Assessment: The Basics and Beyond

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AssessmentThe Basics and Beyond

• Dr Sarah Williamson

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Welcome

• Housekeeping
• What is LTSN Engineering?
• Breaking you in gently to thinking about
  assessment..

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Housekeeping

• Fire exits
• Toilets
• Refreshments
• Taxis

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What is the LTSN?

• The Learning and Teaching Support Network
• Established January 2000
• 24 subject centres Generic Centre
• 8M/annum over an initial 5 year period

• Networking
• Promotion and sharing of good practices LT
• Knowledge brokerage

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National Priority Areas

• widening participation (50 by 2010)
• ensuring fair access to higher education
• maintaining and improving retention rates
• enhancing the employability of graduates and
  diplomates
• encouraging and disseminating good and innovative
  practice in support of high quality learning and
  teaching

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LTSN Contribution

• Brokerage
• Identify needs and provide resources/events to
  help meet them

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Establish Network

• Engineering HE Community
• 250 Departments at 100 HE Institutions
• LTSN Engineering Departmental Contacts
• 75 Departments at 90 HE Institutions
• Regional Departmental Contact Networks
• Southeast Co-ordinator Su White _at_ Southampton
• Mailing lists
• 1200 on mailing list
• 600 on engineering JISCmail list

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Web

• Key communications medium
• News Events
• Resources
• 150,000 hits per month
• www.ltsneng.ac.uk

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Events

• Regional Events (8 per year)
• Student Motivation and Retention - Strathclyde
• Hybrid Programmes Coventry
• Assessment - Essex
• UK-SPEC - Northumbria
• Workshops
• Distance learning
• Output standards

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Commissioned work

• Funding Opportunities call now out.
• Mini Projects
• Special Interest Groups
• Case Studies
• Key Skills in Engineering
• Reviews
• Book reviews
• Software reviews
• www.ltsneng.ac.uk/ale/fundopps

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Resources

• Guides
• www.ltsneng.ac.uk/er/resources/
• Benchmark papers
• Disabilities report
• FE Scoping Study
• Assessment of Individuals in Teams
• LTSN MathsTEAM Project
• Diagnostic Testing, Student Support, Teaching
  Maths in Context

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LT materials

• SearchLT Engineering
• www.searchlt.engineering.ac.uk
• Searchable database of online teaching materials

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Working with Projects

• There are around 40 active/recent funded LTA
  projects that are generating resources. e.g.
• RAPID -Progress files
• e3an -CAA Question banks
• Project Squared -project based learning
• PROGRESS -Progression Retention
• 3 new projects under the HEFCE disabilities
  funding
• 2 new projects on 'maths for engineering' under
  the HEFCE FDTL4 fund

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Supporting Maths

• HELM project
• http//helm.lboro.ac.uk
• mathcentre UK Maths Learning Support Centre
• www.mathcentre.ac.uk
• LTSN MathsTEAM project
• www.ltsn.ac.uk/mathsteam

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Get Involved!

• Register
• Contribute expertise and experience
• Support events
• Use the centre
• Advise on needs and gaps
• Encourage others to do the same

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Thinking about assessment
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Breaking you in gently

• Get yourselves into groups of 3.
• Task
• To make a container to hold an egg capable of
  being dropped from a height without the egg
  breaking.
• Each group will be given a package of material,
  together with an egg.

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The egg game

• Write down the criteria on which you would like
  to be assessed by your peers.
• Your peers will assess you after you have
  completed the task.
• You can use up to 5 criteria, but the one
  criterion that you must all use is that the egg
  should not break!

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The egg game

• Now determine how much weighting is to be
  allocated to each criteria.
• You have a total of 100 marks where at least 20
  marks must be allocated to the core criteria of
  the egg not breaking.

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A Guide to Criteria

• Must be open
• Understandable by staff and students
• Achievable - in time available
• Fair - no gender or cultural bias
• Practicable - are the resources available to all?
• Must aid learning

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Developing criteria for assessment

• Key questions...
• How do we develop criteria?
• How can criteria be explicit without being
  over-directive?
• How can we ensure that co-authors have a shared
  understanding of criteria?
• How far can students be involved?
• How should criteria be weighted?
• How can we develop criteria for process as well
  as product?

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How should it have been done?

• In your groups re-write the original
  instructions.
• Think about the following
• How much information should you give?
• How can you ensure you give the information
  required without giving away all the answers?

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Would you change the criteria?

• In your groups re-write your assessment criteria,
  providing more details.
• Think about the following
• How much information should you give?
• How can you ensure you give the information
  required without giving away all the answers?