Digital assessment exemplar 17

How were your students responding to assessment notifications in your course? Were they enthusiastic and engaged with the assessment and their peers in the class? Wouldn’t it be great if we can deliver engaging student-led assessments?

Sumiko Iida is the convener of ARTS3639, Japan in Popular Culture, introduced a strategy; tutorials classes from week 3 – 8 (only five weeks, excluding week six) are led by student leaders. Each student must take the leader’s role once during this period. It is a 20% worth assessment task, which involves 'preparation, discussion in the tutorial class, and post tutorial reflective report based on a tutorial question given for each week.

Each tutorial class accommodates a maximum of five tutorial leaders. Non-leader students in each tutorial class will be in their assigned group, up to five groups in a tutorial. Sumiko provides a list of tutorial questions for each week and students can sign up the week they wish to lead the tutorial class on Moodle by the end of Week 1. Place will be confirmed on ‘first come, first served’ basis. Sumiko will assign a random place to those who missed the sign-up.

The student leader prepare to lead (a group in) the tutorial class by (1) give thoughts on 'The tutorial question s/he chose prior to discussions, generate a few sub-questions that lead the answer to the tutorial question, (2) use a few media (any form e.g., article, movie, music, image) that the leader thinks useful for discussion, (3) post the selected tutorial question and, media along with an instruction (i.e. what is the student leader going to do with the media and what the leader wants his/her group mates to prepare for the class) on Moodle by the end of the week before the tutorial class the leader is assigned to lead. For example, if a student leader is going to lead a tutorial class in week 3, then instructions should be posted by 11:59pm on Sunday, the last day of week 2, and (4) prepare a single slide for an introduction presentation in the tutorial class.

During the tutorial, each student leader is expected to present the motivation behind the chosen question, the media product, sub-questions and what the student leader is aiming at finding out of tutorial group discussion, in 2.5 minutes using one slide, and (2) after the last leader to present, the class moves on to group discussions. The student leaders are to lead their groups to discuss each sub-question, then to the main question.

After leading the groups’ discussions and before the next lecture, each student leader must wrap-up by summarising the group discussion for wrap-up lecture that follows the tutorial class.

Finally, every leader student must submit the summary of the tutorial discussion along with a conclusion on Moodle by Friday 4pm of the week.

Non-tutorial leader students (1) will be assigned to a group, and will be assigned to work on one of the leader’s topic, (2) must read the instruction assigned tutorial leader created on Moodle, and prepare with the materials provided by the leader, (3) to take part in the group discussion and contribute to lead the group to a certain conclusion and (4) to participate in the wrap-up session and listen to other groups’ discussions and outcomes.

Initially, Sumiko Iida used Moodle Wiki activity. Unfortunately, it allows one entry at a time and students can override edits. Sumiko Iida then opted for Moodle Forum activity.

This was implemented in T2 2019 in ARTS3639 for the duration of 5 weeks. They were 48 Students, two tutorial classes every week, five student leaders every week in each tutorial class, and five groups in each tutorial class. Students wanted Sumiko to assign group. Each student has a week to lead a group.

Students enjoyed the course and each student led a group for a week, presented the discussion in a lecture. There were no incidents where students accidentally overrode other’s contributions after shifting from wiki to forum. The strategy works well with the Moodle Forum activity.

1. Please use the guide on the Teaching Gateway to setup a Moodle Forum activity.
2. Inform the students of this activity. Clarify goals, rules expectations in a written document as well as explaining it orally at the beginning of the term.
3. Moderate forum discussions.
4. Compile all slides in one PowerPoint presentation and save them in the Cloud for tutorial class.

Pros

• Promoting active tutorials and led by students.
• Moodle Forum activity allows you to see individual contributions to the discussion and It is possible to upload videos and images in posts.
• Unlike wiki, each member of the group cannot delete posts belonging to others.
• This task splits the number of markings over five weeks rather than marking everyone at the same time.

Cons

• Monitoring student leader’s pre-tutorial work relies on the instructor’s effort.
• Grouping students each week may be time consuming to some instructors.
• For an instructor who prefers assessing all students at once may find this way of assessment reluctant.

To get started with this strategy, please contact Sumiko Iida.

• Post an instruction in PDF document that includes outline of activities, goals and rules, including frequently asked questions for tutorial leaders, on Moodle.
• Put leaders name and members’ name on the forum’s topic. The students can see which group they belong to easily.
• Refresh the group members each week to maximise student's opportunity to communicate with different classmates
• Provide succinct guide on the weekly forum for tutorial leaders. This ensures the student-led activities run smoothly. For example; (1) put tutorial question with a few sub-questions for group members, (2) post image(s)/movie clips you wish to discuss in class together with source of these media, so that group members will understand the story behind the media, (3) inform group members to prepare required materials for in-class presentation.
• Monitor leaders’ pre-tutorial work and advice those who are off the track.

Please contact Sumiko Iida for demos.