Jude Carroll
Oxford Brookes University
Strategies for assessment and
feedback
ESCalate & ‘Teaching International
Students’ Collaboration
11th May 2010
University of Bristol
Strategies for assessment and
feedback where….
…. teachers & students may not share
Expectations (‘Why is the teacher asking for this?’)
Language (‘Doing it in English!’)
Past experiences (‘What is an essay?’)
(‘I rely on just my textbook to pass’)
(‘ .. What is a TESCO?’)
Future goals (‘I must get a top mark….’)
Returning to the morning stories…
Assessment and feedback are
…. relational & interactive
… dependant on tacit and implicit knowledge
…. designed to maintain standards
…. culture-specific and language –dependent
…. unavoidable
…. And?...... What other characteristics do your
stories show?
Important:
Most international students go home with a
qualification.
Most teachers have developed strategies for
assessing diverse (culture + language) groups
Most standards seem safe
Most teachers give feedback
Most students say they would recommend others
to come and do their programme
But…..
Same outcomes with
Less stress?
Less workload strain?
Less struggle? [It will never be easy!]
Less panic? (real or imagined) about standards
More time and effort on learning?
More rapid catching on by students of what is
expected?
More efficient ways to align teacher/student
expectations and actions?
Standing in international students’ shoes….
[especially in the beginning]
Assessment is in the top 3 for anxiety (UCoSA,
2004)
Unexpected / surprising (‘..did not expect
difference’ Pointon, 2009)
Unavoidable
Unfamiliar (a bit… very … totally)
Unclear (Grades, Standards, criteria ….) "Despite having
earned almost exclusively very high marks, handing-in always feels
like a trip to the casino to me”.
Urgent & Important
Time-consuming
[Over time], often welcome
A Postgrad student writes, [at the end of her UK
studies]:
During my studies in Romania I had to memorise
things, which …. was tested and nobody cared if
the following day you remembered nothing.
However, during my Masters degree [in the UK] I
had to write 4,000 word assignments and read
many articles from dissimilar positions. I also
had the chance to write about topics that I was
interested in, which made the tasks more
personal and enjoyable.
What differences can you spot? Go beyond the obvious
Awareness of assessment cultural
differences, different practices?
[Our Way …. or …… The Way?]
TASK: Read the handout.
Discuss: have you taught students with previous
assessment and feedback experiences like these?
Make a list: What assessment issues did the
students face when they travelled to UK
programmes?
What ‘works’ and what ‘does not work’ for
effective assessment practices?
Denial
‘I teach. It’s up to them to learn.’
‘I teach Chemistry. Oxygen is the same everywhere’
‘I didn’t admit this student who can’t speak English’
‘They came here for a British education….’
‘Repair’
‘You fix them and then I’ll teach them’
‘These students can’t….. They don’t ….. They are not motivated….’
Students must adapt
‘These students need to learn new ways, to
learn our ways. I’ll help them do that…. a bit’
Teachers accommodate and adjust their practice
‘OK, XXX is not reasonable so let’s require YYY. But this [ZZZ], this we cannot and
will not change…..’’
A shared responsibility…..
Students adjust and adapt ‘New game, new rules’
Teachers adjust, include and accommodate
‘New players, new game’
Focus for the rest of this session:
What helps and hinders both sides concerning assessment?
What contextual factors [institutional / disciplinary] need
attention?
A teacher- centred perspective: What can teachers do about
their own assessment practices?
What teachers can do that helps
students with UK assessment…..
Teaching relevant skills
Provide practice, practice, practice, practice especially if it is low-risk
Explicit discussion of difference. Probe for
meaning (New Chinese PG says: ‘Yes, we wrote a 15,000
word UG dissertation using many sources’)
Exemplars
Specific, criteria-linked feedback. Lots!
Making ‘what works for students in
assessment’ happen?
• Institutional-level strategy (admissions, informal
curriculum, resourcing for advice and guidance,
specialists etc)
• Programme-level planning
Less ‘support’, more ‘teaching’
Progression, focus on graduates’ outcomes
Raising students’ own awareness (‘assessment
literacy’)
• Teachers’ skills
Addressing teachers’ concerns and
Teachers’ concerns about assessment and
feedback [for international students]
• Time
• Standards
• What to mark
• Fairness
• Students’ contextual knowledge / setting a task
What are the questions we need to be asking
ourselves and our colleagues about effective
assessment and feedback?
Activity: In groups, we will address 4 areas
which link to effective assessment of
international students
Task: using the prompts and the handout,
create questions that need to be answered.
Concentrate on making good questions.
Write the three best on a flip.
Focus on standards [Reliability]
[What students should be doing + how well they
should be doing it]
Agreeing on :
• Criteria
• Outcomes
• Grades
• Thresholds between pass and fail
• Achievements for level (start, middle, graduate….)
• … ‘good enough’ English language standards
• Plagiarism and use of sources
Focus on Validity
[What teachers should be judging, aligned with
learning outcomes.]
Agreeing on :
• relative importance of language, structure,
ideas/content in determining a grade
• downplaying/ overlooking less important
criteria when marking
• sustainable marking: managing frustration,
‘bug-bears’, stamina, etc
Focus on method [‘How’ ‘what’]
[What teachers ask students to do to show they have met
learning outcomes.]
Creating tasks which:
• give everyone an equitable chance to succeed
• permit alternatives [formats] where appropriate to
strengthen validity (for example, less language demanding
methods where content is central; more time where some
read slower; etc)
• assess students’ learning in the course, not what they bring
with them
• keep teachers’ workload realistic
• match students’ workload to the value of the grade.
Focus on Feedback
[How we tell students if they are on track. In future,
getting on track or improving.]
•
•
•
•
•
•
Clear (the student understands what it means)
Helpful (The student can act upon it for future benefit)
Specific (The student can see how it could be done)
Timely
Focused (The important messages)
Efficient (Teacher workload is sustainable)
Finding answers
Bringing it back to you