Blog

Public values are key to efficient education and research

Feb 21, 2023

For those of us who have been working on AI in Education it is a bit of a strange time. On the one hand it is not difficult any longer to interest policy makers, managers or teachers and trainers in AI. But on the other hand, at the moment AI seems to be conflated with the hype around Chat GPT. As one senior policy person said to me yesterday: "I hadn't even heard of Generative AI models until two weeks ago." And of course there's a loge more things happening or about to happen on not just the AI side […]

Chat GPT and Assessment

Jan 31, 2023

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash In the last few weeks the discussions about technology for education and learning have been dominated by the impact of GPT3 on the future of education - discussion which as Alexandra Mihai characterises in a blog entitled Lets get...

The canary in the coalmine

Jan 23, 2023

Image by Michael Gehlert from Pixabay I think my post appealing for a middle space of sanity in the debate over AI and education maybe was a little over optimistic.The hype over the ChatGPT chatbot has only increased, and the debate broadened as the newspapers and...

Changes to assessment in Wales

Oct 6, 2022

Photo by Akshay Chauhan on Unsplash Qualifications Wales have published a consultation document on changes to the GCSE exam system. GCSEs are singly subject exams usually taken at the age of 16 and important for progression to training of higher education. The...

eAssessment and pedagogy

Jul 29, 2022

As part of the EU Erasmus+ eAssessment project which I have reported about previously on this blog, we are developing a 'toolkit, aimed at supporting teachers and trainers in Europe in innovating with assessment. We have divided up the work between the project partners and I agreed to write the section of eAssessment and pedagogy. I finished the draft this week, with, typically, it taking me twice as long to write as I had expected. This is work in progress and now I am looking for feedback, before it is translated into the five project partner languages and published on […]

Assessment futures

Jul 5, 2022

As promised ore on eAssessment. The UK Jisc has launched an interesting project - Assessment futures: What will assessment look like in 2035? As part of this they are running workshops to explore some future scenarios around assessment. There are comprehensive reports of the activity online by Marieke Guy, a Digital Assessment Advisor at University College London, and Paul Bailey who is co-design lead for JISC. There is also access to a Miro Board if you are interested in seeing the work in progress. Perhaps the most important lesson from the first workshop is that If we are going to […]

Vlogging as a alternative to written assessment

Jul 4, 2022

I.m going to be writing more about eAssessment this week as I'm developing part of a toolkit for teachers on the subject. One of the bonuses of the increasing interest and critique of traditional assessment approaches is the growing number of examples of new assessment approaches. One dropped into my twitter feed this morning - Hearing the student voice: Vlogging as an alternative to written assessment by Amy Stickels. Amy teaches Philosophy to International Foundation Year students. Foundation Year students were tasked with creating a five-minute vlog on the topic of war, she explains. She goes on to say :the […]

Beyond the Technology: rethinking assessment and feedback

Jun 22, 2022

Just a quick follow up to that last post on the Principles of Good Assessment, Jisc have also released a series of podcasts - Beyond the Technology - on rethinking assessment and feedback. Here are links to some earlier editions: Rethinking assessment and feedback - how the landscape is changing Rethinking assessment and feedback - providing personalised feedback at scale Rethinking assessment and feedback - creating a shared vision Rethinking assessment and feedback - unlocking the power of comparison based feedback You can catch up on the latest June edition on the Jisc website.

Principles of good assessment

Jun 22, 2022

The UK Jisc have published the latest in a series of reports and examples of good practice around assessment - Principles of good assessment and feedback. This attention reflects the growing pressures for change in assessment practice following the pandemic. As Jisc say: Assessment and feedback forms a significant element of staff and student workload and many studies have shown that students, in higher education, are less satisfied with assessment and feedback than with any other aspect of the experience. Jisc go on to say that although "Previous research found good practice was often difficult to scale up because it […]

Rethinking Assessment

Jun 15, 2022

There is growing pressure for change in assessment systems in the UK. One of the organisations leading the campaign is Rethinking Assessment. On its website, Rethinking Assessment says its mission is to make the argument for change though case studies, analysis, evidence and thoughtful blogs and to start to provide some workable solutions, practical ideas and approaches that we will pilot in our schools and offer as real alternatives. Last week Rethinking Assessment announced that a group of leading educators, employers, policy experts, academics and politicians have released a joint statement calling for the adoption of a digital learner profile […]

Authentic Assessment

May 4, 2022

Authentic assessment relates to what students experience in the real world. Instead of testing students’ proficiency in completing tests, authentic assessment methods are designed to assess knowledge and test how students apply that knowledge in real world situations.

