Agreed!

Definitely not my intention to stop at assessment, as I say in the book, but assessment design drives so many other practices so it’s a good place to focus on.

Really interesting discussion. Why stop at assessment? The way most curricula are currently designed encourages students to approach their studies in a very strategic manner, rarely engaging with learning in the most deep and transformative way. I’d be pro removing any aspect of the curriculum that encourages this approach – assessment is clearly a very central part of this…

 

Kevin

 

From: Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carmichael H.
Sent: 06 December 2018 08:15
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Awarding the highest marks

 

Interesting discussion – I am definitely in support of your revolution, Dilly.  This is exactly what we need

 

Dr Helen Carmichael BEd (Hons) MSc PhD PFHEA

 

Director of Programmes & Deputy Director, CHEP (Centre for Higher Education Practice)

Faculty of Social Sciences

32/2015 Highfield Campus

University of Southampton

SO17 1BJ

 

Tel: +44 (0)23 8059  8196

Twitter: @helencarm

 

From: Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Fung,Dilly
Sent: 06 December 2018 08:03
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Awarding the highest marks

 

(Re-sending this for those who for some reason couldn’t see the text yesterday.)

 

Interesting discussion. I propose a revolution. 

 

Let’s stop awarding numeric marks for components of a degree, and just award indicative broad grades to those components. Then ask students as a capstone exercise as they approach graduation to compile a curated selection of their best work, selected to demonstrate the programme-level outcomes. Students can then introduce that portfolio of varied assessments/outputs (via podcast, video or whatever) to an external audience, providing a connective narrative of their learning (e.g. covering connections between different areas of knowledge/evidence/argument; articulation of their own skill set; discussion of values/ethics in relation to the discipline/interdisciplinary fields/profession with which they’ve engaged). Details of these requirements would be shaped to the particular disciplinary context and the characteristics of that particular degree. In their connecting narrative, students could also be encouraged to make reference to learning they’ve undertaken outside the degree, too - eg through work placements, volunteering, time overseas etc.

 

Moving to programme-level assessment via a Showcase Portfolio, and putting all the summative assessment emphasis into getting the marking of that portfolio right (using a more sensible scheme than percentages, ideally), would have so many benefits. Think of the time it would save! It would also mean that in the learning components (modules) the focus would be on feedback/feedforward and dialogue for learning, not formal marks.

 

I write about this idea in my book on Connected Curriculum, Chapter 7, free to download here - in case you’re interested in revolting with me!

 

http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1558776/1/A-Connected-Curriculum-for-Higher-Education.pdf

 

 

All the best

 

Dilly

 

Prof Dilly Fung 

Pro-Director for Education

London School of Economics and Political Science

Directorate | Houghton Street | London | WC2A 2AE
Email: [log in to unmask]

EA: Marlene Worrell
Tel: (020) 7955 7014
[log in to unmask]

 

On 5 Dec 2018, at 09:21, Peter Hartley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 

As a complement (and compliment) to Chris Rust’s excellent paper, can anyone help me locate another paper on this paper which I have managed to lose in the vaults:

- think the title contained the phrase ‘marks are not numbers’

- think it came from an academic in the University of Aberdeen 

- it is quite old, dating from before virtually all journals became available on the web

 

Among the main points that the author (pretty sure it was ‘he’) made were that:

- marks cannot be considered as 'real numbers’. For example, the difference between 69 and 70 apples is one apple, no more and no less; the difference between 69 and 70 marks could be the student’s choice of career!

- as a result, we cannot sensibly apply most (if not all) statistical techniques to marks because these techniques are based on the assumption that they are working with real numbers.

 

Onwards to perexit (which spell-checker is trying to exclude!)

Best wishes

Peter

 

On 5 Dec 2018, at 08:23, Ian Scott <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

 

perhaps we need a percexit  campaign

 

On Wed, 5 Dec 2018 at 08:06, Chris Rust <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Couldn’t agree more Peter. As I have said on more than one occasion, university marking/assessment systems do things which a first year statistics student would fail for, and are intellectually indefensible!

Chris 

Sent from my iPhone

On 4 Dec 2018, at 9:04 pm, Peter Hartley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

But don’t you have to question the rationale of the marking scale as well as considering the criteria?

 

Why do we believe in percentages as the best way of calibrating student performance? 

And where/how did this practice originate? (we’ve been asking this question in programme assessment workshops over the last couple of years and have never received a convincing answer - anyone out there can help?)

 

And then you start to question the rationale of a first class scale with 30% in it.

If we have 10% scales for the other awards - 40/49, 50/59. 60/69 - then shouldn’t the first class scale be 70/79? 

So there is a logic to marks ‘petering out’ at 80 ... Otherwise we give top students double advantage when we average marks over different modules. 

 

Or maybe we should fundamentally question the rationality of applying a percentage scale - percentage of what?

If we were not using the percentage scale then would we need to have conversations about ‘exceptional marks’?

And can anyone of us honestly say that we can in theory make 100 discriminations between student assignments so that any mark is possible in principle?

 

Best wishes

Peter

 

 

On 4 Dec 2018, at 20:21, Davies, Jason <[log in to unmask]> wrot

 

Hi SEDA, 

I’d be interested to know what you collectively come up with to consider ‘how to award the highest marks for essays’. I realise that an obvious answer is not to use essays, but I’d rather put that to one side as a different conversation, if you will indulge me.

 

I’ve seen several scenarios where mark schemes peter out around 80 but I’m assured that higher marks *are* awarded, into the low 90s, where the student, to paraphrase Michael Caine, blows the bloody doors off. Phrases like ‘exceed the criteria’ (or even as I once heard, ‘explode the criteria’) are usually used.

 

When I’ve seen people try to articulate these standards, they usually rely heavily on words like ‘original’, ‘ground-breaking’ and so on, but this doesn’t convince me: they mean ‘ground-breaking’ to *them* (the academics). Sometimes they say ‘publishable’ but in interdisciplinary modules, this immediately prompts the question ‘which journal?’ It also threatens to lock the assessment into a particular kind of writing (ie a particular journal) when actually creating a suitable form for the argument is part of the assignment. It also makes me think if I’m honest that I read articles in journals I would not want to use as benchmarks.

 

So I wonder if any of you have seen more convincing criteria for these exceptional marks than the ones I’ve mentioned? As ever, I am happy to collate answers and feed them back to the list.

 

Thanks for your time (perhaps see some of you at SRHE)

Cheers

Jason Davies

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks,

    -Jason

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--

Dr Ian Scott, Associate Dean for Student Experience, 

Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
Oxford Brookes University
Marston Road
Oxford
OX3 OFL
0044 1865 48 2638

 

Have you seen

Scott, I. and Mazhindu, D. (2014) Statistics for Health Care Professionals: An Introduction (2nd Edition). Sage 

Scott, I. and Spouse, J. (2013) Practice based Learning in Nursing, Health and Social Care; Mentorship, Facilitation and Supervision, Wiley

Ely, C and Scott, I. (2007) Essential study skills for Nursing, Elsevier

 

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