Sharing Constructive alignment

John Biggs and Catherine Tang have allowed us to share their presentation online.

They argue that to engage students in assessment the assessment piece needs to be constructively aligned to the intended learning outcomes.

Constructive Alignment is a design for facilitating student learning, which has become the framework for teaching and quality assurance in several countries. The ‘constructive’ aspect refers to the idea that students construct meaning through relevant learning activities; ‘alignment’ refers to a learning environment where teaching and learning activities, and assessment tasks, are linked or aligned to the Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) of a subject or programme. The key is that the ILOs state a learning activity, such as ‘explain’ or ‘apply’, which students are required to perform during learning and in assessment. In this session, we adopt a hands-on approach to defining outcomes and designing aligned teaching and assessment tasks. It is recommended that those attending come to the session with a specific subject they are teaching in mind.

John Biggs And Catherine Tang 2008

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Many thanks!

Feedback for Sally

A person who really missed out in this conference was Sally Brown.

Sally and her team at Leeds Met worked very hard that last week to deliver her keynote virtually and prepare a recorded back-up (which delegates were delighted to download a copy of on their usbs before they went home) - and all from a cold and grey Leeds and because of the time difference and time frame, often in the middle of the night.

But Sally wouldn't have gotten any feedback - the polycom cut out when the applause peaked in the auditorium and there was no opportuninty for informal feedback or sharing local examples by chatting in the breaks or at the Gala dinner.

Well here is your chance - post a comment to this blog and ask that question, clarify that confusion and share your experience with Sally about her ideas and presentation.

To refresh you, Sally's keynote argued that to engage students in assessment (our theme) you needed to have fit for purpose assessment, as she wrote in her abstract:

Effective assessment significantly and positively impacts on student learning, as I suggested in my Big Ideas posting on the conference blog. Assessment shapes student behaviour and the signals we give students through the assignments we set them can influence the extent to which they spend their time on task productively. A fit-forpurpose approach enables us to foster productive behaviours and establish good learning patterns, enabling our students not only to succeed at university, but also to become effective lifelong learners. This keynote will explore how we can achieve this as individuals, course teams and institutions.

You can view her slides below and download them through slideshare.

Sally Brown 2008

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Thank you in advance for taking the time to make a comment for Sally.

Day 1

This morning all the technology stars were in perfect alignment and we had the magic of seeing, hearing and interacting with a very much larger than life version of Sally Brown. Full points for Sally for sharing her passion and committment to this conference and assessment in general in by staying up until midnight UK time to be with us this morning.

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A big thanks to our students (pictured: Wal, Leonie and Alice) for their seemless management of all other things technological!

Diana and Andrea