Brookes Assessment Compact OCSLD and ASKe Centre for Excellence Chris Rust and Greg Benfield Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange & OCSLD

Brookes Assessment Compact OCSLD and ASKe Centre for Excellence

Chris Rust and Greg Benfield

Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange & OCSLD

Definitions

Assessment

All judgements made about the work of a student and/or their skills, abilities and progress, and the associated provision of feedback.

Compact

A formal agreement or covenant, indicating intent, but not enforceable by law (cf contract)


Starting thoughts

What do want your assessment and feedback processes to achieve?

Are you achieving these goals, and if not what are the barriers that are preventing them?

Youtube – The Five Minute University

(at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8x8eoU3L4&feature=related)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8x8eoU3L4&feature=related



Tenet 1 - central to learning

“Assessment is at the heart of the student experience”(Brown, S & Knight, P., 1994)

“From our students’ point of view, assessment always defines the actual curriculum”(Ramsden, P.,1992)

“Assessment defines what students regard as important, how they spend their time and how they come to see themselves as students and then as graduates.........If you want to change student learning then change the methods of assessment”(Brown, G et al, 1997)


Tenet 2 - relational

Feeling valued is often important to the way individuals respond to each other. FDTL Feedback project found that a sense of being valued by staff meant that students were more likely to engage with their feedback, to read it and use it.

One student commented, "You can go through the whole semester and the teacher still doesn't know your name". In this case, she said, she was unlikely to bother to read the feedback that "teacher" gave her.

Creating opportunities for dialogue between staff and students is likely to support this relational dimension of assessment and feedback.


Tenets 3 & 4

3. Joint responsibility, i.e. students must also take responsibility

4. The skills of self and peer-assessment should be graduate attributes

Students need to understand the assessment standards and criteria to be able to self-evaluate their work in the act of production itself (Sadler,1987)

The ability to make informed judgements on the work of self and others is a key graduate attribute (Boud, 2009)


Tenet 5 - ‘assessment literate’ communities of assessment practice

‘making sense of the world’ is a social and collaborative activity

(Vygotsky, 1978)

Tacit knowledge is experience-based and can only be revealed

through the sharing of experience – socialisation processes

involving observation, imitation and practice (Nonaka, 1991)

Dialogue and participatory relationships are key elements of

engaging students with assessment feedback (ESwAF FDTL, 2007)

An indispensable condition for improvement in student learning is

that “the student comes to hold a concept of quality roughly similar

to that held by the teacher” (Sadler, 1989)


Tenet 5 - ‘assessment literate’ communities of assessment practice (contd.)

social constructivism

the social-constructivist view of learning argues that knowledge is shaped and evolves through increasing participation within different communities of practice

the social constructivist process model of assessment argues that students should actively engage with every stage of the assessment process in order that they truly understand the requirements of the process, and the criteria and standards being applied, and should subsequently produce better work

(Rust, O’Donovan & Price, 2005) 30


Active engagement with feedback

Explicit Criteria

Completion and submission of work

Students Active engagement with criteria



Explicit Criteria




Engaging students with criteria and standards

Get students actively using the criteria through a developmental combination of:

Marking exercisesSelf-assessmentPeer-feedbackPeer-assessmentPossibly creating and negotiating criteria


Engaging students through early assessment:

(Also engender good study habits; diagnose areas of individual difficulty; clarifies expectations)

“Setting students assignments as soon as they arrive at university could help cut dropout rates………integrate students into university life as quickly as possible. This involves making them aware of the quality and quantity of work expected from them…..The freedom…is too much for some and they probably need more structure in the first year.”

Higher, 24/1/03

Reporting Student Transition and Retention (STAR) project

(in 5 universities)


Expectations and notions of ‘quality’ can remain more or less the same during a programme of

study... The learning journey of a programme can be seen as: A series of modular stepping stones of similar difficulty, involving: Incremental movement between zones of proximal development

(Vygotsky, 1978)

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

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Radical movement involving zones of discomfort, ‘threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge’ (Meyer and Land, 2006)

Changes in ‘epistemology and knowledge structures’ (Basil Bernstein in Moore et al, 2006)

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

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Activity

1.Skim read the ASKe leaflets

2.Discuss: to what extent do you already and/or could you use methods like these to engage students with the assessment criteria and standards?

3.Are there key points, besides entry, that such methods could support student understanding and progression?

20 + 30 then coffee



Explicit Criteria




Enhancing student learning through effective feedback

Feedback is the most powerful single pedagogic influence that makes a difference to student achievementHattie (1987) - in a comprehensive review of 87 meta-analyses of studies

Feedback has extraordinarily high and consistently positive effects on learning compared with other aspects of teaching or other interventions designed to improve learningBlack and Wiliam (1998) - in a comprehensive review of formative assessment

Students are hungry for feedback to develop their learning(Higgins et al, 2002)


Feedback problems Unhelpful feedback (Maclellan, 2001) Too vague (Higgins, 2000) Subject to interpretation (Ridsdale, 2003) Not understood (e.g. Lea and Street, 1998) Don’t read it (Hounsell, 1987) Damage self-efficacy (Wotjas, 1998) Has no effect (Fritz et al, 2000) Seen to be too subjective (Holmes & Smith, 2003)

It is not enough to improve feedback as a monologue; we must make it a dialogue (Nicol, 2009)

Improving feedback - prepare students Aligning expectations (of staff & students, & between teams of

markers)

- often a mismatch of expectations e.g correcting errors, advice for the future, diagnosis of general problems, comments specific only to that piece of work. These mismatches occur frequently with no particular pattern about who holds which view/perspective but problems arise when the the two don't coincide. Purpose of feedback may vary from assignment to assignment so would need to be clarified each time. (Price et al, in print; Freeman & Lewis, 1998)

Identifying all feedback available (especially oral) Encourage the application of feedback

- e.g. in a subsequent piece of work the student is required to show how they have used prior feedback to try to improve their work (and possibly some marks allocated for this).

