Student Led Learning Activities: the students' view

Scale Up classroom. Image: author's own

I asked students to complete a brief questionnaire about their experience of the recent student led learning activities.

Having watched and made an initial assessment of all the performances, my main focus was on the levels of learning engaged in by students through this process - and whether they felt they had acquired any transferable skills. I also wanted to find out whether age, confidence with written/spoken English or the way the groups had come together affected their experiences. Finally, I was interested in the link between group dynamics and experiences of learning.

Out of 59 respondents, 55 were female, 48 were aged 20-25, 3 were aged 25-35 and seven gave their age as over 35 (1 student did not give their age). Nine students said that English was a second or additional language.

Gender did not seem to significantly affect responses which were far more likely to be influenced by group dynamics. Three out of the four men were in "difficult" groups (two in the same one) which they admitted (in additional comments) had coloured their views of their own learning. The fourth was part of a fairly high-functioning group of friends who had worked together previously but he stated that he would prefer to be assessed as an individual and not in a group task. He went on to say that, nonetheless "my outlook on group working has improved as a result of this activity", indicating further that he had developed team working skills and admitting "..it may be that this has an impact in the future".

Most students reported having worked together with at least some of the other members before (47). The majority of these groups had formed spontaneously out of existing friendships (reported by 37). Ten students said that their choice of group had been dictated by other groups being already full (an upper limit of 7 and a lower limit of 4 members had been imposed when groups formed). Three students reported that they had been "put in a group by the tutor" - which is an impression they had formed, even though I quite consciously avoided trying to influence group membership. It may be that they had forgotten how they came to be members of a group, or perhaps equated the lack of choice with the tutor having put the group together.

Six students said they had taken some time to choose a group where they felt they would be happiest - all but one of these went on to have a very positive experience, the remaining student reported it was positive. One cited "convenience" but had a positive outcome despite some initially difficult dynamics. Another did not give a reason for how she ended up in her group (she simply wrote "other"), but nonetheless reported an overall positive experience.

When asked about the group dynamics, most said they had been "really positive, with everyone contributing equally" (30). For 17 students, the dynamics had been generally positive and nine said that they had been occasionally difficult. Of these six, four were in groups of friends and two had ended up in a group because others were full. One person said the dynamics had been often difficult and two people very difficult - each of whom also reported that they had joined a group of people they didn't know simply because the other groups were full. 

These results bear out my gut feeling that self-selecting groups tend to make for the most cooperative and positive of group dynamics, although clearly there are exceptions. Six students indicated that they had formed groups based on friendships but they had experienced occasional difficulties in the dynamics with some people not contributing. This in turn seems to have made the learning experience less positive, five saying they thought they would have learnt just as much on their own. In each case there were some group members they had not worked with previously, despite their being friends (or maybe friends of friends). The best experiences came when students had made a conscious decision about joining a specific group of people and the worst experiences when they felt they had been forced into a group because of lack of choice. These experiences could reflect a self fulfilling prophecy on the part of the student, with a sense of choice (or lack of one) influencing subsequent responses and reactions to group dynamics.

Group formation for learning in Higher Education can be a real mine field and generally it seems to be advocated that tutors do the choosing. To form cooperative learning groups, Johnson (1991) recommends deliberate mixing of abilities. Other writers (see Arkoudis et al 2010) advocate a little social engineering to ensure a mix of culture, linguistic ability and ethnicity. Still others warn that by allowing self selection, some group members may find themselves on the periphery, feeling excluded (Collins and Goyder, 2008) - or as happened here - forced into a group of "misfits" that couldn't join the group of their choice. Self selecting groups, it is warned, may tend to be homogeneous - all the stars in one and the lower ability students clinging together in another. This obviously has disadvantages - the low ability group may persist in their less than stellar performance and get poor grades whilst the higher ability group may not learn anything new about dynamics as they work within the same old comfort zone of their clever, like-minded friends. Nonetheless, I have persisted over the years in trusting the process and allowing students to form groups, being aware as Boud, Cohen and Sampson, (1999) note, that there are still difficulties in forcing together people from different cultures, age groups and backgrounds who are not used to collaborating.

(Interestingly, as an aside, none of the over 35s in my cohort worked together in the same group. One of these mature students told me that her confidence had increased enormously from working with younger people and they in return greatly valued her considerable experience of the health and social care sector which lent an edge of authenticity and relevance to their learning activity. However, in terms of ethnicity, most though not all groups were homogenous. Most of the EAL students, for example, came together in a single group).

