Travelling by train to Preston is not the best way to appreciate its splendour; the route takes you passed dilapidated housing and scrub land - a bit like Leicester in that respect!
The town centre is a confusing mixture: a magnificent civic square sits on a hill with a fine church and war memorial and an imposing city library built at the height of Victorian confidence. its ionic columns and edifying phrases cut into the stone remind its citizens that mental efforts pay dividends. However in the shadow of the square the shops do not live up to this splendour, with names such as "Duffer" and "Faidz" (sic) indicating (I hope) an unconscious irony.
UCLan seems to be the saviour of at least a part of the city. It has colonised the old buildings along a main road and has built anew, creating a campus which seems something like a stretched version of DMU: urban and utilitarian, green and leafy and serving its city's needs well.
The conference itself was very well attended, attracting a delegate list from across the region and more broadly, including some delegates from overseas.
David Boud, Professor of Adult Education at the University of Sidney gave the first keynote address: "The New Assessment Agenda". His argument was that assessment as it is currently conceptualised does not give students the skills to "learn and regenerate" which they will need if they are to adapt and evolve in response to the new situations that are emerging. He saw assessment as building a dependency culture - where students just want to know how well they have done - and that this brings with it anxiety, which depletes capacity rather than building it. He argued that assessment should have (at least) two roles: to certificate skills and knowledge and to help students to learn. the former suggests end loaded, summative assessments and the latter suggests front loaded, formative assessment. Boud argued that we should concentrate on "building capacity for judgement" in our students - getting them to be reflective, to know what they know and don't know and to know what to do about it. This he argued would result in a learner-centred assessment regime where outcomes and capabilities were judged are which produced lifelong learners in the truest sense. He summed up by arguing that assessment should always be about the impact it has on student learning rather than anything else. If this were followed then the would be much that changed - for the good.
(see for further details of Boud's work and in particular his manifesto for assessment reform, "Assessment 2020".
Kathryn Ecclestone, Professor of Education at the University of Birmingham, gave the second keynote address. She talked somewhat provocatively about "Assessment for Inclusion". Her argument was that inclusion used to mean ways of combating social exclusion and disadvantage but that now it seems to be about trying to reduce the psychological effects of injustice and poverty. She argues that identifying students as "at risk" or vulnerable has made assessment less about stretching and challenging students and more about coaching them through the HE experience. She also argued that in the current climate if emotional outcomes became more important in the curriculum then there would be a move to try to assess them and this would be counter to the very idea of including such emotional outcomes in the first place. She finished by arguing that it was not possible to assess emotional well-being and that any attempt to do so would change the role of the tutor - one of which is to challenge students in order to stretch them, and that this might mean that they felt uncomfortable.
Sue Bloxham, Professor of Academic Practice at Cumbria gave the closing keynote address. She argued against the movement to allocate marks to specific criteria rather than looking at a piece of work holistically (see one of the workshops below). She argued that mark descriptors should be an attempt to codify something in an analytical and transparent way but too often they are used post hoc to justify a holistic, impressionistic judgement. She argued that students need to be reflexive (a recurrent them of the conference) and that there was a danger of enabling students to "paint by numbers" if everything was very specific; it also meant that tutors were having to create a set of unnatural criteria to give the impression of precision where it was not appropriate.
I also attended a workshop on the way marking grids work. This suggesting that these have a reputation for objectivity which is unearned. It was also suggested that the use of such strict criteria-referenced tools might restrict student learning as they privilege certain skills such as referencing over and over again.
A workshop on embedding coherence across programmes rang bells in that it repeated messages we are trying to promote - looking at the whole student experience; systematically disseminating and learning from examples of good practice.
A final workshop on peer feedback also reiterated ideas we are promoting around students knowing what is expected of them through clear assessment criteria and a warning that we shouldn't expect students to know what we mean when we use shorthand such as "write an essay/report on..." expectations need to be be spelt out.
