Category Archives: Assessment & Feedback SIG

Co-Leads: Dr Simon Cross & Chris Edwards

Assessment & Feedback SIG

Presentations from Michigan University 24.11.21

Assessment & Feedback SIG Wednesday 24th November 14:00-15:30 (UK)
Presentations from Cait Hayward and August Evrard, Michigan University.
Link to Recording
Link to Slides

 

Abstract:
Letter grades have long served as signaling mechanisms between an institution’s faculty and its students, and making the Dean’s List remains an aspiration of students on most American campuses.  In this presentation, we offer three short talks with a common thread of student advantages and barriers.  We first demonstrate that increased selectivity – the tendency of an institution to admit students with increasingly higher standardized test scores – is an important factor in the rise of undergraduate grades over the past decade.  The findings allow us to refine measures of faculty-related grade inflation, and we introduce grade susceptibility, the conditional distribution of student grade earned as a function of incoming standardized test score, as a measure with broader potential application.  We then pivot to a study of student grades in large STEM courses across multiple institutions that features an integer variable, a systemic advantage index, incorporating dimensions of birth sex, underrepresented minority status, family income, and first-generation college status.  Across seven public US universities, students with high advantage index earn consistently higher grades than their low advantage counterparts, objective evidence that corroborates the persistence of systemic inequities in American STEM education. We conclude with a current project that aims to identify particular courses where systemic advantages are most impactful on student grades, and share these patterns with instructors via a rich data report that highlights opportunities for potential pedagogical changes.  Continue reading Presentations from Michigan University 24.11.21 →

Assessment & Feedback SIG, Events, Generic

Are digital exams here to stay?

On Wednesday, October 6th, the Assessment and Feedback Special Interest Group welcomed José Luis Aznarte, associate professor at the Department of Artificial Intelligence of UNED University. In this session José talked about the experience of switching to online exams amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

The National Distance Education University is the largest university in Spain that combines online with face-to-face learning through a hybrid methodology offered to more than 200,000 students. Exams at UNED were usually held in their local study centres or exam spots. Results were digitised and distributed to each course team using the software called ‘valija virtual’ (virtual pouch). However, the university had to consider alternatives to adjust the examination process and to guarantee fairness and rigour during the unprecedented circumstances of the coronavirus pandemic.  Continue reading Are digital exams here to stay? →

Assessment & Feedback SIG, Events

José Luis Aznarte presents at the next Assessment & Feedback SIG

Assessment & Feedback SIG
Wednesday 6th October, 2021 (14:00 – 15:30 UK)

In this talk José Luis Aznarte will cover UNED’s experience in digitalizing the exam/assessment process during the pandemic lockdowns. Starting with a brief review of our standard assessment protocol, we will dive into the decision process during the emergency provoked by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, including the rejection of invasive forms of vigilance. We will share the results of a social research into the expectations and satisfaction levels of the student community regarding the technical and social aspects of the solution finally adopted by the university.

Speaker Bio
José Luis Aznarte is an associate professor at the Department of Artificial Intelligence of the UNED university and deputy vice-chancellor for intelligent data and resources management. He graduated in Computer Science by the University of Granada (Spain) and there he obtained his PhD. He was a post-doc researcher with the Renewable Energy Research Group in the Center for Energy and Processes of the MINES ParisTech engineering school (France). He was awarded a Ramón y Cajal tenure-track grant. Nowadays he coordinates research about applications of data mining, machine learning and soft computing, especially in the framework of time series forecasting. He is involved in the development of operational solutions for personalized learning, air quality forecasting and public health. He coordinates the UNED-EMT Chair on Sustainable Mobility and Air Quality.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1636-244X

A recording of this session is available for OU staff here.

For an invite, or to be added to the Assessment & Feedback SIG mailing list, please contact openTEL. All are welcome!

Assessment & Feedback SIG, Events

Presentation: Assessment & Feedback Special Interest Group 25th November 2020

Join us on Wednesday 25th November, 14:00 – 15:30 via Adobe Connect.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Assessment and Feedback Practice:
From the Emergency Phase to the Preparation Phase and Beyond.
Dr Edd Pitt, University of Kent

Abstract
The events of March 2020 changed Higher Education for us all. It was rapid, challenging and at times rather scary. The ways we were used to doing things suddenly had to be adapted, modified, and changed because of the situation that faced us. In this talk I will share with you the ways in which the sector responded to the COVID-19 move to largely online learning in HE. I will discuss the implications this had for assessment and feedback practices and how educators negotiated logistical, quality assurance and practical challenges. The talk will also report on how the sector is currently responding to the challenge of planning for Autumn 2020 delivery. In particular I will share insights into the decision’s educators are making that relate to assessment and feedback. I will focus upon how educators are thinking in different ways about how they can help students to develop feedback literacy at a distance. Further I will conclude by discussing more long-term considerations of what opportunities’ online assessment and feedback provides for both educators and students.

Biography
Dr Edd Pitt is the Programme Director for the Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education and Senior Lecturer in Higher Education and Academic Practice at the University of Kent, UK. Edd is also a Visiting Fellow at Deakin University, Australia within the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE). His principle research field is assessment and feedback with a focus upon staff and student’s emotional processing during feedback. In his most recent research, he has been collaborating with academics in the UK and Australia to further understand how educators and students develop feedback literacy.

Assessment & Feedback SIG, Events, YouTube Video

Recording and Slides: Assessment & Feedback SIG September 2020

If you missed our last Assessment & Feedback Special Interest Group meeting, you can find the recording and the PowerPoint slides below.

Presentation 1: Simon  Cross

[embeddoc url=”https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/opentel/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/OPenTEL_Presentation_1-v2.pptx” download=”all” viewer=”microsoft”]

Presentation 2: Chris Edwards

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Presentation 3: Christothea Herodotou

[embeddoc url=”https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/opentel/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Explore-WISEflow_SIGupdate_Sept20-1.pptx” download=”all” viewer=”microsoft”]

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