18,438 research outputs found

    Active engagement with assessment and feedback can improve group-work outcomes and boost student confidence

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    This study involves evaluation of a novel iterative group-based learning task developed to enable students to actively engage with assessment and feedback in order to improve the quality of their written work. The students were all in the final semester of their final year of study and enrolled on either BSc Zoology or BSc Marine and Freshwater Biology at a mainstream UK university, but the findings of this research can be generalised to a wider student body. The main findings are that in a group work context, individual students can use provided assessment criteria to accurately assess the work produced by their group and that their ability to produce and recognise work of a higher quality improves as a result of a social dialogue around self/peer assessment and self/tutor generated feedback. The study also reveals that producing poorer work over-assess and those achieving the highest marks under-assess. Over-assessing students focus to a greater extent upon the superficial deficiencies in their work, whereas under assessing students are more likely to focus on more significant issues. High-achieving under-assessing students lack confidence in their own abilities, but believe feedback provides a confidence boost

    Assessment @ Bond

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    The Art of Refusal: Promising Practice for Grant Makers and Grant Seekers

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    The full report of this research project provides the findings of a study of communication experiences and practices, at the point of grant refusal, among selected grant making and grant seeking organisations. Its context was the frustration and disappointment being experienced by many grant seekers in a period of enhanced competition for funding, alongside the multiple pressures facing grant makers, in responding to grant seekers' needs and in meeting their own range of obligations. The overall purpose of the research was to support learning and improvement in policy and practice among grant makers and grant seekers. A summary of the findings from the qualitative research undertaken for the project is provided at the end of this paper. In this practice paper, we focus on the direct learning question posed by the research - 'what promising practices in grant refusal communications may be identified from grant makers' and grant seekers' perspectives on their experiences?' Many respondents during the research process highlighted what were, for them, preferred and promising practices in communicating and managing grant refusal among grant seekers and grant makers. These were sometimes their own approaches and sometimes those which they had observed and welcomed. These insights, examples and possibilities are now distilled and presented below as promising practice learning and action points, illustrated by anonymous quotations taken from our research respondents

    Designing an e-tutoring system for large classes: mixed-method research

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    This study aimed at assessing the perceptions of 167 teachers about the tutoring system adopted in an online training course involving teachers from 20 Schools of Sesimbra, SetĂșbal and Palmela counties. The course, called “Distributed Knowledge with Web 2.0”, was officially certified as a blended learning modality, with the duration of 50 hours, 41 of which occurred online in two editions, the first in February and the second in July of 2012, each one of them involving respectively 82 and 85 teachers, divided in four classes with about 20 trainees each. This blended learning course was designed at producing educational materials in digital format, and included autonomous and group activities, knowledge sharing and reflection. A learning environment, supported by the Ning platform, was set up. At the end of the course, the trainees answered to a pencil and paper survey, in order to evaluate the adopted online tutoring strategy. Additionally the trainees’ final reports contained evidence of how the trainees assessed the tutoring model component of the course; both the survey and the reports were the basis for this research. The results show that the teachers who attended the two course editions disclosed very positive perceptions about online learning, a modality they consider adequate to their current professional status and conditions. The trainees also showed their intention of, in the future, opting for blended training arrangements. Future developments of this study involve a content analysis of the tutor’s posts, in order to understand more accurately the tutor’s messages characteristics, in their social and cognitive dimensions
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