Require and develop self-assessment


Activity

Discuss:

How do you currently prepare students to make use of feedback and to what extent could you do more through the introduction/development of some of these ideas?

20+20


Improving feedback - ensure it is fit for purpose Ensure students have MOM - Motive, Opportunity, Means (Angelo, 2007) Draft-plus-rework - feedback effort (for markers and students) is located at

the draft stage, and possibly only a summative grade is given for the final submission

Improve the linkage of assessment strategies across programmes and between modules/units

Increase opportunities for dialogue - in-class discussion of exemplars, peer-review discussions supported by tutors, learning-sets, etc.

Identify what is feasible in a given assessment context - written feedback can often do little more than ‘diagnose’ development issues and then direct students to other resources for help and support

Consider the role of marks - they obscure feedback Ensure it is timely - ‘quick and dirty’ generic feedback, feedback on a draft,

MCQs & quizzes, etc. Using technology – see http://tinyurl.com/tfaproject Reduce over-emphasis on written feedback - oral can be more effective

(McCune, 2004). See the Sounds Good website at: http://sites.google.com/site/soundsgooduk/

Review resource allocations (N.B. OU 60%)


Activity

Discuss:

What are you already doing? Which of these ideas could you introduce/develop to help students engage with their feedback?

20+20 then lunch


Implementation 2.6, 2.7, 2.9 - ‘assessment literate’ communities of assessment

practice Programmes to include activities (e.g. marking exercises, self and peer-

assessment, etc.) specifically designed to: involve students in the assessment process encourage dialogue between students and their tutors encourage dialogue between students and their peers, and ultimately develop their abilities to make their own informed judgements

(assessment literacy as a graduate skill)

Staff peer discussion of assessment at course design stage, moderation, and staff development

Student involvement to include contribution to the development of assessment policy at course and programme level through the established processes and student representative system (3.4)


Implementation 2.6, 2.7, 2.9 - ‘assessment literate’ communities of assessment

practice Programmes to include activities (e.g. marking exercises, self and

peer-assessment, etc.) specifically designed to: involve students in the assessment process encourage dialogue between students and their tutors encourage dialogue between students and their peers, and ultimately develop their abilities to make their own informed judgements

(assessment literacy as a graduate skill)

Staff peer discussion of assessment at course design stage, moderation, and staff development

Student involvement to include contribution to the development of assessment policy at course and programme level through the established processes and student representative system (3.4)



Explicit Criteria



Assessment design & development of explicit criteria

Tutor discussion of criteria

Marking and moderation

Staff Assessment guidance to staff



Explicit Criteria



Assessment design & development of explicit criteria

Tutor discussion of criteria

Marking and moderation

Staff Assessment guidance to staff

Rust C.,O’Donovan B & Price., M (2005)


Implementation: 2.1-2.4: course design

Constructive alignment

3-stage course design:

What are “desired” outcomes? What teaching methods require students to behave in

ways that are likely to achieve those outcomes? What assessment tasks will tell us if the actual outcomes

match those that are intended or desired?

This is the essence of ‘constructive alignment’ (Biggs, 1999)


Implementation 2.1-2.4: course design (contd.)

Emphasis on programme outcomes

Slowly learnt academic literacies require rehearsal and practice throughout a programme (Knight & Yorke, 2004)

The achievement of high-level learning requires integrated and coherent progression (based on programme outcomes)

Where there is a greater sense of the holistic programme students are likely to achieve higher standards than on more fragmented programmes (Havnes, p. 2007)


Implementation 2.1-2.4 & 2.7: course design (contd.)

Assessment for learning

Redress the balance from summative to formative assessment:

“…students become more interested in the mark and less interested in the subject over the course of their studies.” (Newstead 2002, p2)

Design out plagiarism and ensure authenticity Avoid bias and unnecessary disadvantage Programmes to produce assessment schedules of

summative assessment, and make every effort to avoid the concentration of assessment deadlines (API requirement)


Activity

Discuss:

How could you redesign your programme to redress the balance from summative to formative, and focus the emphasis on the assessment of programme outcomes?

20+20


Programme Assessment Task List Take a programme-based approach to assessment (2.1.; 2.2; 2.3; 2.7)• Develop a constructively aligned rationale for the programme assessment• Clarify & agree the programme’s expectations of students and approach to learning and

assessment• Develop an assessment schedule showing assessment timing, load and type and

feedforward opportunities

Develop assessment for learning (2.4; 2.5; 2.6)• Increase formative assessment particularly in Yrs. 1 & 2• Communicate clear and high expectations and foster students’ self-evaluative ability

through the programme• Determine those areas/literacies that are commonly ‘slowly learnt’ and allow for slow

learning• Provide opportunities for dialogue on student learning

Create a learning environment that fosters involvement & engagement (2.6; 2.9)

• Value, develop & prioritise processes that build relationships and involvement


Activity

Looking at the programme assessment task list, identify:

Aspects that your programme is already doing well

Gaps that your programme needs to address

How will you take this forward?

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Documents

Brookes Assessment Compact OCSLD and ASKe Centre for Excellence Chris Rust and Greg Benfield Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange & OCSLD