As Life Itself

The authors present an innovative practice of authentic evaluation of competences carried out in the “teaching and learning strategies” course of the psychology degree. The evaluation proposal central to this course is based on a real, relevant and socializing practice context in which students have to act as counsellors to respond to a high-school teacher's request: to improve a teaching sequence or unit. In order for this authentic project to work and generate a gradual construction of learning, course teachers used a series of evaluation strategies directed at the assessment of both the result and the learning process and aimed at facilitating students' learning self-regulation and teachers' provision of educational help. Results show that students value the processes of formative assessment because they allow them to act in an authentic context. In turn, teachers are highly satisfied with the involvement and quality of the projects.

Peer assessment in an Online Context

In this work, making use of Tinoca, Oliveira and Pereira (2013) framework for assessment quality in digital contexts, we discuss the students' perspective about self and peer assessment practices in online environments. This research is based in the analysis of the students' perceptions in a fully online master's course being offered in a distance education university since 2007. We discuss the students' representations since that date until the present, reflecting on their roles as assessors, the challenges they faced, and the strategies they developed to overcome them. The results illustrate the participants' perceptions of self and peer assessment as innovative practices. There is a strong tendency throughout this period towards greater confidence with these practices, and increased trust in their peers' feedback and competence to share the assessment responsibility. Moreover, the transparency promoted by the sharing during the process and of the final products is recognized as crucial to support the participants' reflection process and competence development.

Teaching for Epistemological Change

As higher education teachers, the authors are committed to supporting students in their epistemological development, specifically in their transition towards self-direction. In this chapter, they share their experience of using self-assessment in a Teacher Training Degree course as a way to both enhance self-direction and assess its development. A thematic analysis of the self-assessments of a sample of 30 students is carried out, and four themes are identified: 1) the degree of authorship, 2) the degree of elaboration, 3) “taking notice of” subtle levels of analysis, and 4) the identification of temporal milestones throughout the course. These themes enable a different pattern of mental complexity to be identified, a complexity which is understood as evidence of students' different degrees of self-direction. The findings are discussed in the light of developmental constructivist theories. In addition, some implications for education regarding the current debates on self-assessment literature are presented.

Teacher Self-Assessment of Feedback Practices in an EFL Academic Writing Class - A Reflective Case Study

Unlike studies of teacher feedback on student writing, research into teacher self-assessment of their own feedback practices is quite rare in the assessment literature. In this reflective case study, the researcher/teacher systematically analyzed feedback practices to clearly determine the form and kind of formative feedback being provided on student essays, and also to compare these feedback practices to recommended practice from the feedback literature. The research took place in an academic English writing course for third-year students at a Japanese university. A close examination of the teacher feedback on the first draft of 21 student essays was undertaken, and more than 800 feedback interventions were identified and coded. Results of this investigation show a number of patterns of practice in giving feedback, including; extensive use of questions in teacher commentary, very limited use of praise comments, and varying amounts of feedback provided on individual essays. Results also show that the feedback practices discovered through this investigation align well with recommended best practice. The case study positions the teacher as ‘learner' in this feedback process, and calls for similar published research describing in detail what teachers do when providing feedback to students on their work.

Students' Conceptions of Understanding and Its Assessment

Understanding means different things to different people, influencing what and how students learn and teachers teach. Mainstream understanding of understanding has not progressed beyond the first level of constructivist learning and thinking, ie academic understanding. This study, based on 167 student narratives, presents two hitherto unknown conceptions of understanding matching more complex ways of knowing, understanding-in-relativism and understanding-in-supercomplexity requiring the development of more complex versions of constructive alignment. Students comment that multiple choice testing encourages learning focused on recall and recognition, while academic understanding is not assessed often and more complex forms of understanding are hardly assessed at all in higher education. However, if study success depends on assessments-of-learning that credit them for meaning oriented learning and deeper understanding, students will put in effort to succeed.

Formative Evaluations of Teaching

Students engaging in the assessment and evaluation process is becoming increasingly popular because it helps students become active participants in their own learning. In this chapter we discuss ways to involve students in the assessment and evaluation process in the classroom. It brings together multiple perspectives on critical thinking, metacognition, interteaching and student evaluations of teaching (SETs). The commonality between these four key elements is the importance of engaging students to become active participants in their own learning because they can help improve student learning outcomes. This chapter goes on to examine how these assessments and evaluations play a role in developing critical thinking skills and metacognition in students.

Beyond the Walls

Main goal of the chapter is to focus on project based learning (PjBL) as an effective learning and assessment method effectively used in higher education. Chapter provides an understanding of Romanian higher education contextual challenges, current pedagogy trends and specific examples to support the idea that PjBL leads to the type of authentic learning needed for nowadays students. Theoretical framework and examples are enriched by reflections on undergraduate and master degree students' perceptions on learning process and learning outcomes.

Authentic Assessment

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze and discuss the concept of authentic assessment at Master's degree level. Firstly, this chapter attempts to provide a better understanding of the Master's program within the context of the Bologna system by providing a short historical perspective on the evolution of the Bologna process, as well as trying to identify the true beneficiaries. The chapter also addresses some of the challenges of the assessment process with two main themes: types and aim of the assessment process. Furthermore, the authors focus on the role of the authentic assessment, at a Master's degree level – as reflected by students' perception and correlated with its intended purpose. Drawing on the findings, the authors attempt to shape a description of what authentic assessment is and what it should be at Master's degree level.

Designing Assessment, Assessing Instructional Design

Assessment plays a vital role in delivering, evaluating, monitoring, improving and shaping learning experiences on the Web, at the desk and in the classroom. In the process of orchestrating educational technologies instructional designers are often confronted with the challenge of designing or deploying creative and authentic assessment techniques. For an instructional designer, the focus of assessment can be on individual learning, organizational improvement or the evaluation of educational technologies. A common question across these domains is how to translate pedagogical concepts such as authenticity and creativity into concrete practical applications and metrics. Educational technologies can support creative processes and offer connections to authentic contexts, just as well as they can curtail creativity and foster standardized testing routines. The chapter discusses theoretical frameworks and provides examples of the conceptual development and implementation of assessment approaches in three different areas: Needs assessment, impact assessment and classroom assessment.

Assessment for Learning

To support students, make effective use of feedback to improve their learning, this chapter provides practical tips and strategies for teachers to stimulate their students' interest in feedback, assimilate its significant role and get involved in interpreting, reflecting and acting upon feedback comments. The author focuses on both summative and formative feedback. For summative feedback, one's concern is to encourage students to interpret grades/marks, reflect upon them and transform them into plans and actions. This is through using reflective worksheets and other post-exam tasks in class which are designed by the author. Feedback within self, peer and group assessment approaches is also concerned in this chapter. Other kinds of reflective worksheets are suggested to be used to reflect on the student learning process as part of the student portfolio, journal or set separately, in addition to the use of technology, i.e., class blogs to enhance such reflection.