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Develop self-motivated and independent learners:Engage and empower through assessment and feedback principles in practice

Kahiwa SebireSolutions Engineer, Blackboardkahiwa.sebire@blackboard.com@thisiskahiwa

Kahiwa SebireSolutions Engineer

Kahiwa.Sebire@blackboard.com@thisiskahiwa

What do employers and Industry want?

Why independent learners?

“initiative” “drive”

“motivated”“committed”

“loyal”“work independently”“time management”

“willingness to learn”

“Work-ready graduates”

What does that look like?

Why independent learners?

“UNSW graduates will be: Professionals who are capable of independent, self-directed practice, capable of lifelong learning”

Australian Curriculum General Capabilities: Critical and Creative Thinking “the practice of using thinking strategies can increase students’ motivation for, and management of, their own learning. They become more confident and autonomous problem-solvers and thinkers”

“Take control of their own learning,Set their own learning goals,

Locate appropriate resources,Decide on which learning resources to use,

Evaluate their progress”

Do you want learners who…?

Brookfield, 1995

“Research in higher education shows that learning is deeper, more sustainable and

satisfying when students become responsible partners in their learning.”

Why independent learners?

REAP Project Home http://www.reap.ac.uk/Home.aspx

Creating independent learners

Challenge:

Challenge: Creating independent learners

“The reason for an explicit focus on improving assessment

practice is the huge impact it has on the quality of learning”

Boud, D. and associates, 2010

“Assessment is the making of judgements about how students’

work meets appropriate standards”

Assessment

Boud, D. and associates, 2010

Feedback is the sharing of both those judgements and the standards

Design is key

The REAP project

REAP project - Assessment design should:

i. Engage students actively in identifying or formulating criteria

ii. Facilitate opportunities for self-assessment and reflection

iii. Deliver feedback that helps students self-correct

iv. Provide opportunities for feedback dialogue (peer and tutor-student)

v. Encourage positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem

vi. Provide opportunities to apply what is learned in new tasks

i. Capture sufficient study time and effort in and out of class

ii. Distribute students’ effort evenly across topics and weeks.

iii. Engage students in deep not just shallow learning activity

iv. Communicates clear and high expectations to students.

empower engage

What tools are available to support this?

Now to you…

Activity:

1. Pick one of the principles from the REAP framework

2. Discuss which tools in Educational Technology tools support this principle

i. Engage students actively in identifying or formulating criteria

ii. Facilitate opportunities for self-assessment and reflection

iii. Deliver feedback that helps students self-correct

iv. Provide opportunities for feedback dialogue (peer and tutor-student)

v. Encourage positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem

vi. Provide opportunities to apply what is learned in new tasks

a) Capture sufficient study time and effort in and out of class

b) Distribute students’ effort evenly across topics and weeks.

c) Engage students in deep not just shallow learning activity

d) Communicates clear and high expectations to students.

Tools to support:

• Forums to openly discuss assessment criteria• Choice activity to allow polling of different options• Wiki to allow open contribution to a living assessment criteria document• Rubrics/Checklist grading visible pre- and post- assessment• …?

i) Engage students actively in identifying or formulating criteria

Tools to support:

• Quiz with multiple attempts, and final score excluded from course grade calculations

• Quiz with feedback displayed based on individual responses• Workshop with self-assessment enabled• Blog/Journal for self-reflective writing• …?

ii) Facilitate opportunities for self-assessment and reflection

Tools to support:

• Quiz with well constructed feedback, done in a way which starts early in the learning journey

• Assignment activity, using the rubric tool to help students identify the point of weakness in their knowledge

• Lesson activity with corrective guidance built in to the learning path• …?

iii) Deliver feedback that helps students self-correct

Tools to support:

• Assignment with draft submission enabled and used appropriately to create dialogue in marking process

• Dialogue activity used in conjunction with an assessment task• Forum, where students & academic staff can provide feedback on student

submissions• …?

iv) Provide opportunities for feedback dialogue

Tools to support:

• Database activity, by allowing rating of student work in a public forum• Workshop activity, by using exemplars of student work as assessment

sample pieces• Using badges as a motivator for completion of assessment tasks• …?

