Assessment can support the process of learning, not just measure its outcomes. In diagnostic testing with rapid feedback, the results of summative computer-based assessment are provided immediately to learners and teachers, then used as a basis for addressing misconceptions and providing supplementary teaching. Research from computer games has explored how continuous feedback can guide performance and improve motivation. This requires software to monitor how learners progress through the course materials, diagnose misconceptions, know when to intervene, and offer appropriate advice. A teacher can be provided with a ‘dashboard’ that displays the progress of each student and offers a range of actions from simple automated prompts to online student-tutor conversation. Students can be offered ‘open learner models’ that show their progress in relation to peers.
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- Tony Hirst on Publisher led mini-courses
- admin on Seamless learning
- Nataly on Seamless learning
- George on MOOCs
- Muvaffak GOZAYDIN on MOOCs
Admin
I was surprise was to see “Assessment for learning” listed as something that that might be coming in 2-5 years. At the OU, we have been doing this for more than 5 years in various modules. Sally Jordan’s blog (and her papers) is one entry point to learning more about this.
It is not just the OU. Chris Sangwin at the University of Birmingham has also been doing this for more than 5 years with his STACK assessment system for Maths. Chris has written a book “Computer aided assessment of mathematics”, due out in 2013, where he discusses not just STACK, but the issues of automated assessment of maths more widely. Chris’s focus is very much on assessment for learning. I was lucky enough to read a draft of this book, and it is very interesting.
Tony Gardiner-Medwin and the UCL medical school have been using Certainly-Based marking for more than 5 years, and I believe it is used in other medical departments too.
Of course, these are just specific examples of good practice, but it shows that many of the necessary tools have been built, and in many cases are available as Open Source. The report is right in that there is still a lot of scope for these tools to be used more widely.