Graphic recording of Cranfield L&T conference
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Monthly Archives: July 2010
Cranfield University L&T conference: realising the promise of e-assessment
Here at Cranfield University in deepest Bedfordshire, with no phone signal (3 network) or access to the campus wifi network; no Eduroam, so no live tweeting (lucky you). However there is a "graphic recorder" who will be sketching the event and posting the drawings on a large white board (pic to follow).
Professor David Stephenson opens the conference by asserting the entrepreneurial culture of the university. Cranfield is interesting to me for several reasons. Few universities (or Business Schools) have quite such close contacts with large, high technology manufacturing companies. Prof. Stephenson emphasises the high capabilities of the Cranfield academic community.
Dr David Walker from Dundee University is the keynote. He will be speaking about "Realising the promise of e-assessment". Which is interesting because despite their allegiance to technology in general, Cranfield is pedagogically conservative when it comes to learning technologies, preserving a techno-deterministic, content-centred view of e-learning, and an antipathy to adopting LT: just like everywhere, really.
Walker asks a good question: where does assessment start? He will be putting forward a model of mature institutional approach to e-assessment based on the University of Dundee's experience, where Walker heads the e-assessment team, based in the Learning Resources department. E-assessment has been on the brink of transforming education for 30 years: "end-to-end electronic assessment processes where ICT is used for the presentation of assessment and the recording of responses" (JISC). Definition has broadened from MCQ. Walker emphasises the importance of curricular alignment in e-assessment. Quotes Ray Land. Walker takes a strong social constructive perspective: "Academics do not create learning, learners do."
Walker asserts that e-assessment is likely to start with summative assessment of learning, driven by efficiency needs. But, he warns, if we start here and there is no preceding formative e-assessment or e-learning activities in the curriculum there is lack of alignment. He gives the example of students typing all their essays and then having to hand-write exams. Summative assessment is high stakes activity requiring validity, reliability, credibility, fidelity, fairness and transparency. E-assessment can help in all these areas. But, high salience for the assessed and the assessors leads to high anxiety. Therefore U of Dundee encourages a lot of formative e-assessment including, reflective journals and scientific logs as well as "traditional" MCQs. He suggests a wide conceptualisation of e-assessment including the use of simple appropriate technology (VLE, Dropbox) to administer submission and MS Word insert comment to annotate scripts. If e-assessment is only thought of as MCQs, it is seen as both difficult and empoverishing.
Walker provides a typology of e-assessment tools:
- Assessment management systems (QMP, Intelligent Assessment)
- Personal Response systems (ask the audience, clickers)
- ePortfolio (PebblePad, One File)
- Originality tools (Turn-it-in)
- Enlist small groups (eLearning Forum)
- Use awards as a promotional channel
- Offer appropriate staff development (mostly 1-2-1 consultancy)
- Support a wider culture of professional development (PG Cert, CPD)
- Have annual cycle (spiral)
- Formal and informal mechanisms for receiving student input to pedagogical processes.
Later a break-out session on e-assessment was run by Venkat Sastry and Piers MacLean.
Venkat follows Angelo (AAHE Bulletin 48.2 1995) in seeing Assessment generally as the systematic gathering, analysis and interpretation of evidence to determine performance standards. He is a mathematician who uses "traditional" (MCQ) e-assessment extensively to inform students of their own progress. He observes that question creation is the main bottleneck.
The breakout session was a good (covert) example of the use simple appropriate technologies for formative e-assessment. Piers set up a Google document to capture three sub groups who were asked to address three questions relating to e-assessment:
- What do you know about e-assessment?
- How do you, or might you, use e-assessment?
- At Cranfield, what should the direction be?
Each group typed into the live document from laptops in the corners of the room. The document was projected on the screen. Piers then invited David Walker to lead a brief plenary drawing out the key themes.
