Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:3882] Re: IFETS-DISCUSSION digest 463
From: Anita Pincas (A.Pincas@ioe.ac.uk)
Date: Mon 23 Sep 2002 - 21:17:23 MEST
From: "Anita Pincas" <A.Pincas@ioe.ac.uk> Subject: [IFETS-DISCUSSION:3882] Re: IFETS-DISCUSSION digest 463 Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 07:17:23 +1200
Response to Brent Muirhead's challenging overview of principles of student
assessment.
May I, as a UK educator, start by recollecting that the terms "assessment"
and "evaluation" tend to be used a bit differently over here. We use the
former in relation to students, and the latter in relation to the course or
to our own practice. Thus we assess students and their work, but we
evaluate a course or our own teaching. A small point, perhaps, but it
needed clarifying.
Whatever terms we use, the issue is fraught with difficulties in today's
economic climate, where we are under pressure to relieve the burden on
[too few] staff. This is particularly so in the online environment where -
just because students have such easy access to tutors - it is very hard not
to appear indifferent to their needs.
In my experience, there are no ready answers for campus or distance
teaching other than more staff. Solutions have been sought in computer
based assessment, in peer learning, and in developing student
autonomy. The first still awaits more development, but may never be
maximally useful other than for strictly knowledge based contexts. The
last is probably not effective for the majority of learners, especially
inexperienced ones.
Peer support is my preference, and is probably of most value where the
students are themselves already professionally knowledgeable in their
field. I am lucky enough to work primarily with such people on my course
in Online Eduction & Training, where Brent will be the US facilitator this
year. Nevertheless, despite the rich range of experiences and
collaboration that we expose them to, and from which they definitely learn,
some still comment that they would have liked more feedback than we give
them.
Thus, I conclude for the moment that it is a bottomless pit. The more we
do, the more will be asked of us.
Anita.
-------------------------------------------------
Anita Pincas <A.Pincas@ioe.ac.uk>
Institute of Education,
University of London,
Certificate in Online Education and Training (ONLINE)
http://www.ioe.ac.uk/english/oet.htm
-------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------
List address to send message to everyone:
ifets-discussion@catfish.valdosta.edu
Details of current discussion: http://ifets.ieee.org/discussions/discuss.html
Forum website: http://ifets.ieee.org/
Forum's contact person: kinshuk@massey.ac.nz
Info on Join/Leave List: http://ifets.ieee.org/maillist.html
---------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2a24 : Mon 23 Sep 2002 - 22:14:03 MEST