Abstract for #ALTC2012: Seeking to improve NSS Scores in Assessment and Feedback utilising Technological Solutions

This paper is in the submission process, so we don’t know if it’s been accepted yet. 

Key Theme: Openness and Sharing
Type of Paper: Short paper (12 mins + 8 for questions)
Intended Audience: Conference delegates working, or intending to work, in cross-institutional projects, and also those with an interest in the contribution that technology can make to assessment and feedback are likely to be interested.
Intended Outcomes: Conference delegates will gain an insight into a large JISC funded project in process, and gain insights into some of the early findings.

Background

In 2008 the HEA published ‘Exploring the National Student Survey’ (Williams & Kane, 2008) indicating that students have demonstrated concern about issues relating to assessment and feedback since the late 1980s, an issue that continues to be of concern to institutions, particularly with the introduction of higher student fees. From 2009-2012 the HEA has funded TESTA (Transforming the Experience of Students Through Assessment), which has collected data from over 22 degree programmes in 8 universities in relation to both staff and student experiences of assessment and feedback. The research from this project identified many common and distinctive disciplinary challenges facing students and their teachers, notably quantity of effort, quality and quantity of feedback, usefulness of feedback and appropriate assessment.

Approach

FASTECH (Feedback and Assessment for Students with Technology) is a new JISC-funded project building on new body of knowledge, and pre-existing community of practice, seeking to undertake institutional change working from a programmatic level, involving 15 core programmes initially. TESTA has demonstrated that improving practices within particular degree programmes enables us to work with the grain of teachers’ subject interests, disciplinary emphases, and departmental loyalties, and to address the full course experiences of students. FASTECH picks up on particular concerns and seeks to identify standard technologies that have already been piloted in educational situations to address the problems identified in TESTA. Many of the key principles of the research and development processes that underpin the FASTECH project have been developed through the work on assessment and feedback undertaken by Professor Graham Gibbs, who works as an external advisor on the projects.

Results

A year into the project, the paper will focus upon how the two institutions are working together, highlighting the processes and digital practices involved, as we seek to encourage greater sharing of knowledge across our respective institutions, including the ongoing sharing of both knowledge and personnel. The project includes an effective mix of formal and informal face-to-face meetings, digital tools for tracking and collaboration, and staff and student surveys and focus groups, leading to positive engagement with those in our communities.

Conclusion

With an interest in constructing real change not only within the institutions involved, but across the entire Higher Education sector, the team is already identifying how best to disseminate the processes and findings, and is keen to encourage interaction and engagement with the HE community as a whole, through a website in development, offering key resources, and developing a template for case studies.

TESTA has already has already had over twenty universities within and outside the UK undertaking further research and development, and FASTECH is expected to be of similar concern to conference participants.

Tags: addressingInstitutionalProblems; problemSolving; openness; sharingKnowledge; sharingResources; research; feedback; assessment; CommunityofPractice; tools; processes

——————————–

The Association for Learning Technology annual conference:

The time, effort and money that learners invest in their education need to be matched by commensurate learning experiences, improved use of technology in learning, and effective methods of delivery, all underpinned by sustainable business models. Here are three of the hard questions that we face, both as institutions and as individuals, each centered on the development of knowledge about technology in learning:

• How can learning technology better support the core processes of learning, teaching, assessment, recruitment and retention?
• What will be the place of open educational resources and other kinds of free, shared, low cost or informal support and organisation in good provision?
• How should we respond to learners themselves, who are increasingly voluble in their desire for value for money and for effective use of technology?

The conference themes will be:

• Problem solving – finding effective solutions to technical problems, and using learning technology to solve institutional problems;
• Mainstreaming – applying learning technology on a large scale in pioneering ways that enthuse learners and are welcomed by teachers and administrators;
• Openness and sharing – methods and frameworks for collaboration and sharing of knowledge and resources between practitioners and between providers, and the evidence to justify this;
• Sustainability – of technologies, models, and approaches;
• Entrepreneurialism – moving resources from where they have low yield for learning and for learners to where their yield is higher.