COURSE OVERVIEW:

Assessment guides learning and provides a key tool for judging performance and the level of attainment to the student through assessment and feedback.

Well thought out and considered assessment and feedback can be a vital tool in significantly influencing student learning through guiding a student’s study practices and rewarding the student for developing the skills, knowledge and abilities valued by the educational institution.

A key role for assessment and feedback is in supporting the student to become a more self-reflective learner, who is able to self-assess, peer assess and use these outcomes in conjunction with assessment feedback to improve their performance

Assessment and feedback should be appropriate to the outcome and the level of the student and should allow the student to demonstrate their performance against criteria and their developing knowledge and skills.

In order to maximise the benefits to students and trainers from effective and efficient assessment, the development of assessment and feedback should be a core part of the module or course, and program.

Assessment and feedback should relate clearly and directly to program and module (or equivalent) aims and learning outcomes. Assessment tasks should encourage effective student learning and should require students to engage with the subject material through spending ‘time and effort’ on challenging learning tasks.

Assessment tasks should be chosen carefully to ensure they assess the outcomes specified and for information about assessment tasks to be clear, explicit, accurate and timely. Advice should also make explicit the requirements of assessment tasks for the benefit of staff, externals and students.

High quality feedback is constructive and encourages self-assessment, reflection and making judgements against criteria and standards; it helps students to self-correct and encourages motivation.

Note: The principles in this course are not specific to any level of study and can be used across a range of qualifications, with contextualisation.

The first part of this course contains discussions on assessment in general, with an expanded review of the design and use of learning outcomes. This part includes discussions on: the values for best practice in assessment, why should we assess, what are we assessing, when should we assess, how to design learning outcomes and link them to assessment, plagiarism and cheating in assessments and how to monitor the quality of assessment processes.

The second part explores a variety of ways in which feedback can be given to students and includes many suggestions for optimising the usefulness of such feedback. This part includes discussions on: the importance of quality of feedback, how to help students to make the most of your feedback, how to reduce your load: short cuts to good feedback, how to provide feedback in writing or print, how to provide face-to-face feedback and how to provide electronic feedback.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

By the end of this course, you will be able to understand:

·       The values for best practice in assessment

·       Why assessments should be valid, reliable, transparent, authentic, fair, equitable, timely, incremental, redeemable, demanding, efficient and manageable?

·       How assessment should motivate students to learn?

·       How assessment should promote deep learning?

·       Why formative assessment should start as early as possible in a course or module?

·       How assessment should enable the demonstration of excellence?

·       Why should we assess?

·       How help students to learn from their mistakes or difficulties?

·       How help students make realistic decisions about whether they are up to the demands of a course or module?

·       How to structure our teaching and constructively align learning outcomes to assessments?

·       What are we assessing?

·       Do we assess students’ knowledge, or just assess the information they can give us back?

·       Do we assess specific subject knowledge, or is it how well students can apply such knowledge?

·       If we are assessing a holistic or serialist assessment?

·       When should we assess?

·       Why consider starting diagnostic assessment before anything else?

·       How to design learning outcomes and link them to assessment?

·       How to ensure that assessment is constructively aligned?

·       How to design and use learning outcomes?

·       How help students to take ownership of the intended learning outcomes?

·       Why you should not confuse learning outcomes and assessment criteria?

·       How to get students self-assess their achievements?

·       How to prevent plagiarism and cheating in assessment?

·       How to distinguish between malicious and inadvertent plagiarism?

·       How to act decisively when you discover copying?

·       How to help students to understand the fine line between collaborative working and practices that the college will regard as cheating?

·       How to monitor the quality of assessment processes?

·       Why beware of upward-creeping standards?

·       Why the quality of feedback should be timely, articulate, empowering, manageable, developmental and personal and individual?

·       How to help students to make the most of your feedback?

·       Why feedback should be realistic and honest?

·       Why use audio files for giving feedback?

·       How to give feedback in writing or print?

·       The advantages and disadvantages of feedback presented via handwritten comments

·       The advantages and disadvantages of feedback presented via word-processed comments

·       The advantages and disadvantages of feedback presented via model answers or solutions

·       The advantages and disadvantages of feedback presented via assessment return sheets

·       The advantages and disadvantages of feedback presented via word-processed overall class reports

·       The advantages and disadvantages of feedback presented via codes written on students’ work

·       How to give face-to-face feedback?

·       The advantages and disadvantages of face-to-face feedback to whole classes

·       The advantages and disadvantages of face-to-face feedback to individual students

·       The advantages and disadvantages of face-to-face feedback to small groups of students

·       How to give electronic feedback?

·       The advantages and disadvantages of feedback presented via emailed comments on students’ assessed work

·       The advantages and disadvantages of computer-delivered feedback

·       The importance of acknowledging receipt of assessments

·       How to provide specific feedback to individuals by email?

·       How to combine email feedback with written feedback?

·       How to use a computer conference to provide subtle pressure on students to submit work on time?

·       How to use the conference system to provide general feedback to groups?

·       How to use computer-generated feedback?

COURSE DURATION:

The typical duration of this course is approximately 2-3 hours to complete. Your enrolment is Valid for 12 Months. Start anytime and study at your own pace.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

You must have access to a computer or any mobile device with Adobe Acrobat Reader (free PDF Viewer) installed, to complete this course.

COURSE DELIVERY:

Purchase and download course content.

ASSESSMENT:

A simple 10-question true or false quiz with Unlimited Submission Attempts.

CERTIFICATION:

Upon course completion, you will receive a customised digital “Certificate of Completion”.