Mar 10 2007
Assessment, Assignment Results and the IWB Alternative….
Recently it seems in both my studies and in my assessment of students the difficulty of assessing projects and assignments is very apparent. I have recently been looking at the grades for the AS Applied ICT examinations, and the continuing discussions on the TES forums that the assessment criteria is so open to personal interpretation that it is almost impossible to ‘guess’ the right grade.
This becomes even more worrying when you put this in the context of the student rather than the teacher. How difficult is it if neither the consistency of assessment for an examination or an easy method to explain to students what marks are given for what – where does that leave students. It brings up the further question of assessment in general, what is being assessed or even what is important to assess? If the criteria says a student should research six items and they research six but not the specific categories linked into the criteria they lose a great deal of marks – when in fact the research and area they have looked up is more up to date and shows a great deal of thought. It probably is no wonder that most courses at Secondary level(within the National Curriculum) are moving away from project based to test based – but surely there should be a better answer as in the ‘real’ world that we work- it is not about examinations but about problem solving and projects 99% of the time?
I will be interested when I begin to teach IB Technology and IT courses next year which from looking initially seem to still focus very much on project work how there assessment criteria differs from National Curriculum courses? Is it more successful, and maybe more fair?
This also links with my recent 3rd assignment grade which I was pleased with, even though it was a few words over the limit and so must have been marked down because of this. However another student on the course asked that from the basic feedback he had received he had no idea of where he went wrong, how would he improve etc… It again made me think that the assessment criteria is similar to the GCE courses in being very vague. Maybe at Masters Level this needs to happen due to the diversity of the projects and assignments undertaken. But in one point his comment was salient in that the three assignments I have finished I don’t really know apart from word limits and double spacing my assignments where I have gone wrong. Within distance learning this maybe opens a problem, in that face-to-face meetings would have inevitably led to some discussion of the assignments and how to improve. Whereas in distance learning unless as a student you specifically search for this, this sort of feedback does not happen? The Masters course also focuses only on the assignment, not on the initiative or project idea, not on the seminars and collaboration within discussions and projects…would it not be feasible to provide a more rounded assessment even at Masters level?
I don’t know. Anyway just a few thoughts which maybe I will open up and clarify later…
At this moment there is some excitement within the my current school as the directors have purchased Onfinity Portable IWB System – which is a cheaper alternative to the Smart Boards most of us have knowledge of. I have tried systems like this before and not been impressed especially with the robustness and ease of setup of the systems. We will be trying them out this week at school, and I will be giving a training session at the end of the week to teachers. My initial thoughts are the technical side of the system seems fine, but the software and support look to be poor. Without software and interactive applications it might be a non starter. So my challenge within this week, is to try and find some free interactive applications that can use this style of IWB to its full advantage. Any ideas please add send in your comments.
Recent Comments