I am not asking for new theories of teaching, learning and assessing: there are enough erudite papers, books and encyclopedias in all three areas. What is badly missing, is a pragmatic, holistic view of how these three didactic processes - in which every teacher is necessarily involved - work together to produce a satisfying if not optimal experience for all stakeholders: students, teachers and faculty.
This is a lot to ask for, so let me focus in a little bit. As I am personally more worried about assessment as about teaching and learning - there is plenty of discussion and experimentation in the latter areas - my question could be rephrased: How *is* assessment currently being done to profit from advances in learning and teaching strategies and technologies on the one hand, and how *does* assessment currently contribute to old and new teaching and learning practices?
Furthermore, I'm not so much thinking of what I prefer to call 'classical assessment' which is more or less synonymous with 'summative evaluation' by traditional means of yes-no tests, multiple choice tests, and/or open-format questions (note, these are all *written* assessments and using the jargon of test professionals *time-limited tests*).
In contrast, I am much more concerned about our ability (or not) to conduct objective, reliable and valid authentic assessments in the context of e.g. problem-based learning (PBL) or collaborative teaching/learning (CTL). Thus my question is about how you handle this sort of assesment in your class or other educational settings, e.g. student coaching when doing an individual project or writing a thesis.
Finally, I am asking about *your* personal opinions and experiences, positive and/or negative, of integrating assessment with ongoing teaching and learning, not about utopian visions how this might be achieved in an ideal world. Are there any outstanding personal experiences you have made which you would like to share and discuss with us?
I profited a lot by insisting upon the structure of error.
Why and how do we make errors ?
Describing the structure of errors bring us to the structure of figures of speech which are both enrichments and shortcuts to a richer expression of deeper thoughts.
Seeing is understanding and misleading mind representation may have their own ways. When they are repetitive, you have an effective way of learning through avoiding errors.
Jacques De Schryver, you might be interested in the work of Stephanie Chitpin, who uses Popperian cycles, including error elimination, as a way of teaching reflective practice in teacher education. I've attached a paper for your consideration.
As for Paul's question, I highly recommend the book 'Teaching for Quality Learning at University' which is all about aligning learning outcomes, teaching/learning activities, and assessment. The kind of assessment you would like to do, I think, falls nicely under rubrics (pages 106, 207, 218, 225, 232, 240, 242, 259, 264, 332, 339–41, 345–7, 351–2, 354, 359–60). John Biggs, the lead author, has a few journal publications but the book is far more useful...
My personal experience with rubrics is very positive. I design unique rubrics for different assignments, with maximum possible use of the course learning outcomes to guide rubric criteria. Ideally students are given the rubric before they do the assignment (in the case of PBL, they may have to write a report based on the task given?), the instructor uses the rubric to provide formative feedback on their work, and after they have a chance to revise based on the feedback the same rubric is used for their summative assessment. What do you think?
Thank you Tim,
I downloaded it and began reading.
Popper reminds me of Henri Poincare in Science and Hypothesis. Both interesting and not quite 'grand public'.
Less known are the works of Douglas Lenat in machine learning, like Automated Mathematician, which were for me like a Eureka ! The machine develops what reminds me of mental illness when looking for unbalanced gratifications.
It invents concepts and theorems, tentatively, with some success in basic mathematics.
I may write more if you are interested.
Jacques
Thanks Jacques, Poincaré looks interesting and there is an English copy of the book at Gutenberg that I'll put on my reading list (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37157/37157-pdf.pdf)
Lenat looks interesting too, could you suggest a reading?
Paul, I've added a link to a summary of an action research I did a few years ago. A major part of the design was integration of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. It is hard to describe because of the integration but essentially students did 'tasks' that had embedded curriculum. The task was mediated by both teacher and student for maximum gain based on the teacher's and student's knowledge of their needs. In doing the task, the teacher and student both, actively looked and listened for evidence of understanding in the performance based on a set of described outcomes in a range of levels. This is the assessment. Recognition of successful understanding was recorded at the level demonstrated and the collection of demonstrations defined the quality of student work. The benefits are a changed paradigm of success since all engagement MUST lead to success albeit at varying levels. Assessment is a recognition or matching process that happens daily, since the understandings are described in a range of levels.
Article Philosophy - Bremer Action research Story
Paul, the impression I got was that you were interested in pragmatic solutions. What we did was simple, requiring nothing particularly special but a commitment to a new approach. The only cost was the effort required by the teacher to change their thinking. That being said it was hard to get going because teachers are hard to change. The paradigm of success defined as 'passing exams' is inordinately hard to shift.
Mark, you are entirely right with your conclusion regarding the prevailing paradigm of success, and I admire your efforts and all of your colleagues - as spelled out so nicely and clearly in your paper - to bring about a change in at least one particular domain.
As for me, being a lonely contract lecturer at a vocational academy, I have no foothold or position to change anything beyond my own class(es). Fortunately, faculty and staff let me do my thing, which is: performing a balancing act between formative and summative assessment on the one hand, and project work and classical testing on the other hand.
However, in my eager to come up with a scoring system that supports this balancing act, I probably neglected a bit the pedagogical aspects you wrote about. That is, although I do have regular contact with the teams of students who are doing a project, it has never been so extensive and/or intensive as you reported, and it was only seldom on a person-to-person basis (in contrast to my coaching of students doing an individual research project or writing their bachelor thesis) . You encouraged me to put more efforts in there. As lectures are starting next week again, I'll give it a try now that my scoring system is finished.
Thanks for sharing your ideas and experiences at Bremer School! Keep going!
I remember giving advices in a forum. I had started a post on rewriting and... either no one was interested, or merely criticizing.
Loool, then I went on folowwing my own advice and getting the benefit to me only. The same way when I was a teacher I used to ask a bad pupil to teach back something precise to another poor pupil. Then the result was the little teacher became more proficient than the little teachee...
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