Digital assignments: How shall we grade them? A couple of years ago, I took the decision to encourage students to submit their assignments in forms other than the traditional, paper based essay. It was about time. Should we persist in assessing students in modes of communication they may never use in the real world? Clearly, there are several questions to contemplate here. The first question is how do you grade these assignments, if they are not presented in traditional essay mode? The second question is how can you ensure that students put the equivalent cognitive effort into say, a video, as they would into a 4000 word assignment? Whatever you decide to do, it will be imperative that you ensure all assessment criteria are applied equally across all assignments, no matter what wrapper they are presented in. There are further, procedural and administrative issues that each institution will need to deal with. I'm certain this is not complete. Photo from Wikimedia Commons Digital assignments: How shall we grade them?
Dylan Wiliam Professional development Finally! The revised Embedding formative assessment pack for schools and colleges to run their own two-year professional development programme on formative assessment is now available worldwide. In Europe, this can be ordered through SSAT, in Australasia through Hawker-Brownlow, and in North America from Learning Sciences International. Further details of the pack are here. Also, a series of high-quality video presentations by Dylan Wiliam, with a total running time of over two and a half hours, is now available world-wide.
Assessment in open spaces Photo: Tay Railway Bridge (Dundee) CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Tim Haynes “We have to build our half of the bridge, no matter who or where we happen to be.” – Colm McCann Summary: Learning and pedagogical relationships are transformed when we engage with students in open online spaces or networked publics. These can become ‘third spaces’ of learning, beyond the binary of informal and formal learning. Once a closed classroom (physical or online) becomes open to the world, assessment options multiply, with many more opportunities for student choice, voice and creativity, and of course, feedback. [Slides] [Audio interview] xx This post summarises my talk at the eAssessment Scotland 2013 conference, “Assessment in Open Spaces”. The eAssessment Scotland conference is a completely free, 2-week event which is open, distributed and accessible. In this context, I examined three spaces in which networked educators meet networked students, and explored the affordances of these different spaces. Like this:
Going Paperless in Your Classroom and Saving to the Cloud with Dropbox Annotate Your PDFs with GoodNotes and Save Them to Dropbox As more and more classrooms, schools and districts are going with one-to-one device programs, I am often left shedding tears of sadness when I learn that the devices are used only to complement the learning that is already happening during a lesson. I am hearing about more and more educational technology leaders in secondary schools move towards one-to-one Chromebook programs rather than iPad programs, likely to avoid this very issue. At first glance, Chromebooks and other laptop options appear to provide more options for deeper integration during instructional time, while iPads seem to provide limited options for use throughout the entire school day. Make iPad Your #1 Learning Device in All Classes Why Does Using Technology Mean Typing on a Keyboard? Annotating PDF Files and Saving to the Cloud Opening a PDF File in GoodNotes Step 1 – Open the PDF File in Safari Open the link where your PDF file exists on the web. Annotate away!
Roger Tilles warns of 'dangerous' overemphasis on education testing Originally published: October 2, 2013 9:42 PM Updated: October 2, 2013 10:23 PM By JOHN HILDEBRAND john.hildebrand@newsday.com State Regent Roger Tilles leads a public Q & A at the Port Washington Library. (Oct. 2, 2013) (Credit: Barry Sloan) One of the region's top education policymakers warned a Port Washington gathering Wednesday night that what he termed a "dangerous" overemphasis on testing threatened to undermine a statewide movement toward high-quality Common Core academic standards. The speaker, Roger Tilles of Great Neck, who represents Long Island on the state's Board of Regents, said he supported Common Core, like most educators, because "it makes kids think." Tilles said, however, that Core standards were becoming confused with new tests that were rushed into place in April, and were being used to rate students' achievement and teachers' job performance. "I really don't want to see the Common Core lost, and I hear that," Tilles said. State Education Commissioner John B.
Quick Formative Assessment of Student Writing Since reading Bill Ferriter's post on whether or not true formative assessment is possible, I've been wondering how I could make my own formative assessments more efficient. This post features a screencast of me looking at student work for the purposes of formative assessment. Formative assessment is continuous assessment. In the context of writing workshop, formative assessment occurs during mini-lessons when I ask students to do a small task and I circulate to watch what students are writing. One common misconception of formative assessment is that teachers need to collect and "grade" all work multiple times. Below are some tricks to make formative assessments go more quickly. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. While I generally do it without paper, the process can be easily adapted to paper-based settings. It took me around 8 minutes to look at three student papers. "Brag" about the description I'm seeing in student work. What tricks do you have for efficient management of formative assessments?
Letters: Modern language exam grades translate into poor results It is well-known that the UK is losing out culturally and economically because of inadequate foreign-language skills among English native speakers. This problem has been significantly exacerbated by the fact that pupils choosing modern languages have not been rewarded adequately for excellent performance. Ofqual has acknowledged in its corporate plan 2013-16 that "relatively few A* grades are awarded in modern foreign languages when compared with other subjects with a high proportion of A grades". This finding confirms evidence by schoolteacher associations that has repeatedly been presented to Ofqual and the exam boards since introduction of the A* grade at A-level in June 2010. The disadvantaging of modern languages candidates in school examinations has been blighting the subject at all levels, and will continue to do so until the unfair grading is addressed effectively.
