Commonalities across the cases
المؤلف:
Mary Rice & Coral Campbell & Judith Mousley
المصدر:
Enhancing Teaching and Learning through Assessment
الجزء والصفحة:
P427-C35
2025-08-16
665
Commonalities across the cases
There were several commonalities across the case studies reported above. The first is that the lecturers demonstrated a deep level of interest and ability in developing their knowledge and skills, both through reflection on what was not working well and their willingness to trial new assessment tasks, or modify existing ones.
The lecturers interviewed were professional and committed. They were articulate when talking about what they do and why, and had a sophisticated understanding of theories relating to knowledge acquisition. Indeed, most of them mentioned their belief in 'constructivist' epistemology, where learners construct and re-construct their own understandings through experience and social interaction. They had critiqued the notion that knowledge is acquired through a 'transmission' model from one with expertise to one without it.
All were enthusiastic about teaching well, but expressed some dissatisfaction with two features of their previous assessment practices - mostly based on essays, with some also using exams. First, they felt that assessment tasks required at the end of a section of work, or the end of semester, were not very helpful for either students or staff in terms of learning. Feedback on summative work is usually not immediately useful for students and common misconceptions can usually not be used in the structure of further learning activities.
The lecturers displayed broad understanding about the multiple roles of assessment - for assessing, for example, students' knowledge and skills related to course content; social skills, information exchange abilities and professional capabilities; strengths and levels of understanding of content as well as areas needing further attention; analytical and interpretive abilities; levels of competence and confidence with various kinds of professional tools and resources (including technology use); and the amount of effort and time spent in engaging with the tasks. While marks were not allocated to such aspects of student performance, lecturers could get a good sense of where their assistance, prompts or guidance were needed during the semester.
It was apparent that lecturers we interviewed were prepared to take risks. This was indicated first by their willingness to work in a relatively high-risk, and sometimes unstable, online environment. Second, they were more concerned about student learning than maintaining the traditional institutional culture, and showed a willingness to move both teaching and assessment practices (and the institution) forward. Such risks, however, were managed proactively. While able to talk about practical difficulties such as organizing online group work, and coping with the time-consuming demands of formative online assessment, for example, they had already planned ways around difficulties experienced to date. They believe teaching and assessment approaches need to take account of the realities of students' lives. So, rather than focusing on students as 'the problem', they focused on the way they designed and delivered learning experiences to students.
One common point across every case of innovative assessment practice we studied was that both lecturers and students viewed assessment as a core element of the teaching and learning experience. This was evident in language use when both staff and students frequently referred to the assessment tasks as 'learning activities' and 'teaching tasks', rather than 'assignments'. Many of the lecturers talked about students being 'deeply engaged' or 'immersed' in these learning tasks over a period of time, and others noted that their tasks were used to develop students' 'professional understandings and skills' through professionally 'authentic', 'pedagogical' 'challenging' tasks. Thus, the assessment tasks were clearly experiential in nature in the sense that they were relevant and grounded in the real world of the students' intended professions.
Staff involved in the cases had a further aspect in common. They were all involved personally in developing extensive online components in their units. This involved collaboration with academic colleagues (within and across their faculties), education designers and multimedia and online developers. They did this because they believed the online environment enabled them to integrate assessment tasks more deeply into the learning experience. The process of working with other people sharpened their pedagogical viewpoints and helped them to shape and crystallize ideas about teaching in more focused ways. For them, the pedagogy was paramount, the technology just a tool. They had developed a strong understanding of the nature of the technology and were able to deal sensibly with its propensity to be unstable at times.
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