first two claimed that they were proponents of FA; they either used FA in their practices (group 1) or claimed that they did not, however they would consider it if pragmatic constraints allowed it (group 2)Third smaller group did not consider FA necessary for their context.
Significant number of tutors engaged in FA but not extensively in what we considered as FA.
Notion of FA varied e.g. often was equated to
‘continuous assessment’.
Formats of assessment have changed because
of the possibilities new technologies can afford
e-assessment: range of technologies
Non-formative
Objective tests (they ‘disagree’ with certain disciplines) Model answers received or revealed after students submit an
answer, as non-personalised feedback Electronic submission of coursework
Formative
Communication tools in VLEs Online tutorials Games that allow monitoring and intervention Audio to canvas opinions/understanding of concepts/issues.
Audio more meaningful conceptually than video Tools such as certainty based marking Videoconferencing Social software: Blogs e-portfolios
Conclusions
FA practices can be problematic in courses with emphasis on end of year assessments as the ‘closing the loop’ component of the assessment process very rarely takes place.
FA can enrich e-learning approaches by making the feedback central to all assessment activities.
e-assessment tools promote a dialogue in relation to feedback, peer and self assessment activities which by their nature place the student at the centre of the educational process.
