Assessment and Feedback

Richard OelmannCentre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching

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Assessment and Feedback

CELT Assessment Seminars

● Assessment for Learning at USW● Learning Outcomes and Assessment (Achieving Constructive Alignment)

● Developing Innovative Assessment● Delivering Effective Feedback

http://slideshare.net/RichardOelmann

What is Assessment?

“In higher education, ‘assessment’ describes any processes that appraise an individual’s knowledge, understanding, abilities or skills.”

(QAA UK Quality Code for Higher Education, Chapter B6: Assessment of students and accreditation of prior learning, 2011, p.1)

Why do we assess our students?

● To create learning opportunities, and enable students to develop as learners (assessment for learning)

● To motivate students to succeed

● To provide feedback, both to students and to staff, on how well learning is happening in a course

● To provide a mark/grade that allows us to differentiate performance and to ensure that students have appropriate opportunities to show that they have achieved the intended learning outcomes for the award or credit they are pursuing. (assessment of learning)

● To act as a mechanism to assure standards internally and externally such that a USW award is regarded as being of an equivalent standard to other UK degrees and in line with external requirements

USW Principles of Assessment

● Assessment design drives and promotes effective learning

● Assessment is fit for purpose and valid against learning outcomes

● Requirements of assessment are clear and timely

● Assessment standards are best understood through active dialogue between staff and students

● Students should engage with assessment standards seamlessly as part of their course

● Ongoing formative feedback is based on dialogue and integrated into learning and teaching

● Summative feedback should be timely and aligned to the learning outcomes

● Assessment loads must be balanced and achievable within appropriate timeframes, with a presumption towards fewer more challenging assessments

● There should be variety in assessment across a course

● Assessment judgements should be reliable and trusted

Constructive Alignment

All components of the Learning Environment support each other

(Biggs 1999)

Constructive Alignment

Learning takes place through the active behaviour of the student: it is what he does that he learns, not what the teacher does.

Tyler, RW (1949)

Basic principles of curriculum and instruction

University of Chicago Press

Constructive Alignment of learning outcomes and assessment is predicated on the belief that the student constructs his or her own learning through engaging in relevant learning activities (hence constructive)

Curriculum Objectives

● Compare

● Solve

● Understand main ideas

● Relate to principles

● Name

● Hypothesise

● Analyse

● Explain

● Classify

● Elaborate

● Describe

● Apply to 'far' domains

● Reflect

● Cover topics a-n

● Memorise

● Generate

● Learn procedures

● Apply to 'near' domains

Order the objectives below – which would be assessed as higher skills?Rank them as A,B,C or D

Curriculum Objectives

Teaching/Learning Activities

Designed to elicit desired verbs- Teacher controlled- Peer controlled- Student controlled

Curriculum Objectives expressed as verbs

AReflect, Hypothesise, Generate, Apply to 'far' domains, Relate to principles

BApply to 'near' domainsAnalyse, Compare, Explain, Solve, Understand main ideas

CElaborate, Classify, Cover topics a-n, Describe

DLearn procedures, Name, Memorise

Assessment Tasks

Evaluate how well the target verbs are drawn out and used in context

The highest level of verb to be clearly manifested becomes the final grade

Bloom's Taxonomy

BLOOM B S (ed.) (1956) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, the classification of educational goals – Handbook I: Cognitive Domain New York: McKay

How do we do it?

● Redesign the learning outcome in the light of what you believe students will need to do in the assessment (iteratively)

● Try your assessment outline out on a non-specialist before sharing it with your students

● Focus of assessment must always be about the learning process of the student and not simply on content of knowledge

Avoid!

● Hidden assessment criteria● Assuming the students can read your mind● Assessment where there are no apparent links to learning

outcomes

● Grading based on something that is not explicit in the criteria

What is Innovative Assessment?

Innovative assessment could be any form of assessment which involves the application of a new technique or method.

(Mowl, 2005)

Innovative assessment is also about ‘the redistribution of educational power' when assessment becomes not just something which is 'done to' learners but also 'done with' and 'done by' learners.

(Harris and Bell, 1990)

Innovative assessment aims to produce a more fertile learning environment and a more rewarding learning experience for all teachers and students.

Innovative Assessment aims to produce students who are...

● deep rather than surface learners

● highly motivated and committed

● enterprising

● equipped with a range of transferable skills

● capable of self-criticism and evaluation

● fairly and reliably assessed

● active and reactive participants in the learning process, capable of 'creative dissent' rather than simply passive, uncritical recipients of other people's knowledge.

(Cowan,2006)

What is Feedback?

● Any response you make to student's efforts eg

– Marks/Grades

– Written, annotations, comments

– Face-face, oral

● What about:

– Facial expressions,

– Tone of voice

● Even failure to give feedback is a form of feedback

Feedback or Feedforward

Feedback is sometimes distinguished from feedforward.

● Feedback is intended to explain how a final grade

was assigned

● Feedforward is made earlier in the process and is intended

to point student in the right direction for completion.

Formative feedback is diagnostic information given before the work is completed. Like feedforward, it is intended to help the student revise and improve the work.

Summative feedback is a final analysis of the work, on which final grades are based. It can also point toward improving future work of the same type.

Why is Feedback so Important?

● Contributes to learning - when it is noticed

● Contributes even more to learning when the learner reflects on the lessons for next time

● Advice originating from the student's own recent work is more likely to be given attention, understood and acted upon

● Fuels constructive reflection by the learner.

Feedback to the students on their assignments is the single most powerful influence on student achievement.

Gibbs and Simpson (2004)

HEA – 10 Strategies for feedback

● Make it worth their while

● Build activities focussing on feedback into class/tutorial time

● Be seen to monitor whether students are reading and acting on feedback

● Involve students in actively doing something with feedback

● Give audio feedback, with marks at the end

● Give feedback without, or before, marks

● Embed dialogue with students as part of the feedback process

● Let feedback from one stage of an assessment feed into the next

● Make sure your feedback is worth reading

● Make sure your feedback is high profile

Thank youQuestions/Discussions?

So long, and thanks for all the fish!