Basically the groups thought e-assessment was suitable for compliance testing and basic factual knowledge. There was a view that "pure" e-assessment was about electronic marking, while other forms of e-assessment more or less added to the academics work load. There was limited use of discussion forums for peer mentoring and there was some innovative use of discussion forums for conducting summative assessment.
That said, the session ran very well and if it could be presented as an example of formative e-assessment in practice, might be worth pursuing in workshop/seminar settings. I am thinking of how I might incorporate this into workshop activity designs. It has possibilities in distributed collaborative settings as well in one room.
The day ended with a series of world cafes on "The modern academic", "Blended learning", and "Post graduates: students, clients, professionals".
A good day to provoke thinking about learning and teaching.
A comment on the new NHS GP commissioning plans: “bonkers”
Alison Chisholm wrote her PhD on the transition from Primary Care Groups (PCGs) to Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and worked for the Picker Institute for four years. I sought her views on the ConDem proposals for NHS commissioning. She writes (and I post with permission):
Well I've not had my finger on the pulse very recently so I don't know about the World Class Commissioning stuff, but I can't see that the mandatory involvement of all GP practices in commissioning is anything other than complete nonsense. For one thing, the transaction costs of individual practices or small consortia of practices commissioning services from secondary care or social care have to be huge compared to PCTs. Apart from the time each practice/consortium has to put into it, and the consultants they'll have to pay to help them with it, how can, for example, the local hospital (here a major regional teaching hospital) respond to one local GP practice commissioning one sort of care for their stroke patients while another local GP practice commissions a different sort of care for their patients? For another, most GPs will lack the expertise needed for effective commissioning (not to mention the inclination to get heavily involved in the bureaucratic mire) – and they already complain that they have to squeeze their patients into too tight appointment slots and have to make them sometimes wait too long for appointments. If they spend a chunk of time 'doing commissioning', that has to eat into their patient time (which is what they are trained to do). And for another, if PCTs have made "Insufficient progress … on implementing the Carter Review of specialised commissioning for rare diseases and conditions" with the collective resources they have, how are GP practices or small consortia going to have the expertise to commission care for rare conditions they may come across once in a blue moon, or never? I don't claim to be an expert, but it looks as if the health secretary has no understanding of the history of commissioning in the NHS – which may well be the case. Bonkers!
How many warnings do we need? via @HallyMk1 RT @courosa http://is.gd/ddwMc
In light of the Gulf oil well catastrophe and the financial services collapse, I am reminded of the joke about a true believer (TB).
Neighbour comes up says, "Ain't you heard the news? Big flood coming. Better get to high ground for safety."
TB says, "My faith in god will keep me safe."
As the waters begin to rise a big truck with a loud hailer calls everyone to climb on board to safety.
TB says, "My faith in god will keep me safe."
As the water reaches the ground floor a man in a boat comes and offers a lift to safety.
TB says, "My faith in god will keep me safe."
As the water reaches the roof a helicopter drops a rope ladder and the pilot says, "Climb up to safety."
TB says, "My faith in god will keep me safe."
As the water reaches his nose he cries out, "My God! I have put all my faith in you, why have you not kept me safe?"
A booming voice from heaven says, "I set you a neighbour, I sent you a truck, I sent you a boat, I sent you a helicopter! What more do you want, already?
Neighbour comes up says, "Ain't you heard the news? Big flood coming. Better get to high ground for safety."
TB says, "My faith in god will keep me safe."
As the waters begin to rise a big truck with a loud hailer calls everyone to climb on board to safety.
TB says, "My faith in god will keep me safe."
As the water reaches the ground floor a man in a boat comes and offers a lift to safety.
TB says, "My faith in god will keep me safe."
As the water reaches the roof a helicopter drops a rope ladder and the pilot says, "Climb up to safety."
TB says, "My faith in god will keep me safe."
As the water reaches his nose he cries out, "My God! I have put all my faith in you, why have you not kept me safe?"
A booming voice from heaven says, "I set you a neighbour, I sent you a truck, I sent you a boat, I sent you a helicopter! What more do you want, already?