Exploring the use of peer assessment as a vehicle for closing the gap between feedback given and feedback used

Literature is increasingly drawing attention to the gap between feedback given to students and feedback used by students. This paper reflects on the beginnings of an evaluation into the potential of peer assessment to act as a vehicle to enable students to make use of feedback they receive. A case study is presented within an action research paradigm outlining the introduction of a peer formative assessment process. Current findings highlight the importance of appreciating the emotional as well as the cognitive aspects of peer learning and suggest that cultural shifts at programme level may be required for peer assessment to be most effective

What the eye doesn’t see: a case study exploring the less obvious impacts of peer assessment.

For many years now literature has drawn attention to the close relationship between assessment processes and student learning. Increasing attention is currently being paid to exploring some of the inherent complexities in this relationship and how assessment can both promote and inhibit student learning. The role of peer assessment is currently being explored within this framework. This paper reflects on the beginnings of an evaluation into a peer assessment exercise introduced with the aim of enabling students to work actively with the assessment criteria whilst feeding back to each other on their formative work prior to summative submission. Current findings highlight the importance of engaging in an assessment dialogue with students as key issues may impact on student learning but remain invisible to the tutor. The emotional as well as cognitive aspects of peer learning are highlighted alongside the need for learning pedagogies to be incorporated at programme, as well as module, level for peer assessment to be most effective

Links between reflective practice, ethics and values

This chapter ‘problematises’ the nature of professional knowledge and ‘know how ’in social work. The complex, multilayered knowledge held by practitioners is presented and explored. Practice knowledge is conceptualised as incorporating elements of both formal and informal knowledge. Links are made to the literature on reflective practice and the relationship between ‘internalist’ ways of knowing and more ‘externalist’ ways of justifying our actions, for example, by drawing upon evidence based research. This chapter explores the nature of this tension currently in social work and suggests a more holistic, nuanced understanding of the nature of practice knowledge is required. Such understandings are of particular relevance in the field of applied ethics and values as professional judgements in this arena are often particularly complex. Considered action may require the balancing and prioritising of different conflicting interests and rights

Adult learning styles: implications for practice teaching in social work

This paper focuses on the current aspiration to further the process of continuing professional development in social work. It contends that knowledge from the field of adult learning theory may be helpful in sign-posting some tangible ways forward here. The particular emphasis is on critically assessing the usefulness of identifying learning styles as indicators of preferred ways of learning. Knowledge of learning styles is explored as one way of promoting students' learning on practice placements. A small-scale qualitative research study with a group of practice teachers and their students is presented as a vehicle for exploring this new terrain in social work. The findings of this research build on key themes identified by the current literature in this area. The author's findings suggest that information about learning styles has direct practical application in the social work practice teaching arena. The data points to the potential value of using such information to guide students' learning on practice placements and has relevance to considerations of their continuing professional development. Suggestions are put forward to highlight how practice teaching and Diploma in Social Work programmes could facilitate this process. The paper stresses the over-riding need to view students as actors in a broader social context, however, and highlights how information regarding learning styles needs to be utilised in this context

Reflection as more than rumination: an opportunity for reframing and resistance

Reflection can open up spaces to think at many levels about issues of power. It offers up opportunities for re-reading of organisational and societal scripts. It provides pace to think through changes and identify positives and negatives. It offers opportunities for the development of a collective counter space to consider and reframe - or reclaim -professional identity