Transcript Slide 1

Large Classes & Assessment
Professor Margaret Price
Director
ASKe Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
(Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange)
Oxford Brookes University
[email protected],
Outline
• Context of assessment
with large classes
• Assessment standards
and ‘the assessment
literate student’
• The assessment cycle
and interventions
• Community and density
of interactions
The Large Class Context - 2009
 Massification
 Resource reduction
 Broadening of learning outcomes
 Fragmentation
 Diversification
 Research agendas
 Regulation
 Quest for reliability
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Assessment: a key driver of student 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)
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
But there are problems…
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Quality reviews
National Student Satisfaction Survey (UK)
“the Achilles’ heel of quality” (Knight 2002a, p. 107)
Summative assessment practices “in disarray” (Knight
2002b, p. 275
• “Broken” (Race 2003, p. 5)
• “There is considerable scope for professional
development in the area of assessment” (Yorke et al,
2000, p7)
• Rising concern about cheating and plagiarism
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Problems contd.
“The types of assessment we currently use do not
promote conceptual understanding and do not
encourage a deep approach to learning………Our
means of assessing them seems to do little to
encourage them to adopt anything other than a
strategic or mechanical approach to their studies.”
(Newstead 2002, p3)
“…students become more interested in the mark and
less interested in the subject over the course of their
studies.” (Ibid, p2)
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Working towards assessment literacy
Communicating and engaging students with assessment
requirements: standards, criteria and feedback
 A key issue in assessment is that students often do not
understand what is a better piece of work and do not understand
what is being asked of them particularly in terms of standards and
criteria (O’Donovan et al., 2001).
 Understanding assessment criteria and standards is an
‘indispensable condition’ for improved academic performance
(Sadler, 1989) and enables assessment for the long term (Boud,
2009) – making informed judgements about one’s own work and
that of others which is fundamental to independent learning.
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
O’Donovan, Price & Rust 2008
Active student engagement
Formal activities and inputs
The Future
The Past
2. The ‘Dominant Logic’ Explicit Model
1. The Traditional Model –
Passive student engagement
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Informal activities and inputs
4. The ‘Cultivated’ Community of
Practice Model
3. The Social Constructivist
Model
O’Donovan, Price and Rust. 2008
Active student engagement
Formal activities and inputs
.
The Future
The Past
2. The ‘Dominant Logic’ Explicit Model
1. The Traditional Model –
Standards absorbed over
relatively longer times
informally and serendipitously
Passive student engagement
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Informal activities and inputs
4. The ‘Cultivated’ Community of
Practice Model
3. The Social Constructivist
Model
O’Donovan, Price and Rust. 2008
Active student engagement
Formal activities and inputs
The Future
The Past
2. The ‘Dominant Logic’ Explicit Model
Standards explicitly articulated (with
limitations) and passively presented to
students
1. The Traditional Model –
Standards absorbed over
relatively longer times
informally and serendipitously
Passive student engagement
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Informal activities and inputs
4. The ‘Cultivated’ Community of
Practice Model
3. The Social Constructivist
Model
Rust C.,O’Donovan B. & Price, M. (2005)
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Making meaning requires explicit and tacit knowledge
 Meaningful understanding of standards requires both tacit and
explicit knowledge (O’Donovan, B., Price, M., & Rust, C., 2004)
 “we can know more than we can tell” (Polanyi, reprinted 1998,
p.136).
 Verbal level descriptors are inevitably ‘fuzzy’ (Sadler 1987)
 There is a cost (in terms of time and resources) to codifying
knowledge which increases the more diverse an audience’s
experience and language (Snowdon, 2002).
 Tacit knowledge is experience-based and can only be revealed
through the sharing of experience – socialisation processes
involving observation, imitation and practice (Nonaka, 1991)
 ‘making sense of the world’ is seen as a social and collaborative
activity (Vygotsky, 1978).