There were implications in all this for the way that we work and the messages that we as an institution give to our students. The arguments being put forward were that undergraduate learning should be challenging, maybe even uncomfortable. However this was not something to duck out of but to celebrate since out of this challenge emerges intellectually stronger students who will be able to adapt more quickly to world that is emerging.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Assessment is for learning seminar, Birmingham, June 15
Having attended the seminar on Assessment for learning yesterday at Birmingham, I am left with a number of general thoughts and some specific ones:
Firstly, isn't Birmingham run down? away from the shiny new replacement Bullring the train out to Longbridge brought back memories of visiting Kath in Bournville. despite trying hard to see the picturesque and to concentrate on the narrow boats chugging down the canel, what i really saw was the deprivation. despite witnessing the jolly good humour of the uniformed public school children coming home, what really struck me was the small group of brummie kids sitting opposite me who were never going to have any real chances...
At the workshop itself I was struck by two further things: the confidence of those operating within research-intensive red brick university's to state things with utter confidence that were either blindingly obvious or far more complex than they were suggesting. Alongside that was the seemingly unassailable status of "scientific" (in this case social science) research. it appeared as though things only existed if they had been proven by research, never mind common sense telling us the same thing a long time ago. This seems to me to be about the power of numbers (graphs in this case) to "prove" things. This seems to me to be about controlling the environment and I am moving rapidly to the view that things cannot be controlled, that it is all a bit chaotic. That doesn't mean that such a thought is not unsettling but I think I am will have to live with that.
The second general thought at the workshop was about the desperation of the HEA to show that it is involved, even leading things. their representative said nothing of significance but was determined to illustrate how they were moving the sector forward. the same was true of the (poor) presentation from the C-SAP representative. these words struck me as the waves of a drowning man just before his head goes down for the last time. Just when i think I should put the effort in to joining the organisation, one of their representatives shows up to illustrate why I don't need to bother!
At the workshop itself the following struck me:
1. There is an inescapable need in HE to chase NSS results. why is this? the survey seems flawed and many have said so, but it does provide numbers and their associated graphs and does produce league tables. however this seems to me to be bad science. The results of asking a student to rank a statement 1-5 are arbitrary, they do not provide a "real" view" and scaled up they do not provide a "real" view of the student body. despite all this all HEIs are guilty of capitulating to this new orthodoxy, despite any hollow defence they may make as they go. it was true in Birmingham and it is true at DMU.
2. the workshop suggested that staff are interested in using assessment to produce critical thinkers and that when students say they want more feedback they are buying in to that concept. this may be true, but it might also be nonsense! Students may be working far more strategically, in that they want feedback that helps them to improve their marks and thus pass with a better final degree and perhaps get a better job (which earns more money, which allows them to get a bigger TV and a faster car etc, etc). They are thus not buying into the idea of becoming more critical thinkers at all.
3. as has been said by many people in many places, we need to understand the experience pre HE if we are to make sense of students' views and expectations. A'level feedback seems to me to be about how a student can gain additional marks, which might be about making something better but might not. gaining more marks is instrumental, it is based on a criterion-referenced approach which works on the basis that all students can achieve the top grades. it is not normative. This may be more democratic, more egalitarian but it is also different in nature to the idea of assessment being about producing critical thinkers. this needs to be understood.
4. there is a need to understand that just as all students are different so are all staff and to imagine that there is a similar view of what is good work and thus helpful feedback across all subject disciplines is to be naive in the extreme. my research suggests that staff are clearly divided by their discipline and that this needs to be remembered at all times. alongside this is the fact that different disciplines use different forms of assessment and the attendant feedback. it is hard, for example, to compare an essay in Humanities with a project in art and design. the teaching environment and the subject cultures are different and so, therefore, will be the nature of feedback.