v) Encourage positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem

Tools to support:

• Any of the Moodle tools which allow students to construct their own knowledge

• Clever use of role overrides to allow students to (for example) construct assessment tasks for others

• …?

vi) Yield information that teachers can use to help shape teaching

Tools to support:

• Completion report to identify where students are struggling/excelling• Activity report to identify which activities are the most frequently accessed• Feedback tool to promote student feedback about the course on a regular

basis• …?

vii) Provide opportunities to apply what is learned in new tasks

Tools to support:

• Less to do with any online tools, more to do with good educational design

a) Capture sufficient study time and effort in and out of class

Tools to support:

• Intelligent use of course formats to give a clear picture of what is expected in each topic/week

• Feedback activity to retrospectively get feedback from students on workload balance

• …?

b) Distribute students’ effort evenly across topics and weeks

Tools to support:

• Workshop activity, to promote analysis of the work of others & critical reflection

• Forum, to engage in debate and discussion• …?

c) Engage students in deep not just shallow learning activity

Tools to support:

• Labels, pages, resources and HTML blocks, used appropriately to detail expectations in a static document

• News forum to provide updates to expectations as the course progresses• …?

d) Communicates clear and high expectations to students

REAP in practice

Nicol, 2006

“A key consideration from the REAP project perspective is that the [research

project example course] redesigns do not increase staff workload”

How to implement?

Viewpoints toolkit

CC BY-NC-SA http://wiki.ulster.ac.uk/display/VPR/Workshop+Toolkit

Viewpoints example:

Viewpoints example:

LearningeLearning platform

(LMS)

Virtual classrooms?

Video/Audio content (learner-

created)?

Asynchronous communications?

Offline?

(Online) learning tools?

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Assessment & Feedback principle

Moodle tool (Moodlerooms+Kaltura enhancements)

Clarify good performance

Rubrics, marking guide, gradebook, align to competencies, Advanced Forum

Encourage time and effort on task

Scheduled content release (date or activity), regular formative assessment, blog, course completion progress, announcements, calendar, rubric, lesson, database, glossary, reminders and alerts

Deliver timely high quality feedback

Assignment annotation, Workshop, lesson, align to competencies, reminders and alerts, Audio/Video feedback, Grader,

Provide opportunities to act on feedback

Workshop, assignment (multiple attempts), quiz, discussion board, gradebook, lesson, database, glossary

Encourage positive motivational beliefs

Workshop, rubrics, blog, discussion board, badges, Learner reports, align to competencies, alerts, audio/video submission/feedback, Advanced Forum

Develop self-assessment and reflection

Blog, Workshop, Notes, Gradebook, Rubric, self completion, quiz, database, glossary, align to competencies, Learner reports,

Encourage interaction and dialogue

Workshop, group assignment, messages, discussion board, blog, database, glossary, audio/video submission, automatic grouping, Advanced Forum

"School should be designed to meet the needs of students; students should not

need to be redesigned to meet the needs of schools”

(@davidwees)

Sources

• Brookfield, S. (1995). Adult Learning: An Overview. International Encyclopedia of Education. Oxford, Pergamon Press.

• Australian Curriculum General Capabilities – http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/GeneralCapabilities/critical-and-creative-thinking/introduction/introduction

• UNSW Graduate Capabilities- https://teaching.unsw.edu.au/graduate-capabilities

• REAP Project Home http://www.reap.ac.uk/Home.aspx• Boud, D. and Associates (2010). Assessment 2020: Seven propositions for

assessment reform in higher education. Sydney: Australian Learning and Teaching Council. Accessed via http://www.uts.edu.au/research-and-teaching/teaching-and-learning/assessment-futures/overview 23 June 2014

• Nicol, D. (2006). Increasing success in first year courses: assessment re-design, self-regulation and learning technologies http://www.reap.ac.uk/reap/public/Papers/DNicol_Ascilite_26oct06.pdf

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Thank you!

Kahiwa SebireSolutions Engineer, Blackboardkahiwa.sebire@blackboard.com@thisiskahiwa