TY - GEN
T1 - Engaging students via student-unique Weekly Assessed Tutorial Sheets: A four year review
AU - Russell, Mark
N1 - “This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder." “Copyright IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.” DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2008.4720465
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - Following unacceptable examination performance in a core engineering module, (fluid mechanics and thermodynamics), an alternative and innovative approach to assessment was developed. The new approach centered on the use of student unique weekly assessed tutorial sheets (WATS). The emphasis on assessment arises because of (i) the overwhelming evidence that assessment plays a significant part in student learning - good assessment guides the studentspsila effort towards the intended learning outcomes and helps distribute their effort across both the curriculum topics and the semester, and (ii) the previous assessment programme did little to promote learning nor support teaching. This paper outlines the new development and presents findings from its use across four years. Since its implementation all performance indicators have improved. Students are now more actively engaged with the module, teachers are now provided with information on the studentspsila current (mis)-conceptions and examination scores have improved. Feedback from the students on the various features of the assessment programme is encouraging as is their feedback relating their perception of the assessment programme to scaffold their learning. Many students, however, still note the importance of grades, however, in driving their effort.
AB - Following unacceptable examination performance in a core engineering module, (fluid mechanics and thermodynamics), an alternative and innovative approach to assessment was developed. The new approach centered on the use of student unique weekly assessed tutorial sheets (WATS). The emphasis on assessment arises because of (i) the overwhelming evidence that assessment plays a significant part in student learning - good assessment guides the studentspsila effort towards the intended learning outcomes and helps distribute their effort across both the curriculum topics and the semester, and (ii) the previous assessment programme did little to promote learning nor support teaching. This paper outlines the new development and presents findings from its use across four years. Since its implementation all performance indicators have improved. Students are now more actively engaged with the module, teachers are now provided with information on the studentspsila current (mis)-conceptions and examination scores have improved. Feedback from the students on the various features of the assessment programme is encouraging as is their feedback relating their perception of the assessment programme to scaffold their learning. Many students, however, still note the importance of grades, however, in driving their effort.
U2 - 10.1109/FIE.2008.4720465
DO - 10.1109/FIE.2008.4720465
M3 - Conference contribution
SN - 978-1-4244-1970-8
BT - Procs of the 38th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference 2008
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
T2 - 38th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conf
Y2 - 22 October 2008 through 25 October 2008
ER -