The Yin/Yang of Innovative Technology Enhanced Assessment for Promoting Student Learning

• Published in: European Conference on e-Learning p. 230
• Main Authors: Hutchings, Maggie, Quinney, Anne, Galvin, Kate, Clark, Vince
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Kidmore End Academic Conferences International Limited 01.10.2012
• Subjects: Automation; Design; Distance learning; Feedback; Learning; Learning Activities; Learning Processes; Learning Strategies; Pedagogy; Reflective teaching; Teaching Methods; Technological change
• ISSN: 2048-8637; 2048-8645

While more sophisticated and constructively aligned assessment is encouraged to promote higher level learning, it is easier to assess knowledge and comprehension than critical thinking and making judgements (Bryan & Clegg 2006). Managing the logistics and resources required for assessing large numbers of students challenges the ethos of placing students at the heart of the learning process and helping them take responsibility for their own learning. The introduction of innovative technology enhanced assessment strategies contests our understanding of the purposes of assessment and affords opportunities for more integrated and personalised approaches to learning and assessment across disciplines. This paper will examine the design, implementation and impacts of innovative assessment strategies forming an integral part of a collaborative lifeworld-led transprofessional curriculum delivered to cohorts of 600 students in health and social work using technology to connect learners to wide-ranging, humanising perspectives on evidence for guiding practice. Innovative assessment technologies included group blogs, multiple choice electronic or computer assisted assessment (CAA), and an audience response system (ARS) affording combinations of assessment for learning and assessment of learning. We will explore, through analyses of student assessment experiences and student and staffevaluations, how these innovative assessment approaches contribute to effective and efficient blended education enabling students to enhance their practice through promoting and developing critical thinking and reflection for judgement-based practice (Polkinghorne 2004). Secondly, we will debate the yin and yang of contrasting and connecting values associated with the controlled, systematic measurement and objectivity of multiple choice assessments, compared with the formative, iterative and subjective nature of reflective blogging. We will consider relationships between teaching and learning strategies and experiences, breadth and depth of knowledge, passive and active approaches to learning, efficiency and effectiveness, individual and group, multiple choice and discursive assessments, face-to-face and online, on-campus and off-campus learning and assessment experiences. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]