Improve+Your+Assessment+ROI+-+Transforming+feedback+into+learning

[Images from (T) Found at UConn Assessment: Why Assessment? at @http://www.assessment.uconn.edu/why/index.html and (B) Alejandraate Hortuad's Learning Log at http://goo.gl/T6jEMS ]

The resources below may be downloaded, used as is, or adapted for use under the terms of the CC license below with credit given to: Enjoy!
 * Sue Hellman (2014), University of New Brunswick - Fredericton. Retrieved from Educational Mixology at [|http://goo.gl/x4qnk],
 * the original sources of any media (images, videos) or information content (quotations, rubrics, etc.) which can be found in each slide's notes.

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A. Description
In her paper, Teaching, Learning, and Assessment in Higher Education (2005), Sue Fostaty Young wrote: “Assessment has long been recognized as the single most influential factor in shaping what and how students in higher education choose to learn.” Yet Gibbs and Simpson found: it is “disliked by both students and teachers and largely ineffective in supporting learning" (Conditions Under Which Assessment Supports Students’ Learning, 2004-5). The challenge, then, is to find a way to make assessment pay off for both instructors and learners.

The solution the presenter proposes is to pair formative feedback delivered through action-oriented rubrics with short, small group, in-class ‘practice in your presence’ sessions designed to leverage the power of peer collaboration and also give instructors an opportunity get feedback on their feedback. The goal of the session is for participants to engage in this workshop on two levels — both as educators and as learners — and, as a result, to appreciate the power of using their experiences as students to inform their assessment decisions and practices as instructors. This workshop will meet the needs of participants who wishes to turn assessment into an opportunity for learning and thereby improve their assessment ROI (return on investment).

During this session participants, through both individual and group activities, will:
 * 1) distinguish 'assessment' from 'evaluation'.
 * 2) explore why providing feedback on its own may not be sufficient to change learner behaviours.
 * 3)  suggest features which make rubric less or more helpful to  students.
 * 4) collaborate to build a rubric which will provide action-oriented feedback for an authentic task.
 * 5) experience the ‘practice in your presence’ scaffolding strategy and share potential uses in their settings
 * 6) see what learning looks like in the brain.

B. Handouts to download and bring to the workshop
(1) Please download and bring an editable copy with you. Digital or hardcopy? The choice is yours. At Drexel, paper copies will be available. However, you'll need your own pen/pencil.



(2) Additional rubric examples and guidelines -- some I like; others I don't. Keep trying to see them through the learner's eyes and asking yourself how 'helpful' they'd be to guide improvement

[[file:Rubric checklist and samples.pdf]]


**C. Presentation Slides and notes ** After the workshop has concluded, the complete slide deck (including detailed speaker notes) will be posted here and available for download. This may not happen until Monday, Sept. 15 but they will be here -- I promise. I have to replace edited videos with links, make sure all sources receive credit, and round out my thoughts in the notes.



==E. New Research study from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the University of New South Wales ==

Shirley V. Scott (2014) Practising what we preach: towards a student-centred definition of feedback, Teaching in Higher Education, 19:1, 49-57, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2013.827639
 * This is a very new and in my opinion important study for anyone trying to make this transition. She echoes my thoughts From pages 50:

Here, then, is Scott's paper its entirely.
 * From p. 53 an ironic example of that perception mismatch:
 * From p. 52 about 'telling' not being enough to effect the desired understanding or change

F. Other Resources
media type="custom" key="26511440" To view the resources -- To search the collection -- These resources are NOT organized by importance/value but appear in the order in which I found them.
 * To advance the slider --> 'mouse over'/tap the far right or left of the widget for the arrows.
 * To see one resource or the full collection --> click the picture to see that specific resource; click the widget heading to see the full collection.
 * If not displaying properly --> @http://www.scoop.it/t/educational-mixology-tools-strategies
 * All entries have been tagged.
 * To see the 'subjects', click the "Find" tab (upper left).
 * Tags for this workshop include:

//F. Rubric Cubed: Interactive Grading Rubric, Rich Feedback Generator //
[Note: this spreadsheet tool will not be used during the workshop.]

Very few rubric tools offer the ability to provide personalized feedback. //Rubric Cubed// was designed for that purpose. I originally found it on Penn State's John A. Dutton e-Education Institute (the learning design unit of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences) webpage, but only a cached version remains at --> @http://goo.gl/3rKkTa. I have tried without success to contact the original author, but some time ago was given permission to use it in a presentation, so in case the cached version also disappears, I have copied and pasted all the relevant material below. Because you can customize the criteria and rating system for the project, task, or class, and send comments to each student, this tool permits you to provide highly personal feedback. In smaller classes, it would probably be most useful either with a project that lasts several weeks (with recurrent feedback) or with a task that students will repeat several times in a course. In a large class, you might use this tool to build a rubric with the students (clone your screen so they can see what is going in). If you have some items that are non-negotiable, you can prefill them and explain why. You might have students use it to give peers feedback on presentations or other tasks or assignments or use it yourself to give formative feedback on a group project.



** Instructions for customizing your rubric **
Begin by saving the file RubricBuilderV2.xhtml to your computer. [This is Version 2, you can also get Version 1 .] To save: (1) a Windows computer, right-click on that link; (2) on a Mac, ctrl-click OR right-click>>Download Linked File. You'll find that the tool is very flexible, yet easy to use! Want to see how it is done? Watch Jonathan's narrated **rubric** movie.
 * Open the saved file - When it opens you will see the Rubric Development Tool
 * Click on any field to change the text
 * Use the "Show Feedback" button on each row to see, and then edit, the feedback
 * Change some settings by clicking the "Worksheet Options" button.
 * Add rows or columns, and rearrange rows, moving them up or down
 * Specify "groups" using the pull-down numbers in the right margin, and the feedback will be presented in the order of these groups.
 * Save the file to store your new rubric - If you want to have multiple rubrics, do a "Save as..." and give your rubric a unique file name (like "final_project_rubric.xhtml").

** Instructions for using your rubric to provide feedback **
When you have the content of your rubric the way you want it, click the "Create Worksheet" button and a new window will open with a version that is ready for conducting an assessment.
 * 1) Type in a student name and ID (if that option has been checked)
 * 2) Click on the ratings you wish to assign to the student's work
 * 3) When you have finished, click the "Finalize Worksheet" button, and the assessment tool turns into a student report, with the rubric displayed at the top and narrative feedback gathered beneath it
 * 4) To save the report, for distribution to the student, pull down the file menu to "Save Page As..." and make sure that the Format pull down menu is set to "Web Page, complete," then give it a name and save it
 * 5) When the recipient wants to view it, they can open the feedback in any browser (thus far, this has been tested with Safari, Firefox, and Explorer - all on the Mac platform).