Dear Terry,

thanks for your considered response to the points I raised in my 
post. I agree with your comments about the multi-dimensionality of 
learning and the potential for portfolios to contain the 
'meta-information about the relationships between a student's 
evidence of learning and their intended learning', as well as the 
obvious dangers in student self-assessment, particularly at 
undergraduate level.

You mentioned 'the best of self-critical professional reflective 
practices', then my question would be: how does the curriculum design 
explicitly provide for this? I understand and agree that it depends 
on the educational purpose and context, but in the case of an 
institution catering for students entering a wide range of 
workplaces, how is this to be articulated in the curriculum, and how 
is it to be measured? What I mean is there another way apart from 
awarding grades (a mark out of 100), which seems like a rating system 
based on an arbitrary scale that doesn't exist in professional 
practice.

It is problematic to use terms that apply vague value judgements like 
'good', 'excellent', 'acceptable' because these are interpreted 
according to subjective benchmarks. Perhaps this is where the recent 
online conference discussions about practice-led research may 
contribute. Unfortunately I did not keep pace with this conversation 
- did anyone mention self-assessment or evaluation as used in 
professional practice? And how this was evidenced? The obvious in 
professional practice is a simulation of a tender or pitch process, 
which is an example of an alternative assessment tool using 
simulation and role-playing where the 'student-client' gets to argue 
the value of their process/product/idea to the 'student-client' in a 
peer feedback situation - assessment is formative, providing points 
about strengths and areas for improvement. So, at this point, when 
does the project achieve a professional standard/level of 
engagement/depth of enquiry - and this is what might be negotiated.

Indeed, I find it heartening that we are having a conversation about 
assessment on this list - sometimes the issues for professional 
teaching practice get subsumed by the 'sexier' aspects of design 
research.

I will look at the links you suggest, thank you, teena

>Dear Teena,
>Thanks for your message I agree with you there are underlying problems with
>assessment in design education in the areas you point to. Similar problems
>have been found in many other practice-based or professional fields. Many of
>these fields also have creative thinking as a central feature of
>professional skills. In these other fields, the problems of assessment seem
>similar to those of design.
>The main assessment problem areas appear to be in relation to formative
>assessment, negotiated learning, and assessment of higher professional
>skills.
>
>I feel the approaches to portfolios developed in these other fields are
>useful for assessment in design education because they combine two roles: a
>'container' of evidence and meta-information about the relationships between
>a student's evidence of learning and their intended learning.  This enables
>portfolios of this sort to address most problems of assessment because of
>the flexibility in who decides learning areas and outcomes, who decides what
>evidence that can be provided, the choice of relationships between evidence
>and intended learning, and the possibility of transitional assessment during
>learning that enables formative assessment.
>
>The additional element of this sort of portfolio is the meta-information
>that describes the relationship between a student's evidence and their
>intended learning. This differentiates this form of portfolio from
>conventional art, design and architecture portfolios.
>
>You point to the need for 'assessment becoming internalised by students to
>foster their learning in life beyond the requirements of the institution'.
>
>I feel there are many dimensions on this. At one end are the problems of
>students having 'self delusion, overconfidence, and faulty self awareness'
>and at the other are situated the best of self-critical professional
>reflective practices. In this, what to assess and how depends on the
>purposes of the education and assessment processes. To derive successful
>assessment depends on these purposes being explicit in the curriculum
>design.
>
>Some of this material was presented at the Research in Design Education
>Conference in 2000. A preprint is at
>http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2000/2000%20RIDE%20Porfolios%2
>0in%20Des%20Ed_TC&TL.htm
>
>Some other pre-prints on portfolio-based assessment that might be of
>interest are:
>
>http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2004/Online%20portfolios_TL&TC
>_IS2003.doc
>
>http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2002/2002%20Aare%20%20Online_p
>ortfolios_TC&TL.htm
>
>http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2001/2001%20WeB01%20OnlinePort
>folios&IS_TC&TL.htm
>
>I welcome your comments
>
>Terry

-- 
Teena Clerke
PO Box 1090
Strawberry Hills NSW 2012
0414 502 648