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
O’Donovan, Price and Rust. 2008
Active student engagement
Formal activities and inputs
Actively engaging students in
formal processes to communicate
The Future
tacit knowledge of standards
The Past
2. The ‘Dominant Logic’ Explicit Model
1. The Traditional Model
Standards explicitly articulated (with
limitations) and passively presented to
students
Standards absorbed over
relatively longer times
informally and serendipitously
Passive student engagement
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Informal activities and inputs
4. The ‘Cultivated’ Community of
Practice Model
3. The Social Constructivist
Model
Rust C.,O’Donovan B. & Price M. (2005)
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Active engagement with criteria
Students need to understand the assessment
standards and criteria to be able to self-evaluate their
work in the act of production itself
 Actively engaging students with exemplars (ASKe
123 leaflet)
 Peer review and peer assessment
 Self-evaluation forms
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Rust C.,O’Donovan B. & Price M. (2005)
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Enhancing student learning
Feedback is the most powerful single pedagogic influence that
makes a difference to student achievement
Hattie (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 learning
Black and Wiliam (1998) - in a comprehensive review of
formative assessment
Students are hungry for feedback to develop their learning
(Higgins et al, 2002; O’Donovan et al 2001; Hyland 2000)
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Active Engagement with Feedback
 There is confusion over purpose of feedback
 Engagement is strongly influenced by opportunity to
apply feedback to future performance This relies on
• ability to understand feedback
• expectations of the utility of feedback
• perception of self efficacy
 Feedback is a process not a product. The relational
dimension within the process is key to student
engagement
 Dialogue supports understanding and engagement
(Price, Handley,& O’Donovan 2008)
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Enhancing student learning through engagement
with feedback
 Preparation and setting expectations early in the
programme
 Identifying ‘feedback moments’ and application
opportunities within the programme
 Emphasize the relational dimension of feedback
 Building in space for dialogue
All quite difficult to do in a resource-constrained
environment!
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
O’Donovan, Price and Rust. 2008
4. The ‘Cultivated’ Community of
Practice Model
3. The Social Constructivist
Model Actively engaging students
in formal processes to
communicate tacit knowledge of
standards
The Future
Tacit standards communicated through
participation in informal knowledge
exchange networks ‘seeded’ by specific
activities.
The Past
2. The ‘Dominant Logic’ Explicit Model
Standards explicitly articulated (with
limitations) and passively presented to
students
1. The Traditional Model –
Tacit standards absorbed over
relatively longer times
informally and serendipitously
Passive student engagement
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Informal activities and inputs
Formal activities and inputs
Active student engagement
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Rust C.,O’Donovan B & Price., M (2005)
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Cultivating community
Student involvement as measured by
student/staff and student/student interaction is
the most significant predictor of students’
academic success (Astin, 1997)
 Cultivating community and increasing density
of interactions
 ‘affinity space’,
 collaborative activity – e.g.group work
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
In addition, for group work to be effective, you
need to consider…
 Product or process?
 Group selection, group sizes
 Programme policy
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
In addition, for group work to be effective, you
need to consider…
 Groupwork and
learning outcomes
 Groupwork training
and practice
 Groupwork task integrated or legoised?
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
In addition, for group work to be effective, you
need to consider…
 Early warning systems
 Heterogeneous vs.
homogeneous groups
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
In addition, for group work to be effective, you
need to consider…
 Individual vs. group marks
 Mark allocation method
 Student provide feedback
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Cultivating community
Student involvement as measured by
student/staff and student/student interaction is
the most significant predictor of students’
academic success (Astin, 1997)
 Cultivating community and increasing density
of interactions
 ‘affinity space’,
 collaborative activity – group work
 social events
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange
Large classes and assessment - economies of
scale and improving learning
• Economies of scale in assessment without pedagogic
underpinning threaten learning effectiveness
• A new model of assessment is needed to support
independent learning
• Dependent on assessment literacy of students and
staff
Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange