Assessment assessment - part 2 May 5, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : ultraversity, learning , trackbackThe assessment starts off with a few brief positive points, in a factual tone, and then quickly launches into a description of the assessor’s problems.
LEARNING FACILITATOR Comments
Select and negotiate appropriate tasks. Meet learning objectives.
Excellent – You have met all learning objectives for this module to a high standard.
Ability to take responsibility for own learning.
Excellent – you excel in this also.
Ability to relate theory to practice.
Excellent – I can see clearly how you have absorbed the reading you have done into the work you carried out in creating a wiki. I can appreciate the time you have spent in expressing your thoughts and emerging ideas in different media – I find this at times a challenging way for me to piece together your thoughts- I’d venture to say it’s easier for a reader to take in an author’s ideas if he or she doesn’t have to visit many places to read those ideas. Having said that, when I come back to your work for the second time, I come with a sense of seeing your ideas unfold and develop. I’m always going to waver on this point – should your ideas be in one place with clear headings in a more conventional format, or is your work a valid way of using media in a fresh and more accessible way? I can’t answer it. I’d just like to work less hard sometimes when taking on your ideas. It would be good to have a continuing dialogue about this- perhaps assessment ought to be more of a dialogue that a one sided judgement. I’d be interested in how your very capable peer reviewers found reading your work.
The first thing to come up is this question of “different media”. Now, I have in the past made use of video, audio, animation - ultraversity used to encourage this - but in this particular report i didn’t use any of these - it’s all just text with some minimal graphics and one monochrome diagram. And the main body of the report is all presented as one long HTML document, formatted exactly as prescribed by the imposed Action Research tool, such as it is. So I don’t accept that I have in any way bamboozled the reader with a baffling mixture of media because it simply isn’t true. Perhaps the word media is being employed as in ‘Through the Looking Glass”
`When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
Then we get the complaint about having to ‘visit many places’. Being a webpage, the Action Enquiry tool allows the inclusion of HTML code such as hypertext links. It doesn’t really matter whether you visit the official Action Enquiry tool, or the version which I have published on my coursework website, they are practically identical. Both contain the same links, links to the learning activities, goals, reflections, peer review and blog entries which tghe reader can optionally explore as far as they wish. This website format is something which I have used right from the very start of year one, with encouragement, and yet suddenly it is being criticised as too hard work for the poor marker. The question is even raised that it may not be valid. “is your work a valid way … I can’t answer it”
As for suggesting an alternative with clear headings, well the headings used are exactly as directed by the imposed Action Enquiry tool pro forma so what on earth is that supposed to mean? I have indeed submitted a report the main part of which is all in one document ( not that I would agree to always to keep to that , a series of linked pages may be more effective sometimes ) and uses the prescribed headings but the one which has been assessed is bafflingly described as something completely different.
So it was suggested that there should be a continuing dialogue, including my peer review partners, which we tried to have, but then it turned out that “It would be good to have a continuing dialogue” doesn’t imply that it should actually happen at all. It was a mistake. Taking Humpty Dumpty to a new level, not just words but whole phrases and sentances can be paid off and made to mean whatever you want them to mean, or nothing at all.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
My AE had similar links to my blog, tables etc in the main tool. The patchwork text idea of the portfolio is going to lead to work being in different places - hence the idea of the stitching process. This was really emphasised at the end of the first term in year 1 after we’d all slogged away at the learning activities and then written a 4000 word report.