Learning from Formative Assessment

1. Learning from Formative Assessment Teaching and Learning Conference UCT 2011 Viki van Rensburg ElelwaniRamugondo Lara Schoenfeld Melanie Alperstein

2. Introduction • Explored how teaching and learning changed over a 3 year period • small part of a 1st term, 1st yr course • based on outcomes of script analyses of student errors • suggested increases in students’ conceptual understanding

3. Background • Collaboration: lecturer & educational advisor, • Ed advisor assessed the first formative assignment with written feedback to first drafts • Rationale - diagnostic assessment • Provided summary of students’ conceptual understanding After three years – shift – improved conceptual understanding

4. Assignment • David Nelson (1996) explains the concept of 'occupation' drawing on the concepts of 'occupational form' and 'occupational performance'. Using Nelson’s model for understanding occupation, describe how something that you 'do' in your own life would be considered an 'occupation'. • In this assignment you should describe the components in Nelson’s model and use examples from one of your own occupations to illustrate each of the concepts.

5. Assessment of assignment No marks Criteria • described all six of the concepts of Nelson’s model • explained an own occupation in terms of the concepts of Nelson’s model by giving examples of each concept; • revealed a correct understanding of the concept of occupation • referenced Individual, written feed back to students

6. Script analysis Coding of common errors revealed: • Incorrect understanding of concepts • Indication of some confusion • Description of concepts omitted • Concepts not applied to occupation, or applied incorrectly • Incomplete answers, indicating either incomplete description of concepts or incomplete application of concepts.

7. Decline in error types Decline in error types 2009 2010 2011 • incorrect understanding 93% 35% 4% • concepts not described 88% 9% 9% • concepts not applied 50% 26% 18% • needs more elaboration 48% 28 % 22% • shows some confusion 58% 52% 38%

8. The trend of decline in the incidence in errors prompted the question • Could the decrease in errors and conversely, the increase in conceptual understanding, be attributed to changes in teaching practice? If so, how and why did the teaching practice change?

9. Method • Qualitative interpretative approach: Case study design • Participants - two key informants • Data: 3 x in-depth interviews • Thematic analysis of transcripts

10. Findings Two themes 1. Uncovering assumptions 2. Teaching for transformation

11. 1. Uncovering assumptions Assumptions dispelled: • Impetus for change was feedback to staff • 1st year students know how to interpret institutional practices

12. ‘Intervention’ prompted change Viki then went through the article, but what she did was she first gave students some tips on how to approach an article and how to read a diagram, how to read into what the author intends in how they sketch a diagram.

13. So she did that, she explained the conventions and really I started thinking ‘my goodness, there is a lot that I take for granted about what students know or don’t know. So in the subsequent year I started changing in the way that I approached the content and in really breaking down what the model suggests, in terms of how the terms, the hierarchy of the concepts in the model

14. 2. Teaching for transformation • Facilitate transition by explicating institutional practices • Scaffold AL skills • Explicate concepts of the model • Active engagement in learning to unpacking theory • Impact on student learning

15. Facilitate transition • Level the playing fields: Academic Literacy skills • Spent more class time to deconstruct the concepts of the model

16. Academic Literacy skills If students are not given the actual tools through which to think it can be an absolute barrier. Because if students are not English speakers, they just would not get beyond a certain mark and that is not acceptable. It is not acceptable that a student hits a ceiling in terms of academic performance because of a … superficial human construction that we all learn in English. It is not inherent in your thinking capacity… It’s imposed. So if you say students are equally capable, yet the minute you give a barrier to some and not to all, it becomes an unfair system….. So in terms of how I structured the learning of the lecture to level, as much as possible, the playing fields, became critical.

17. Active engagement and self-reflective learning So that is what we did, which we did for the first time and it really made a big difference and I think after they had thought about their own experience as individuals, then they were divided into groups and… they had to pick one story that … would speak to the aspects of the model and present it to the group.

18. Impact on student learning Learning for understanding Leaning vital now as • core concepts • entry to of discourse of the discipline • building blocks for further learning

19. Long term learning • By the time they do their final assignment now, in the final term, I didn’t mark them this year, but the markers came back raving, like ‘wow these are first years and they understand ‘occupation’ at a level that Masters students do’…

20. Educational Theory • Scaffold AL practices – epistemological access • Active, engaged learning • Experiential learning – self-reflection • Learning in authentic contexts –own lives, theory comes alive • Explicating institutional practices – introduce rationale for referencing

21. Conclusion What we learnt from this formative assignment after three years: • Explore assumptions • Students need explication of institutional practices and scaffolding of academic literacy, i.e. reading a research article • Active, engaged & experiential learning facilitates understanding • Practice application to real life examples made theory ‘come alive’