Help clarify good performance (goals, criteria, standards)

Transcription

1 Help clarify good performance (goals, criteria, standards) Do your students understand the assessment criteria that you use? Do they understand the standards required to achieve a particular grade for each criterion or overall? Do you discuss these with them before they start the task? If you do, are the students able to state these in their own words? Research has shown that students who engage with assessment criteria and standards are more likely to be able to manage their own learning. For example, Rust et al. (2003) found that by working with students in their first term on assessment, assessment criteria and marking that there was a significant increase in the marks in the final assessment, compared with students who had not taken part in the exercise. Provide clear definitions of what is required for each task Provide explicit marking criteria and standards Provide opportunities for discussion and reflection about the criteria and standards before students start the task Students put assessment criteria into their own words Students generate own criteria and standards and compare to staff criteria Provide model answers and opportunities for students to compare their own work against these Explain the rationale for the assessment task Marking exercises where students look at examples of work of different standards from a previous year to identify a rank order and why Blog MS Office Word, Excel Audio Screen capture (Jing, Camtasia) QuestionMark Perception() or Personal Response System (PRS) Resources such as Cite-2-Write

2 Encourage 'time and effort' on challenging learning tasks Are your assessments designed to encourage students to work in and out of class throughout the semester or year? Can the students see the relevance of the assessment task is it an authentic assessment? Spreading activities either as discrete pieces of work or building up to make a single piece of work throughout the module brings balance to the student workload and can encourage deep learning. This approach also provides opportunities for ongoing feedback. Even if marks are attached to the individual elements (summative assessment) the activities will also be formative assessments, because students should be able to build on the feedback provided for the next or subsequent stages or elements. Although a particularly useful approach to use with first year students, this can be extended to students in other years. Students complete a number of small summative assessments with regular feedback Group work activities or large assessment broken down into smaller tasks. Progress is monitored and feedback provided in a staged way over the course of the module Get students to set their own schedule for completing an assignment task with milestones. Marks could be awarded if the student delivers as planned and on time Portfolio of activities that is taken in regularly the activities could become progressively more challenging Regular activities to be completed in class Provide opportunities to practise skills before doing the assessed work Mock exams or provide opportunities for students to do past exam questions with feedback in a safe environment Provide feedback on examinations Staged final year projects literature review delivered first Have students prepare basic material prior to a session and use the time for more in depth activities Explain the rationale for the assessment task for group work (QOL or SharePoint) Templates MS Office PowerPoint with or without narration Electronic sources (scanned off prints on VLE) Video activities as part of preparation - eg for a lab class how to

3 Deliver high quality feedback What kind of feedback do you provide? How does it encourage students to assess and correct themselves? We all learn from feedback and it is important that students have the opportunity to learn from the feedback provided by staff. That learning, however, may be enhanced by high quality feedback. When students receive poor quality feedback they are less likely to act on it. The issues that students have with feedback include the time it takes to receive feedback after submitting the work, understanding the feedback that has been given this could be the language used, the handwriting, or not understanding the abbreviated shorthand. or the grade. If students only get a summary sheet are the comments explicit enough for the student to act on them intelligently eg does a student know what your spelling needs some attention or much of this work was irrelevant mean? Feedback should also be about feedforward - what can the student do next time to improve their performance. Ensure feedback is related to the assessment criteria Provide tutorial activities with feedback Provide feedback in advance of the assignment FAQs, common errors Feedback built into online tests Micro-tasks offering opportunities for formative feedback Generic feedback to whole group: following an assignment or as part of in class activities Feedback hours after hand in - skim, say 10%, of worked handed in, identify common strengths and weaknesses and feed these back to the class either in the next lecture or posting on to QOL. Select model answers as a feedback source and give feedback to the whole group via discussion board Ask students to indicate the areas they would like feedback on Ask student s to self-assess their work and provide feedback on this as well as the assessment for group work Comments on work using MS Office Word and Quick parts for statement banks Audio Screencast Jing and Camtasia Electronic Voting Systems (Personal Response System) Generic feedback typed and or audio posted on to QOL

4 Provide opportunities to act on feedback One of the issues frequently raised by staff is that students do not use the feedback given. There are a number of reasons why this might be including students perception of feedback coming too late, the module is over, and/or the mark achieved is acceptable to them. Students need to use both formative and summative feedback as a means of improving their future performance. Other than via the next piece of assessed work, do you provide students with opportunities to internalise and act on the feedback given? Equally, students will not be able to action the feedback if they do not understand it this usually comes down to the terminology used by the assessor. Provide feedback on a draft this could be tutor feedback or it could be peer feedback which engages the students with the assessment criteria and the art of marking Withhold the mark until the student has produced an action plan for the future work (360 0 feedback) As part of personal tutoring require students to produce an action plan at the beginning of the new semester/year on how they will address the feedback given in the previous semester/year Regular activities throughout module that receive feedback expect this feedback to be incorporated Have one assignment come in early which is marked and returned to the students in time for them to use the feedback in the second assignment Ensure that students understand the feedback provided Assignment tool in QOL Download template

5 Encourage interaction and dialogue around learning Dialogue between students and between staff and students plays an important role in student success. Students need to engage in dialogue around feedback. Large first year classes make one-to-one interaction between staff and students difficult, but meaningful dialogue can take place between students. Structure group projects so that students discuss the criteria and standards expected at the start and then review progress against the criteria Minute papers with questions covering the session results used at the beginning of the next session Use group work or support learning groups and learning communities Students set task for each other Students set MCQ with feedback to correct and incorrect answers Students discuss the written feedback they have been given with their peers and suggest strategies for future improvement Students bring brief pieces of work to tutorials which are then reviewed by a peer what is good, what is less good and how can it be improved? Students peer mark or peer review a draft which is then modified in response to the feedback provided Use the PRS to promote debate about the right answer when the results are shown Groupwork around any multimedia product PeerWise

6 Development of self-assessment and reflection If students are to acquire the skills of regulating their own learning and development they need to be able to self-assess their work. Providing students with opportunities to engage with self-assessment in a formal manner is likely to develop more autonomous learners and lead to greater engagement with the criteria and standards. Ask students to complete a self-assessment proforma (using the assessment criteria) this may include an estimate of the mark (your feedback would identify why there are gaps between the student s view and yours) Ask students to indicate the parts of their work which they feel are strengths and weaknesses A combination of the two above Students requesting assistance/feedback on particular aspects (this could be included with the above also) Peer assessment provides an opportunity for a student to engage with the criteria and standards on someone else s work and then apply that to their own Confidence-based marking for MCQs as well as providing an answer students have to rate how confident they are that this is the correct answer on a scale of 1-3. If the answer is incorrect then the penalty is greater the higher the level of confidence. If the answer is correct the mark depends on the confidence level. Students keep a reflective journal or portfolio through the course Online objective tests and quizzes for self-testing Students include how they have responded to earlier feedback A series of on-line formative tests Reflective blog Template MS Office - Word

7 Give choice of topic, method, criteria, weighting or timing of assessments Being able to manage and prioritise their work is a key graduate skill. Providing students with opportunities to make decisions about which topic to do, when to hand work in, the weighting of an assessment or part of it enables them to practise this skill. For example, students often have a choice of topic to, and some online testing allows them to take the test at some point during a specified period. Choice of essay titles Choice of topic for extended essay or project/dissertation Negotiated submission dates Students generate criteria for assessment Students provide additional criteria for assessment Students choose the weighting for parts of an assessment Students set their own schedule