Assessment co-creation: an exploratory analysis of opportunities and challenges based on student and instructor perspectives

In recent years, research and practice focused on academics and students working in partnership to co-design learning and teaching in higher education has increased [Deeley and Bovill 2017. ‘Staff student partnership in assessment: enhancing assessment literacy through democratic practices.’ Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 42 (3): 463–477. doi:10.1080/02602938.2015.1126551]. Student generation of content has been advocated as a means of fostering deep learning and high levels of students engagement, leading to enhanced conceptual understanding [Draper 2009. ‘Catalytic Assessment: Understanding how MCQs and EVS can Foster Deep Learning.’ British Journal of Educational Technology 40 (2): 285–293.]. However, within the discourse exploring staff-student co-creation, some concerns have been raised about whether students ought to, or indeed can, meaningfully act as partners in assessment [Cook-Sather, Bovill, and Felten 2014. Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.]. This paper describes the introduction of a co-creation assignment into an undergraduate tax module. Students’ and instructors’ perceptions of several aspects of the assignment were examined, facilitating the cataloguing and elucidation of the tensions involved in assessment co-creation. The paper suggests techniques to manage these challenges effectively, thereby providing a case study for others with an interest in implementing assessment co-creation within their own disciplinary context.     

A Method to Increase Student Interaction Using Student Groups and Peer Review over the Internet

A method of peer review for student groups is proposed. In this method, groups of students publish their assignments results over the Internet. A fellow student group reviews their work and publishes their findings (on the Internet). Finally, the two groups debate their points of view in front of the class. The debate and healthy competition among groups give the students a chance to learn how to give and receive criticism in a constructive way. This should increase the students' ability to interact and work in groups, an important skill for computer science professionals.     

Words with Pictures: The Role of Visual Literacy in Writing and its Implication for Schooling

This paper reports on two studies undertaken independently by the authors, both of which provide indicative evidence that the system of target setting in writing is exerting an influence on children’s perception of what is involved in authoring meaningful texts. In particular, the current emphasis on technical accuracy and neatness in handwriting has worked to limit the role of drawing in children’s construction of text. The authors suggest that this tendency has adverse consequences for the development of pupil confidence as the authors of their own meanings, particularly marked in boys. They argue that teachers and educators need to be more understanding of differences in the modes in which pupils choose to make sense of their social and cultural contexts.     

Global injustice,pedagogy and democratic iterations: some reflections on why teachers matter

Abstract

The article argues teachers matter because of their potential to engage in critical reflection on values associated with connecting the local, the national and the global. Their practice can support those who are dislocated, and who have no place. Teachers matter because they can help us understand how we share humanity and aspirations across many differences. The discussion identifies some similarities between approaches to pedagogy and Seyla Benhabib’s notion of democratic iteration. Both concepts suggest a navigation between the general, the particular and some of the complexities of their contradictions which can guide teachers’ work. Frameworks from cosmopolitanism and the capability approach are explored for detail they provide on how this navigation can be considered in practice across differently politically constituted formations and diverse, unequally situated groups. Drawing on some reflections on work in an international classroom, the conclusion explores some of these navigations across inequalities.     

To enter the castle of fear: engendering children's story writing from home to school at KS2

This paper describes a small‐scale writing project in which a class of KS 2 primary pupils were invited to import their own narrative interests into a task designed by their teacher and the researcher within the constraints of the National Literacy Strategy. By employing an adventure genre, based on problem and puzzle solving, pupils were encouraged to introduce familiar scenarios and characters from their favourite stories in books, comics, videos or computer games. The work produced has been analyzed to highlight the different ways in which boys and girls engaged with key aspects of narrative and how this enabled discussion of gendered literacy practices in which boys and girls held an equal stake. The author discusses the importance of developing strategies by means of which children's understanding and transformations of their preferred modes of narrative pleasures can be housed within the current literacy framework.     

Becoming Better Primary Science Teachers: A Description of Our Journey

Journal of Science Teacher Education -