Using technology to support assessment feedback by Stuart Henderson

1. ASSESSMENT AND FEEDBACK
Stuart Henderson.
SALT
TEL PATCH
15.11.2017

2. Assessment and
Feedback
Formats for Assessment and
Feedback in the HE environment
are rapidly changing …
Why?
How?

3. Changes are
driven by…
Political change... Student fees mean
that the students are now customers
and have more of a say in what
happens-NSS and other surveys.
Keeping up with the times... We expect
our students to leave Swansea with a
qualification, but also armed with the
wherewithal to compete in a modern
world and job market.
Competition… Other institutions are
moving on so “we must keep up”,
but this is an evolving learning process
that we are all undergoing.

4. …But more importantly…
For pedagogic reasons
• Widening assessment types teaches and tests a wider skill set than always using
essays
• Using technology is relevant in today’s world. Graduates will need to be “tech
savvy” or “digitally literate” in the outside world.
• Different students may learn/perform better in assessment through some
methodologies than others, therefore widening assessment type gives more
students the chance to shine.

5. Assessment Formats
• Essays
• Tests
• Presentations
• Reflective writing.
• Practical/Fieldwork Reports
• Surveys
• Groupwork

6. Reflective work: Wikis Bloggs and Journals
They all provide a place to:
• Publish to the web
• Collaborate with a group
• Post thoughts, opinions and ideas
• Comment on other peoples contributions
A variety of tools will provision these :
• Blackboard/campus pack
• Pebble+

7. Discussion Forums are Topic Centred
• Discussions are organised into topics by 'threads’;
• Anyone in the community can start a thread on a
topic of their choosing;
• All participants have an equal voice;
• Posts require someone to reply for a discussion to
take place;
• You can follow through a thread on a particular
topic.

8. Used to DISCUSS and DEBATE
• Class discussion
• Debate
• Q and A
• Role play
• Help forums
• Social forum
• Online icebreakers

9. Blogs are AUTHOR centred
• posts are made by the blog's author, or authors, only
• posts are often opinion pieces and written in the author’s voice
• readers can add comments to the author's post
• organised in reverse chronological order so the most recent posts
show on the entry page
• reflect the author’s identity in the tone, look and feel and content

10. Used To Reflect and Review
• learning reflections
• journal writing
• book reviews
• resource reviews
• software reviews
• editorial style articles
• personal publishing
• travel diaries
• news

11. Wikis are Content/Document centred
• wikis are for group authoring
• editable website with a complete version history kept
• aim is to reach a consensus or compromise on the content of the
page
• the focus is the content produced, not the individual authors
• usually neutral and objective
• discussion/comment is
separated from the wiki content

12. Marking and Feedback, Formal or Otherwise
University policy states that formal written feedback must
be in Electronic format. This can take any reasonable form,
but we have 2 centrally supported tools.
1. Turnitin Grademark… now Feedback Studio
2. Blackboard submission and marking tool
There are many valid ways to provide feedback less
formally… but it is worth pointing out when these are
happening:
• Class feedback/discussion
• Clickers
• Through a tool already in use

13. Groupwork
• There are many ways that Groupwork
can be used to facilitate assessments.
• Often, the tricky part comes in marking
• and producing individualised marks to separate group members.
Web PA is a peer assessment tool. Can facilitate the students
perception of what work was done by whom. They can contribute to
the grading, or be used by a subsequent marker to adjust grades to
negate any perceived unfairness in groupwork.