Paperless Alternatives to Written Assessment Mario Weick School of Psychology Learning and Teaching Network, Wednesday, 21 Nov 12
Aims • Reflect on new ways to administer and assess student coursework. • Sharing experience and practical guidance.
The Challenge • We want to teach students critical reflection • Bound to the production of (new) thoughts • Multiple choice format easily done online but doesn't do the trick • We often fall back on essays • What are the alternatives?
Question • If you only read the first and the last page of an essay, would you arrive at the same mark as reading the whole essay? 1 2 3 4 Never Rarely Mostly Always
Question • To what extent do essays teach students how to give feedback? 1 2 3 4 Not at all A little bit Somewhat Very much
Solution • We want students to produce, not (only) to reproduce • Greater quantity ≠ more learning
Solution • Paperless = more freedom • Paper-based = less freedom
My Approach • 3rd Year Option: Attitudes and Social Cognition • 80 Students (more than expected) • Coursework (50% of final mark): – Annotated Encyclopedia (Wikipedia) Entry (20%) – Research Poster (30%) • All coursework submitted and administered online
Wikipedia • Review and critically evaluate the presentation of key concepts • Apply expert knowledge gained from the course to create a new or modified version of a Wikipedia entry • Annotations: justification of revisions • 400 words (excl. annotations and references) • Uploading to the Wiki website encouraged but optional
Wikipedia
Pros and Cons Students: I really enjoyed this piece of coursework interesting, it was nice to have something different making you think of how to improve previous work nice addition that we were able to upload our assignment. It was further motivation to do well it made you feel connected to the rest of the world of psychology in a way gave me a chance to evaluate the way in which I go through and construct my arguments for essays. I found this evaluative process very useful made me think about expressing ideas in a more concise way I liked how there was a specific choice to choose from
Pros and Cons Students: some of the Wiki articles were far easier to edit than others, since some where only maybe 4 or 5 lines long, whereas some were perhaps 20 paragraphs. there were obviously topics we had been taught more about and the people who got there first for whatever reason had a huge advantage idea of doing something different was a bit disconcerting had much practice with essays and research reports I find these easier as I have had the ability to improve in them it was different, more guidance would have been needed
Pros and Cons Faculty: 1. How will the students all be posting onto Wikipedia? How will they not just take what is there already? Can I assume the entry for each year will be on a different subject? Some of this may just be my ignorance but a little more explanation of how this works would be helpful. 2. Can you explain what assessment is being replaced by this and the rationale for changing it.
Pros and Cons Internal: "It would be easier if I print them [feedback sheets] off and the students collect the sheets from the office."
Pros and Cons External:
Conclusion • Challenging and hard work • Some way to go for the university to become paperless • Overall rewarding
Conclusion • Keys: – Lots of guidance for students – Keeping it short – Multiple assessments to spread risk
Q&A • Questions? • What can be done better? • How can the same principles be applied to other activities?
Thank you. m.weick@kent.ac.uk https://sharepoint.kent.ac.uk/psychology/paperless_assessment /default.aspx
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