Goodbye exams, hullo ePortfolio

Apr 27, 2022

There is growing interest in the use of ePortfolios as an alternative to the use of exams for assessment. ePortfolios Are not exactly new. I can remember speaking at conferences and taking part in projects (see More Esteem with with my ePortfolio which developed an online course and guidance material for teachers and trainers in the use of e-portfolios) about this in the early years of the 21st century. Yet as technologies advance, and perhaps more importantly growing reflections and research on the pedagogy of assessment, ePortfolios are returning to the fore. The The Irish Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning […]

AI for marking and feedback

Apr 26, 2022

The UK National Centre for AI, hosted through Jisc has announced the third in a series of pilot activities for AI in education. The pilot project being undertaken in partnership with Graide, an EdTech company who have built an AI-based feedback and assessment tool, es designed to help understand how universities could benefit from using AI to support the marking and feedback process. Sue Attewell says: AI-based marking and feedback tools promise the joint benefits of reducing educators’ workloads, whilst improving the quality, quantity, timeliness and/or consistency of feedback received by students. After a positive initial assessment of Graide, we are launching this […]

eAssessment – your help needed with a Survey

Apr 21, 2022

Assessment is central to learner motivation as well as providing accreditation. The introduction of different assessment systems has a major impact on education and training processes. In recent years, a new pedagogic paradigm has emerged placing the learner as the central subject in the construction of their own learning. At the same time there is an increasing trend of employers recruiting new staff based on skills and competences, rather than just qualifications. And this period has seen the increasing use of technology for teaching and learning. The affordances provided by digital devices, tools and apps, increase opportunities for the implementation […]

Reimagining assessment

Feb 22, 2022

There are encouraging moves to increase access to higher education for students with disabilities. Yet all too often these initiatives are piecemeal with a failure to join up different measures or to address barriers to participation. One such barrier for many students with disabilities is assessment. A new report, "Re-imagining exams: How do assessment adjustments impact on inclusion?" by Joanna Tai, Rola Ajjawi, Margaret Bearman, Joanne Dargusch, Mary Dracup, Lois Harris and Paige Mahoney, and publsished by the National Centre for Student Equity in Nigher Education, in Australia, looks at how "Exams and other high-stakes time-limited assessments can act as […]

Good assessment design is hard

Feb 2, 2022

This is a great article by Debbie McVity published towards the end of January in the UK WONKHE online newspaper. Looking at the shift in learning following the Covid 19 move on line, it reports how Sally Brown and Kay Sambell, compiled and share resources in an online...

Aligning learning outcomes with assessment

Feb 1, 2022

I stumbled on this site while looking for something completely different (which I still can't find). But stumbles are one of my favorite things about web searching. Any way, this comes from a (not quite finished) web page by Jaclyn Doherty from Lethbridge College, She...

Low Stakes Assessment

Dec 5, 2021

I've been doing some searches on assessment lately as part of our work coordinating the European Erasmus+ eAssessment project. If you have any recommendations for me please leave a comment or get in touch. Anyway, I very much like the diagram I found from Impact...

High stakes assessment

Nov 1, 2021

Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash I have been doing quite a bit of reading this week as part of the eassessment project. I will write some of this up over the weekend. But first a more personal story about assessment. Many years ago – 1971 to be exact – I went to...

About eAssessment

Sep 24, 2021

Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay Its summer and we should be on holiday. Yes, I am having a holiday this year. But before I go, we have the first meeting of a new project, eAssessment, funded by the European Union. Below is the project description. If you would like...