Flexible Student Centred Assessment

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Flexible Student Centred Assessment

• The FleSCA project
• (Janet and Peggy)

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Overview of this talk

• Background to the project
• Previous work by us
• Previous work by others
• Pedagogical issues
• Designing the tool
• Practical issues
• Usage and Evaluation

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Background
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Concerns

• Too many assignments to mark
• Too many of the SAME assignments to mark
• Plagiarism
• Bias towards some learning styles

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Previous solutions

• FleSCA (the prequel!)
• Students give a choice of presentation styles
• Students reported favourably on the concept
• Tutor found no major problems

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Research findings

• Performance may be undermined by a perception of
  a lack of control
• Control, competence and self-confidence are
  inter-linked
• Grades are motivators for students

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Project Overview

• To design and build a tool to allow students to
  make choices about
• Presentation styles
• Complexity
• Content (context)
• Con/Di-vergence of study

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Processes

• Built Web Site
• Made time plan
• Deconstructed an earlier assignment
• Designed tool
• Built tool
• Tested tool
• Evaluated tool

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Deconstruction
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Designed and built tool

• Website Flash tool and database
• Sequentially students go through choices for
  task1, task2, task3
• Presented an assignment spec.
• Students were advised of maximum mark
• Gave chances to go back or finish

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The FleSCA tool
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Marking the work

• New approach had to be taken problems included
• No / Wrong assn spec with the hand in
• Misunderstanding task two
• Students getting 100
• Marked in two ways quick to mark no evidence
  of plagiarism

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Evaluated

• Usage 7 gt 5, 75 gt2, 18 1
• 31 students emailed module tutor technical and
  understanding
• 15 had misunderstood task 2
• you will study an algorithm of your choicethe
  algorithm will test for symmetry
• Post task qairre 52 in favour of extending
  the idea to other subjects / assignments

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What did we find?

• Innovative assessment surprises the students
  like a pass the parcel the first time..
• Technical incompetence..
• Language gap between developer and the module
• Process resulted in a greater range of marks

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SoIf we had the chance?

• Outputs ahead of inputs
• Tool more robust
• Automated the test data delivery

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What are we now doing?

• New cohort to use FleSCA tool
• Secured internal funding to expand ideas
• Surveyed lecturers re. what goes on
• Designed a generic process for lecturers -
  RePLICATE

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Acknowledgements

• The Research Team
• Peggy Gregory
• Gavin Sim
• Katie Taylor
• The Students
• CO1402 Problem Solving
• The Sponsors
• LTSN-ICS Development Fund