5. finally alongside this previous point is the attitude taken towards marking as an exercise. are staff starting from a view that their job is to help the student to develop or do they think they are there to safeguard standards? Is their role to stop the hoards entering the secret garden to to show people where the door is and how to gain entry? these are obviously not the only views but they6 do represent significant bodies of opinion. they are important because they affect the way marks allocate marks. on the one hand they may be starting from 0% and looking for ways of giving marks to students, on the other they may be starting from 100% and looking for excuses to take marks away from students.
these views, not surprisingly lead to the development of inconsistencies in the marks given and the feedback provided to students. but what should be done about this? if we try to have a shared approach there is the accusation of new managerialism and a reduction in professional autonomy; if we let the local context predominate then we will have students complaining in the NSS about a lack of consistency and poor management. there is no simple solution but if staff were aware of these notions then they may be able to start on the path towards a better solution with their eyes open. that would be a start.
Firstly, isn't Birmingham run down? away from the shiny new replacement Bullring the train out to Longbridge brought back memories of visiting Kath in Bournville. despite trying hard to see the picturesque and to concentrate on the narrow boats chugging down the canel, what i really saw was the deprivation. despite witnessing the jolly good humour of the uniformed public school children coming home, what really struck me was the small group of brummie kids sitting opposite me who were never going to have any real chances...
At the workshop itself I was struck by two further things: the confidence of those operating within research-intensive red brick university's to state things with utter confidence that were either blindingly obvious or far more complex than they were suggesting. Alongside that was the seemingly unassailable status of "scientific" (in this case social science) research. it appeared as though things only existed if they had been proven by research, never mind common sense telling us the same thing a long time ago. This seems to me to be about the power of numbers (graphs in this case) to "prove" things. This seems to me to be about controlling the environment and I am moving rapidly to the view that things cannot be controlled, that it is all a bit chaotic. That doesn't mean that such a thought is not unsettling but I think I am will have to live with that.
The second general thought at the workshop was about the desperation of the HEA to show that it is involved, even leading things. their representative said nothing of significance but was determined to illustrate how they were moving the sector forward. the same was true of the (poor) presentation from the C-SAP representative. these words struck me as the waves of a drowning man just before his head goes down for the last time. Just when i think I should put the effort in to joining the organisation, one of their representatives shows up to illustrate why I don't need to bother!
At the workshop itself the following struck me:
1. There is an inescapable need in HE to chase NSS results. why is this? the survey seems flawed and many have said so, but it does provide numbers and their associated graphs and does produce league tables. however this seems to me to be bad science. The results of asking a student to rank a statement 1-5 are arbitrary, they do not provide a "real" view" and scaled up they do not provide a "real" view of the student body. despite all this all HEIs are guilty of capitulating to this new orthodoxy, despite any hollow defence they may make as they go. it was true in Birmingham and it is true at DMU.
2. the workshop suggested that staff are interested in using assessment to produce critical thinkers and that when students say they want more feedback they are buying in to that concept. this may be true, but it might also be nonsense! Students may be working far more strategically, in that they want feedback that helps them to improve their marks and thus pass with a better final degree and perhaps get a better job (which earns more money, which allows them to get a bigger TV and a faster car etc, etc). They are thus not buying into the idea of becoming more critical thinkers at all.
3. as has been said by many people in many places, we need to understand the experience pre HE if we are to make sense of students' views and expectations. A'level feedback seems to me to be about how a student can gain additional marks, which might be about making something better but might not. gaining more marks is instrumental, it is based on a criterion-referenced approach which works on the basis that all students can achieve the top grades. it is not normative. This may be more democratic, more egalitarian but it is also different in nature to the idea of assessment being about producing critical thinkers. this needs to be understood.
4. there is a need to understand that just as all students are different so are all staff and to imagine that there is a similar view of what is good work and thus helpful feedback across all subject disciplines is to be naive in the extreme. my research suggests that staff are clearly divided by their discipline and that this needs to be remembered at all times. alongside this is the fact that different disciplines use different forms of assessment and the attendant feedback. it is hard, for example, to compare an essay in Humanities with a project in art and design. the teaching environment and the subject cultures are different and so, therefore, will be the nature of feedback.
