Promoting evaluation culture through partnership and interactive tools (original) (raw)

Medical Education, 2013

Abstract

promised. Because of the programme’s size, we employ a distributed model of marking whereby academic staff on and off campus assess and provide feedback. There is no continuity in terms of establishing a relationship with the student or a shared context for the assessment task. Assessors are unsure about the usefulness of their feedback and about whether similar issues have been identified before. What was tried? InterACT was designed to provide a longitudinal repository of feedback and student reflection on previous assignments in the new online course. To encourage the use of feedback in future assignments, assessments were blueprinted against learning outcomes and reviewed to promote better sequencing. For each assignment, students complete a cover page on which they evaluate their work qualitatively against the assignment’s criteria, request specific feedback, and identify how previous feedback informed the current work. Tutors provide feedback about the assignment and respond to students’ self-evaluations, thus establishing dialogue. Students then upload their marked assignments into their personal journals and answer four questions relating to their interaction with and understanding of the feedback. Explicit comparison of external feedback against internal evaluative judgements of one’s work is the essence of informed self-assessment. An e-mail alerts the tutor of a student’s posting to his or her journal and the dialogue can continue as required. The journal acts as a repository for all of the student’s work throughout the programme. It is accessible to all course tutors, but only to that student. Tutors can quickly access previous feedback, which gives a longitudinal and programmatic approach to assessment. The process is introduced in the induction module to ensure familiarity. What lessons were learned? Tutors find the process valuable for dialogue with students; it allows tutors to receive immediate feedback on their feedback, clarifies issues with the assessment and module content, and efficiently closes the evaluation loop. Preliminary student evaluations indicate that students understand the pedagogical rationale and appreciate the opportunity to ask further questions about their work. The process must be easy for students, tutors and administrators to ensure engagement. Automatic alerts and reminder e-mails stimulate participation. We are now evaluating InterACT, examining stakeholder satisfaction and value, and improvements in student learning. We will introduce a patchwork assessment in which students identify how they meet exit outcomes at certificate and diploma levels using evidence from their journal reflections, and are exploring opportunities for peer evaluation.

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