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Flipping the technology-pedagogy equation: principles to improve assessment and feedback
Dr Tansy JessopUniversity of Winchester
University of SussexTEL Seminars
@tansyjtweets@TESTAwin
Why assessment and feedback is vital…
Assessment is the senior partner in learning and teaching. Get it wrong, and the rest collapses.(Biggs and Tang 2011)
More vitals…
1) Assessment drives what students pay attention to, and defines the actual curriculum (Ramsden 1992).
2) Feedback is the single most important factor in student learning (Hattie, 2009; Black and Wiliam, 1998).
But we know that there is a problem…
Wow! Our students love History! Fantastic!
Mmm…there may be a leetle problem here
Fix it!
Ok, we’ll look especially at polishing up our feedback. Students seems to
find that the least best thing.
Apply spit and polish
Assessment on Trial
1. Open pack of TESTA witness statements.
2. Decide on the central issue.
3. What solutions might fix this? (you have no extra human resources…)
4. Any technology fixes?
Why assessment needs transformation…
It looks a bit like this
Seven assessment flaws
1. Summative trumps formative2. No-one understands how to do formative3. Students are grade-oriented and
instrumental4. Content trumps concepts5. Relationships have broken down6. It’s disconnected 7. The standards apparatus is flawed
Is learning about knowing content?
The best approach from the student’s perspective is to focus on concepts. I’m sorry to break it to you, but your students are not going to remember 90 per cent – possibly 99 per cent – of what you teach them unless it’s conceptual…. when broad, over-arching connections are made, education occurs. Most details are only a necessary means to that end.
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/a-students-lecture-to-professors/2013238.fullarticle#.U3orx_f9xWc.twitter
A student’s lecture to her professors
TESTA’s USP
Feedback and Assessment for Students with Technology
1. Systematic2. Built on TESTA3. 15 TESTA programmes4. Bath Spa and Winchester5. Programme as unit of change6. Student Fellows as co-developers, change
agents & evaluators
Funded project Problem A: it assumes a linear journey
Funded Project Problem B:A theoretical and conceptual void
TEL Funded Project Problem C: Here today, gone tomorrow
FASTECH’s main problem: the TESTA legacy
Using the programme seemed like such a smart
and systematic way to embed technology….
A section on James Thomas’s CV: Nice Ideas I Tried That Didn’t Work Out James Thomas, Founder of Triple Trust Organisation, RIP
Two things that did work…
Model for the Student Fellows Scheme
Cut to your views...
Blogging – in pairs or threes
1. Do you blog or use blogging in your teaching or research?
2. What do you feel and think about blogging in academic contexts?
3. What assessment and feedback problems could blogging solve?
Evidence
• BA Primary ‘think aloud’ study using interval data (6 students x 4 interviews x one module)
• Masters in L&T study using blogging on curriculum design module (two focus groups and evaluation data)
Assessment on trial: Blogging to the defence!
1. Blogging witness statements on four areas.
2. What solutions does this offer to A&F problems?
3. What limitations are there?
Evidence: wider readingOver the whole three years this is the most engaged I’ve been in my readings. I really liked doing this. I wish we had done it more. Maybe start it in the first year.
You have to evidence that you have read it compared to a seminar reading. You are reading a lot more.
I know I’m going to have to write something, which I think is helpful. Normally with some readings you sort of think “what’s the point of this?”
I go more in depth with the reading than with the reading pack then I’d just highlight. It helps.
Evidence of development and fine-tuning
I feel like I’m kind of developing a more critical or analytical style.
It’s pushed my thinking –it’s kind of bringing everyone’s knowledge together which is incredibly useful.
You change your ideas, and maybe something will influence your next post. It opens your mind up to new ideas. It gets you thinking.
If someone else reads it you’re going to be giving a different view to theirs and developing their understanding – also when you read theirs they develop your understanding.
Feedback evidence
It’s nice that the feedback is instant. It’s really helpful to have that personal touch. It’s instant so you don’t have to wait for three weeks when you’ve forgotten it.
The tutors definitely started commenting a lot more, which has been useful, but she puts loads of comments on. And it’s like ‘Whoah! So many questions!’ But it’s mainly from the peers because they’re on the same wavelength and they read the same things.
But formative still has lower value
It was very difficult with all the workload we had.
I normally do leave it quite to the last minute because at the moment we have so many essays all piled on top of each other…if there was more time to focus on it with less other work coming in it could make the blogs even better.
This would probably be bottom of the pile on my work because I know we have an assignment at the end of it, but I still don’t know what the assignment is.
The MA L&T
• Reflective in-class writing• Alternative weeks
blogging and commenting• Based on reading and
sessions• Community of practice• Brilliant summative
presentations
The jury still out?
ReferencesBiggs, J. and Tang C . (2011) Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Buckingham Open University Press.
(Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C. (2004) Conditions under which assessment supports students' learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. 1(1): 3-31.Harland, T. et al. (2014) An Assessment Arms Race and its fallout: high-stakes grading and the case for slow scholarship. Assessment and Evaluation inn Higher Education. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02602938.2014.931927
Hattie, J. (2007) The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research. 77(1) 81-112.
Jessop, T. and Maleckar, B. (2014). The Influence of disciplinary assessment patterns on student learning: a comparative study. Studies in Higher Education. Published Online 27 August 2014 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03075079.2014.943170
Jessop, T. , El Hakim, Y. and Gibbs, G. (2014) The whole is greater than the sum of its parts: a large-scale study of students’ learning in response to different assessment patterns. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education. 39(1) 73-88
Lea, M. and Jones, S (2011) Digital literacies in higher education: exploring textual and technological practice, Studies in Higher Education, 36:4, 377-393
Lombardi, M (2007) Authentic Learning for the 21st Century . Educause.
Olofsson, J A. . O. Lindberg, T. Eiliv Hauge, (2011),"Blogs and the design of reflective peer-to-peer technology-enhanced learning and formative assessment", Campus-Wide Information Systems, Vol. 28 Iss: 3 pp. 183 - 194.
Ramsden, P. (1992) Learning to Teach in Higher Education (London, Routledge).