Blogging for Writing Instruction is Nothing short of Amazing! | Map without Borders Having read the dreaded “I am going to tell you about” 5-paragraph essay until my eyes glaze over and I fall into a comatose state, I have spent years scouring the earth for engaging approaches to writing. My quest has taken me to the promising lands of writing clubs, writer’s notebooks, and writer’s workshops, Four-square, and Six Traits, mystery bags, photo prompts, guided imagery, peer review, passed around team writing, speed writing, personal journals, and Morning Pages. Some were more engaging than others, but nothing too impressive…until….blogging. So, why is blogging so cool? Here we go! An authentic audience.Revising! And I saved the best for last. That miracle was worth the whole ride itself, but to see the overall transformation of a process that I used to dread and now look forward to with great anticipation….that is amazing. I use kidblog.org. Like this: Like Loading...
Graduate School of Education | Publications Literature review Oldfield, A, Broadfoot, P., Sutherland, R. & Timmis , S. (2012) Assessment in a digital age: a research review. Discussion papers Series authors Patricia Broadfoot, Sue Timmis, Sarah Payton, Alison Oldfield, Rosamund Sutherland Other publications Patricia Broadfoot, Alison Oldfield, Rosamund Sutherland and Sue Timmis (in press, 2013) Seeds of Change: the potential of the digital revolution to promote enabling assessment in Wyatt-Smith, C and Klenowski, V (eds) The enabling power of assessment. Conference contributions Broadfoot, P (2012) Can Digital Technologies Transform Educational Assessment? Timmis, S, Oldfield, A, Broadfoot, P & Sutherland, R. (2012) Where is the cutting edge of research in e-Assessment? Timmis, S & Draper, S (2012) Assessment Reform, Innovative Technology, Improving Formative Assessment and Feedback: Are They at Odds with Each Other?
How To Use Formative Assessment With (And Without) Technology - Edudemic - Edudemic Assessment & feedback programme The JISC-funded Assessment and Feedback programme is focused on supporting large-scale changes in assessment and feedback practice, supported by technology, with the aim of enhancing the learning and teaching process and delivering efficiencies and quality improvements. Access project blogs here1. See further information on the programme themes, and all project outputs at the Design Studio2. A final summary report is now available which highlights the main themes and lessons learnt from the first two years of the programme - 'Supporting assessment and feedback practice with technology: from tinkering to transformation' 3(October, 2013). Overview Assessment lies at the heart of the learning experience: how learners are assessed shapes their understanding of the curriculum, and determines their ability to progress. This programme, focused on supporting large-scale technology-enhanced changes in assessment and feedback practice, seeks to address these challenges. Funded Projects7
How To Use An iPad To Add Voice Comments To Grading Offering timely and effective learning feedback is a critical part of the learning process. This is a concept that’d seem to be more accessible than ever with technology, but sometimes technology is two steps forward, one step back. Take for example grading papers. While K-12 education has (mostly) moved away from pure academic essays to measure all understanding, the writing process is more important now than ever. Grading a physical piece of paper is as simple as writing in the margins, using established editing symbols, or others marking the paper up. While digital documents like pdfs allow for increased visibility, simpler sharing, and seamless curation, they have indeed taken a step back in regards to this all-important text marking. PDF Annotation Which is where pdf annotation software comes in. There are many pdf annotation apps available that allow this kind of text marking, but another killer feature that is somehow less celebrated: voice annotation. Other Details
Transforming Assessment and Feedback The Assessment and Feedback area of the Design Studio gives access to existing and emergent work of interest on assessment and feedback. In this area, you can explore topics associated with assessment and feedback, find out what we currently know about enhancing assessment and feedback with technology and follow links to emerging themes and outputs from the Assessment and Feedback programme. **New Briefings on Assessment and Feedback** Jisc has published four new briefings around key themes which have emerged from the Assessment and Feedback programme: Changing assessment and feedback practice with the help of technology Electronic Assessment Management Enhancing student employability through technology supported assessment and feedback Feedback and feed forward: using technology to support learner longitudinal development See also the final synthesis report Supporting assessment and feedback practice with technology: from tinkering to transformation' (Oct 2013)
7 Key Characteristics Of Better Learning Feedback 7 Key Characteristics Of Better Learning Feedback by Grant Wiggins, Authentic Education On May 26, 2015, Grant Wiggins passed away. Grant was tremendously influential on TeachThought’s approach to education, and we were lucky enough for him to contribute his content to our site. Occasionally, we are going to go back and re-share his most memorable posts. Whether or not the feedback is just “there” to be grasped or offered by another person, all the examples highlight seven key characteristics of helpful feedback. Helpful feedback is – Goal-referencedTransparentActionableUser-friendlyTimelyOngoingConsistent 1. Given a desired outcome, feedback is what tells me if I should continue on or change course. Note that goals (and the criteria for them) are often implicit in everyday situations. 2. Even as little pre-school children, we learn from such results and models without adult intervention. 3. Thus, “good job!” 4. 5. A great problem in education, however, is the opposite. 6. 7. References