5. finally alongside this previous point is the attitude taken towards marking as an exercise. are staff starting from a view that their job is to help the student to develop or do they think they are there to safeguard standards? Is their role to stop the hoards entering the secret garden to to show people where the door is and how to gain entry? these are obviously not the only views but they6 do represent significant bodies of opinion. they are important because they affect the way marks allocate marks. on the one hand they may be starting from 0% and looking for ways of giving marks to students, on the other they may be starting from 100% and looking for excuses to take marks away from students.
these views, not surprisingly lead to the development of inconsistencies in the marks given and the feedback provided to students. but what should be done about this? if we try to have a shared approach there is the accusation of new managerialism and a reduction in professional autonomy; if we let the local context predominate then we will have students complaining in the NSS about a lack of consistency and poor management. there is no simple solution but if staff were aware of these notions then they may be able to start on the path towards a better solution with their eyes open. that would be a start.
Monday, June 14, 2010
resilient education?
just been to a seminar about education - HE in particular - and a resilient education. what struck me the most is that the key problem is with Capitalism, especially the idea of increased consumption fueled by competition, fueled by marketing. If we could change the world so that individuals didn't value themselves according to how much they had then perhaps we would be better off. I watched a TV programme last night about WAGs working in S. Africa and Emile Heskey's wife said that he earned £160,000 a week and that a donation of just one of this weekly amount could solve many of the problems in at least part of this continent. As a society we need to move to a position where we consider it to be morally wrong that the massive differences in salaries can be seen as acceptable. why does society value footballers and other entertainers so highly? is there something intrinsically valuable in what they do? we would probably say not. so how can the market be allowed to create such discrepancies? to govern/regulate this IS to threaten capitalism but is that such a bad thing if the result is to the betterment of the majority?
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Writing for publication workshop
May 10th 2010.
At a workshop today - part of the Teacher Fellow away day - we were encouraged to get into the habit of writing. so here is my first go...
One of the issues that swirled around at coffee time was the role of students in the modern HEI. There seems to be a significant difference between a conception of students as consumers and a conception that sees them as members of an academic community.
what do students want? the evidence that I have seems to suggest that they like the idea of being taught by staff with current and substantial subject expertise, and so in that sense they want to be part of an academic community - perhaps even to sit at the foot of a sage. However there is also evidence of the wanting to be seen as consumers, to get what they want because they are paying for it. this has come home to me this week with dealings with students from Bedford. They are demanding (the right word) that the university moves in their direction irrespective of any other consideration.
What should an institution do? i think there is a need to hold a certain line but not to seem to be so entrenched or exclusive that students see you as remote. there is definitely a need to be responsive, to know what the real world for students today is like. Yet at the same time there is a need to say that the institution has limits and along with that goes expectations and limits.
At a workshop today - part of the Teacher Fellow away day - we were encouraged to get into the habit of writing. so here is my first go...
One of the issues that swirled around at coffee time was the role of students in the modern HEI. There seems to be a significant difference between a conception of students as consumers and a conception that sees them as members of an academic community.
what do students want? the evidence that I have seems to suggest that they like the idea of being taught by staff with current and substantial subject expertise, and so in that sense they want to be part of an academic community - perhaps even to sit at the foot of a sage. However there is also evidence of the wanting to be seen as consumers, to get what they want because they are paying for it. this has come home to me this week with dealings with students from Bedford. They are demanding (the right word) that the university moves in their direction irrespective of any other consideration.
What should an institution do? i think there is a need to hold a certain line but not to seem to be so entrenched or exclusive that students see you as remote. there is definitely a need to be responsive, to know what the real world for students today is like. Yet at the same time there is a need to say that the institution has limits and along with that goes expectations and limits.
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