Author Archives: Sally Jordan

Evaluation, evaluation, evaluation

Despite my recent ‘rants of the day’, I think it is vitally important that we try our best to evaluate our assessment practice. There is some good, innovative practice out there, but it can still be very tempting to confuse … Continue reading

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A Darwinian view of feedback effectiveness

Please don’t treat this too seriously – but please do stop and think about what I am trying to say, in the light of the fact that the effectiveness of feedback on assessment tasks is, despite the huge amount that’s been written … Continue reading

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More lies, damned lies and statistics

This second ‘rant of the day’ focuses on practice which, I think, arises from the fact that most people are not as fortunate(?) as me in having data from hundreds and thousands of students on each module each year. It … Continue reading

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Victorian clergymen

This is more ‘rant of the day’ than ‘quote of the day’ but I’d like to start with a quote from my own ‘Maths for Science’ (though I’m indebted to my co-author Pat Murphy who actually wrote this bit): ” … Continue reading

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Quotes of the day

‘In other words, if students perceive a need to understand the material in order to successfully negotiate the assessment task, they will engage in deep learning but if they perceive the assessment instrument to require rote learning of information, they … Continue reading

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Quote of the day

…assessment is a form of communication. This communication can be to a variety of sources, to students (feedback on their learning), to the lecturer (feedback on their teaching), to the curriculum designer (feedback on the curriculum) to administrators (feedback on … Continue reading

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Is feedback a waste of time? A personal view

I’ve just found something I wrote nearly eight years ago and most of this post is a copy of it. I might draw some slightly different conclusions now, but my basic argument is unchanged. There is huge confusion about what feedback … Continue reading

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Quote of the day

I’ve blogged before about Snyder’s (1971) ‘Hidden curriculum’ ( click here). But looking in more detail, on page 120, we have  ‘so many students in colleges and universities…get their rewards from grades on papers they have written and not from the … Continue reading

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Quote of the day

I’m reading for the literature review for my PhD, so expect some gems in the next week or so! In searching for more information about the background to our use of interactive computer-marked assessment at the Open University I came … Continue reading

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Do we over-assess?

We are under pressure to retain more of our students – I suspect the same is true across the sector. But one of the reasons cited for student drop-out is over-assessment. Is this reasonable? Well, maybe. If we accept that assessment … Continue reading

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