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Self-assessment
Description
This is self-explanatory: it is about getting
students to develop the skills and judgement to assess themselves. Clearly it applies
mainly to formative assessment,
but it is none the less important for that. Students who are capable of assessing
themselves are already half-way to being reflective practitioners (only half-way because
the assessments may not be fully valid).
It is part of their development that they should no longer be entirely reliant on their
teachers to assess them.
Indications
- More often than you think. Teachers tend to believe
that given the chance of self-assessment, students will always mark themselves more highly
than their teachers would. If the self-assessment is a short-cut to passing a module or
not (summative), this might be the
case, but their judgements—even in the case of “immature”
adolescents—often prove to be remarkably accurate or even conservative.
Contra-Indications
- First assessments in any given module, when the
students do not really have a clue about the criteria and how they work in practice.
Having said that, why not spend some time making them transparent to the students? There
is the possibility of fostering surface learning, of course, if it is just a matter of
helping them to play the assessment game, but if you can demonstrate that the assessments
are valid, this is likely to be less of a problem.
- When there is some other agenda which might distort the
assessment: group rivalries, for example, when the assessment is made public.
Special precautions
- Clearly, this approach is complementary to teacher
assessment. It is not reasonable to abrogate all responsibility for assessment—and
some students even resent being asked to take any part in assessment at all. They see it
as the teacher's job: if they can't be persuaded otherwise, this is symptomatic of a
problematic approach to the whole learning enterprise.
Notes
- Don't expect students to assess themselves on a blank sheet:
they need a format in which to do it. The framework below shows one approach. It is far
from perfect, and it was devised specifically for an outcomes-based programme, and used in
conjunction with a learning contract
(hence the reference to an earlier question), but
- the first part helps students to realise that they are doing
this assessment as an aid to their learning, rather than simply to jump through artificial
hoops set for them by the teachers, and
- the second part helps them to focus on the assessment
criteria—and if they can find their own faults as they are drafting their submission
and correct them, so much the better.
| Complete this when you have finished the work: but consult the
questions as you go along as an aid to revising and polishing your submission |
| 1 |
Things which only you (the
student) can assess |
| 1.1 |
On reflection, what do I now know
or understand that I didn’t before I started this piece of work? |
| 1.2 |
Has this work met my original
learning needs? (Check with answer to Q.1) |
| 1.3 |
Does it have any implications for
the further development of my practice? |
| 2 |
Things parallel to those which
tutors will be assessing: |
| 2.1 |
Have I adequately covered the
content? |
| 2.2 |
Does it meet the criteria for the
level at which I am submitting it? |
| 2.3 |
Does the work present a coherent
argument? |
| 2.4 |
Have I addressed all the
outcomes? And is it easy for the marker to locate them? |
| 2.5 |
What are the principal strengths
of this piece of work? |
| 2.6 |
What are its principal weaknesses
and the things I need to concentrate on further? |
| 2.7 |
Does the work do justice to my
capabilities? If not, why not? |
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Signed
Date |
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