At today’s PGCert onsite session, we worked on a task to a present an artefact. In my group, I presented an Assessment Brief in a standard format. Mikha presented a Miro board which demonstrated the design for a Q&A flowchart for students to assess their learning about circular supply chains. Amy presented a lesson plan document almost like a script to demonstrate how she would teach a class on how to make pdfs accessible on Moodle.
We were tasked with assessing the artefacts and thinking about how to improve them. We chose to reinvent the Assessment Brief structure taking inspiration from the Miro flow chart and the lesson plan. Reflecting on the pre-reading by Davis, 2012 it seems that Learning Outcomes, Grading Criteria and even the entire Assessment Brief require further explanation multiple times and in multiple formats across the course of a unit.
“…whilst it is important that students know what they have to do on any course of study, it is not necessarily through published learning outcomes. Learning outcomes might be seen as necessary for administrative purposes but they are not sufficient in helping students develop an idea of what they will be learning and how they will go about it. Indeed, in a highly supportive context, learning outcomes might be so generalised as to only define the landscape and the boundaries of their intended learning. The knowing of what to do becomes developmental and personalised.” (Davis, 2012)
We discussed the fact that the Assessment Brief is confusing and its format creates further confusion. Students engage with the AB as a fixed pdf document on Moodle that appears as a link. Several clicks are required to locate it and then open it. However, the AB only tells a partial story referencing the LOs, marking criteria, an overview of the submission requirements and the submission dates. It is necessary to match this information with the scheme-of-work and the unit contents to figure out which parts fit where and to know what is required to succeed. This fragmented form of communication means students lack surety in what they should be doing, and creates fear and uncertainty around the requirements to achieve a high grade.
We attempted to redesign the information into one document or flow chart that would present the information in a logical order. This is demonstrated in the images. Mikha showed a novel way to capture the scheme-of-work on Moodle using HP5 to create a kind of slideshow with a corresponding calendar. It was interesting to note that Amy as a digital learning team member had not seen this before. Mikha had arranged for a colleague to help her create it at a local level. We agreed that there is a resourcing and responsibility issue around how things are created on Moodle and by whom. There were also concerns about the further updates to Moodle this year.
Overall, it was a useful exercise to reflect on the flow of information and how it is grouped and disseminated to students. We agreed that the current process creates unnecessary confusion and could be streamlined. Amy raised useful points about accessibility that would be worth researching further.
