Assesment

Assessment is a powerful driver of innovation and change in education and it’s strictly related to our own theory and philosophy of teaching and learning. It should be designed to support worthwhile learning (Gibbs and Simpson, 2004).

I believe that the meaningful challenges in designing proper assessment in face-to-face environments are the same challenges using technologies. However, technologies provide a huge potential for promoting computer-aided assessments.

I’ll mention some of the advantages for formative assessment (Jenkins, 2004) that are related to my design-context:
• repeatability
• Immediacy of response to the students – providing a close connection between the activity and the feedback
• Immediacy of marks to staff for monitoring and adaptation
• Reliability and equitability
• Increasing the diversity of assessment
• Markers are not influence by presentation
• Timelines – potential for assessment to be used at the most appropriate time, for example weekly tests
• Flexibility of access especially using the web
• Student interest and motivation
• Student-centred skills and learning – open access can encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning.
Focusing on my assignment context my main challenge is “time”. Time to figure out the technology, the design and create it.

This is the link to my assessment assignment in Moodle

References

Jenkins, M. (2004). “Unfulfilled Promise: formative assessment using computer-aided assessment.” Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. 1, 67-78.

Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf