Focus on Assessment & Feedback

This event enabled teaching staff to share an example of how they’ve used technology to enhance assessment and feedback activities.  We recorded this to share with everyone and here we offer a brief summary. (The final presentation by Philip wasn’t recorded as the session overran our lecture capture booking slot – there’s a lesson for the future! However, we’ve added a link to Philip’s slides so you can see what was covered.)

	Tel Event #2 Recording
	Using Moodle for FYP marking - for distribution (Philip's slides)

Presentation 1

Sabina Gheduzzi (Mechanical Engineering) explained how she came to use rubrics for assignments in Moodle.  The rubric enabled students to see the criteria by which they would be assessed but it also allowed Sabrina to mark work more swiftly.  The rubric also provides students with consistent feedback that can be supplemented by Sabrina’s comments and as a result she has seen fewer issues with students questioning their marks. Student evaluation data has also demonstrated an increase in satisfaction from students when rubrics are used.  The students like it!

Find out more about Moodle rubrics: https://docs.moodle.org/30/en/Rubrics

In discussion, after Sabrina’s presentation, there were questions related to suitability of rubrics when:

• Assessment is based on creative tasks where the rubric may be interpreted too rigidly by students
• When there are very large class sizes

Sabrina explained that in the context of this unit, rubrics enabled her to effectively address a specific issue raised by students in their unit feedback.

Presentation 2

Tim Ibell (Architecture & Civil Engineering) explained how he used a Moodle database to provide a peer assessment experience for a large first year Undergraduate co-hort.  The database was set up with help from the Faculty Learning Technologists and used in the classroom by students accessing Moodle from their mobile devices (i.e. through BYOD – bring your own device).  Students were able to see feedback for their group presentations and receive a score – which was moderated by Tim before being displayed to the groups.   This exercise was part of a planned move to a flipped classroom approach with reduced summative assessment and more time spent problem solving with students.

Find out more about Moodle database activity: https://docs.moodle.org/30/en/Using_Database

Questions raised following Tim’s presentation related to the suitability of peer assessment when:

• Such peer assessment is included in courses which are accredited - would such activities be allowed?
• Students may turn up without a suitable mobile device (or with insufficient battery power) – was there a contingency plan in place?

Presentation 3

Philip Shields (Electronic & Electrical Engineering) explained how he used the Moodle database to keep track of final year student projects and in particular to provide a double blind marking process which couldn’t be achieved easily in other Moodle tools.  Working with a Faculty Learning Technologist and the eLearning team Systems Developer (for some JavaScript expertise), Philip was able to create a database that allowed people in specific roles (e.g. second or third marker) to only view the information they needed.  This was done by creating tabs in the templates which only displayed if the person logged in matched a specific role.

Find out more about Moodle database templates: https://docs.moodle.org/30/en/Database_templates

In discussion after Philip’s presentation, Sabina pointed out that she was able to take a copy of Philip’s database and adapt it for her own programme.  This is done by sharing the database via a Preset option available in Moodle.

Thank you to our three presenters for sharing their experiences.

We hope those attending found it useful and if you have any feedback please contact us at fed-tel@bath.ac.uk

We would particularly like suggestions for the next TEL event - what should the focus be?