Working from here.

After the rush of the micro-teaching assignments, we seem to have slumped, or maybe I have slumped, as we begin the next module. At first glance it is a bit of a hotch-potch, Student Support, Guidance and Assessment. Assessment seems like it could merit a module on its’ own, and at the moment I don’t quite see the link between it and Student Support and Guidance, which are fairly obvious bed-fellows. There is also a chunk on ‘supporting e-learning’ in the course documentation. There is an irony in our first assignment being non-assessed, when we discussed how assessment aids motivation! I’m sure we’ll look back and laugh. But the session with Andrew last night did give me some food for thought in relation to assessment. I am working on a couple of modules where it is continuous observation, no summative assessment detailed, but I am going to set a formative assessment task to aid me in assessing student progress, and to help keep students motivated. And I am going to dare to suggest to colleagues that we experiment with an alternative assessment method. I have a suspicion when we mark by consensus that the person who opens sets the tone for that student, and wonder if ‘blind’ marking would produce differing results. I wonder if assessing by ‘team’ produces the kind of clumping we see in marks, mostly around 55 – 65. I still don’t understand why we have a 70-100 band that is never fully used. Aberdeen University have a really clear 20 point assessment scale, which could make marking a bit easier, and spreads the percentages by 5% a mark. I still feel slightly uneasy with the thats a 62, thats a 63 approach that seems to prevail. But maybe in time…

A bit of reflection on the micro-teaching assignment. The session with Jess and myself was partially successful in my view. The second discussion was a bit stilted, and possibly would have worked better on a less emotive topic, which worked well for the first discussion. But a topic like ‘A zoo is cruel’ would not have been very authentic for our institution, and authentic learning is a good goal to strive for.

Steve was kind enough to offer some positive feedback, as the session was tight for time, students were asked to complete CIQ in their own time. We got one apparently, not seen it yet. Reinforces my feeling that if you value evaluation then integrate it into the lesson plan. We knew it would be too tight to include it and hoped for the five-minute changeover that seemed to work for the other groups. Be interesting to see their feedback actually. But the feedback from Julia and Andrew was excellent and pleasing for the work we put in.
I was a bit concerned we used so many envelopes. As Jess was merrily sealing them, I was leaving them open so they could be re-used.

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