Author Archives: Sally Jordan

CAA 2012

Last week I attended the International Computer Assisted Assessment Conference in Southampton. This is the third consecutive year I’ve attended this conference and I enjoyed it, even if it was sometimes challenging to the point of being depressing. So what … Continue reading

Posted in conferences | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Self-assessment. Discuss!

Whether or not you’re coming to our seminar ‘Self-assessment: stratgies and software to stimuate learning’ on 11th June, there are lots of things worthy of discussion. Many of the speakers have provided links that you might like to look at: … Continue reading

Posted in self assessment | Tagged | 1 Comment

Exam marking errors

I’m pleased to hear that OCR have apologised for errors in adding up marks for GCSE and A-level papers last year. It doesn’t seem right that the whistleblower remains suspended, but I don’t know the details so perhaps I shouldn’t … Continue reading

Posted in human marking | Tagged | Leave a comment

Is education lighting a fire or filling a bucket?

I have a huge amount of work to do, yet this afternoon I have found myself enthralled in a number of coincidental conversations about the role of ‘incentives’ in getting students to engage with assessment, or dare I say, with learning. … Continue reading

Posted in incentives | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Formative thresholded assessment

Building on work that others have done, in particular my colleagues Joy Manners and John Bolton in the OU Department of Physical Sciences, we are encouraging a move across the Science Faculty to what we are calling ‘formative thresholded assessment’.

Posted in formative thresholded assessment | Tagged | 2 Comments

JISC Assessment and Feedback Programme

I’m just back from my second attendance at a JISC Learning and Teaching Practice Experts Group meeting. It was excellent – it is inspiring to be surrounded by people who know such a lot about learning and teaching and, more importantly, actually … Continue reading

Posted in assessment design, JISC | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Self-assessment seminar

We have funding from the HEA for a seminar on self-assessment that we (Tony Gardner-Medwin and me) are running at the OU in Milton Keynes  on 11th June 2012. It’s a really interesting topic and we have some excellent speakers lined up. … Continue reading

Posted in self assessment | Tagged | Leave a comment

Learning from failure

I’m indebted to Phil Langton to pointing me towards an article by Steven Schwartz in Times Higher Education. The article, Get back in the saddle, explores the way in which failure and life’s knocks can lead to success in the … Continue reading

Posted in learning from failure | Tagged | 2 Comments

x to the minus 1 = 1 over x. OK?

I have posted before about the difficulties that students have with fractions and the problems that this causes. Many others recognise the same difficulty. On a related point, students also have problems with reciprocation, and sometimes it is simply that they don’t … Continue reading

Posted in mathematical misunderstandings | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Yet more problems with significant figures, using a calculator for scientific notation and precedence

The question shown was originally planned to assess students’ ability to estimate, but since we can’t prevent them from using a calculator, I adapted it to test calculator use as well. 43% of the analysed 14943 responses were correct, and the … Continue reading

Posted in mathematical misunderstandings | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment