Findings and discussion

The course audits and the case studies provide information about how outcomes, teaching and assessment can be aligned. Some of these are detailed and specific to individual courses. However, more general learning points and recommendations also emerged which may have resonances within the wider HE community:

• The assessment tasks, the guidance given to students and tutors, and the feedback provided by the tutors were not always well-aligned with the intended learning outcomes of a course.

Recommendation: Assessment activities should be devised with the course learning outcomes in mind, and should identify clearly which outcomes are being addressed. (Indeed, course design should start from the intended outcomes and assessment, not from detailed subject content.) Tutors should bring relevant learning outcomes to the students' attention and refer to them explicitly when providing feedback to students. Where several assessments contribute to an overall course grade, the learning outcomes should be seen as developmental and revisited several times.

Guidance notes for students and marking schemes for tutors should give, as far as possible, the same information so that there is transparency about what is expected, and a shared understanding about the assessment criteria. There should be no hidden agenda in teaching. For students to be effective learners they, as well as tutors, need good explanations about what learning outcomes are for and how they can be used to enhance learning.

• It was not always clear whether assessment was 'for' learning or 'of' learning or both.

Recommendation: Effective developmental assessment should offer opportunities for both summative and formative feedback. Tutor feedback should be aligned with the outcomes and provide not only marks and comments on the quality of the work, but also 'feedforward' to help students move on and further improve their performance.

Learning outcomes can act both as 'hooks' for feedback and feedforward from the tutor, and as criteria which the student can use to assess and improve their own performance. A parallel project FAST - Formative Assessment in Science Teaching is looking in more detail at what feedback is provided by tutors and how it is used by the students.

Assessment can often be seen as something that is not an integrated part of the process of learning but a different type of activity more concerned with measuring what has been learnt. The aim of LOTA is to engage staff to think consciously about what a piece of assessment is for, and be explicit about how it supports learning.

• Different academic areas will see things in different ways.

Recommendation: Academic areas should take ownership of outcomes and assessment and explore what the approach means for them if the pedagogic shift to outcomes is to have a lasting effect.

Approaches to assessment developed in one discipline area may not necessarily work in another. The case studies confirmed that the styles, traditions and expectations of student learning differed across the faculties. For many colleagues, explicitly linking outcomes to assessment and feedback is not a familiar

or comfortable way of devising assessment or commenting on students' work. This was evident, for example, when it came to auditing the assessment of cognitive and key skills in subjects such as mathematics compared with, for example, arts and humanities.

The LOTA project recognized from the outset that there would be no one single approach to outcomes-based learning and teaching that would suit all academic areas. More work is needed at the OU in different academic areas to explore how these changes impact on practice and professional development.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

قسم الشؤون الفكرية يطلق الدورة السابعة للدراسات الحوزوية الإلكترونية بمشاركة 17 دولة

المجمَع العلمي يختتم دورته التطويرية الخامسة لأساتذة التربية الإسلامية في النجف

وفد العتبتين المقدستين يحضر مجالس عزاء ضحايا حريق الكوت

العتبة العباسية المقدسة تشارك في استعادة مكتبة جامعة الموصل ورئاسة الجامعة واليونيسكو تشيدان بالشراكة معها

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

أخصائية تكشف خطورة عادة "شائعة" في غسل المناشف

دراسة: بيضة واحدة أسبوعيا قد تقي من الإصابة بـ

على عكس الشائع.. هذا هو العدد المثالي للخطوات اليومية !

شهر التوعية بالساركوما... أطباء يحذرون من "السرطان الصامت"

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

ذكر أم أنثى؟.. دراسة تنسف الاعتقاد الشائع حول جنس المولود

بحجم برج بيزا.. تحذير من كويكب يقترب من الأرض في هذا الموعد

أقصر يوم في تاريخ البشرية.. الموعد قريب ؟!!

مايكروسوفت تحذر شركات وأجهزة حكومية من هجوم "يوم الصفر"

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

An assessment framework: some background and a sales spiel

Why an assessment framework?

Assessing problematic graduate attributes: a case study

Influence by scholarship

Influence by operationalization

Influence as mentor

Curriculum influence

A conceptual framework for the A/ Deans learning and teaching role

The role of the Assistant Dean, learning & teaching

An Assistant Dean, Learning and Teachings Role in Quality Assuring Assessment

Institutionalizing a General Education Program Review Process: Outcomes Assessment Next steps

GE Program evaluation