97% of all students were positive about their learning from the process. 55% (n=33) felt that their knowledge of their chosen topic had improved "to some extent" whilst a further 42% (n=25) felt they had learnt "a great deal" about their chosen topic through the process of enquiry-based learning. Just one felt their understanding had not increased, although in all other respects this student had found the process very positive and reported that she had also found other groups' presentations interesting and informative. She further indicated that she had developed team working and communication skills.

In 39 instances, students felt that the process of collaborating had been very positive, greatly increasing their learning and a further 17 said this had been a positive experience which had increased their learning to some extent. These figures include every one of the over 35 and EAL students (who all went on to say, in addition, that the task had had a positive or very positive impact on their personal development). Two students responded that collaborative learning had been a distraction (and both had reported difficult dynamics in their groups) -  and one person did not answer this question. 

Thirteen students felt that the task had had a very positive impact on their personal development (resulting in greatly increased skills and confidence) and a further 38 described it as positive. Seven students thought the impact neutral although all but two of these went on to indicate transferable skills they felt they had acquired.  Of the two who said they had developed no skills, one felt that overall her understanding of the topic had increased to some extent, and she found the other groups' presentations informative and interesting. In terms of her own group, she had never worked with any of the other group members previously, found the dynamics occasionally difficult but admitted they were all friends and had chosen to work together. The second student's responses were negative on every aspect of the activity, (including finding others' presentation neither interesting nor informative)  and she reported having ended up in a group that was not of her choosing because others were full.

One student said the experience had had a negative impact on her personal development and confidence. On the other hand she indicated that she had developed problem solving and IT skills. This same student said elsewhere in her responses that she had had a very negative experience of group dynamics and had not chosen the people with whom she had worked.

When asked about transferable skills developed, the top answer was Team Working which 48 students agreed they had developed during the project. Next was Communication (36), followed by IT skills (20), Problem Solving (18) and Leadership (15). Eleven students indicated "all of these". Amongst the over 35s, five (out of seven) said their IT Skills had increased. Although the numbers here are too small to draw any definite conclusions, this also tallies with anecdotal evidence from the over 35s (in individual discussions with me) that they found the technical aspects of the task fairly challenging, but also enjoyed learning about new technology in rising to meet that challenge.

In the "other" comments, students added: confidence (1) speaking in front of an audience (1) working with people who are different from me (1) and patience (2)  as additional skills acquired.

Out of the total of 59 students, 27 volunteered general closing comments in a free text box. Most of these (16) referred to the weighting of the assignment. Having initially voted by a majority to have this set at 20% of the module total, they now felt that this was too low and did not reflect the amount of hard work they had put into the development of the learning activities.

Other comments (2) referred to poor group dynamics having made the experience negative and a third spoke of wanting to be assessed individually rather than as part of a group (the male student whose response has already been discussed above).

Eight students recorded very positive final reflections on the process:

A: Though I encountered difficulty at the beginning, this task allowed me to see that barriers will arise but as professionals we must find ways to overcome this :)

B: Should have been 50%! Other than that the task was great and good experience for students to run a class. Learnt a lot from other groups :)

C: The group worked really well, but maybe if everyone had to speak in front of an audience the marking would be maybe a bit fair for these groups who all did contribute during the speaking

D: Enjoyed taking part - got out of the comfort zone and gained confidence
It was really enjoyable - think other modules ought to do a similar aspect (mature student over 35) 

E: It was interesting and had build students confidence of standing up and presenting their learning activities. (EAL student)

 F: I think the task was agreat idea especially for a new learning technique, however it was A LOT of work for 20% of the module

G: Overall enjoyed the presentation and what I learnt doing it.

H: I really enjoyed this task and learning from peers, however for future maybe two groups should not have the same theme as peers will already have the knowledge

The 59 questionnaire responses represent 63% of the cohort (n=93), it is a considerably better return than is usual in the module evaluation process for example (10-20%) and better than the percentage who voted for the group work weighting (48 returns out of 93 students) in an on line survey in October. Overall I feel this gives a snapshot which fairly reflects comments that students have made to me in passing and confirms my own observations. 

In terms of assessed outcomes, the student led learning activities were graded between 58% and 81% on the formative assessment of the performance element, although groups have the opportunity to improve these grades by submitting revised and additional documentation. They also received informal peer feedback (through surveys which they themselves designed, administered and analysed) which they will now use in a final reflective exercise. All students (but one) responding to the questionnaire said that they had learnt from others' presentations, 44 to some extent and 14 saying these had added greatly to their understanding of the module's themes. 

Compared with previous years when students were required to focus on a popular film and identify leadership characteristics in its protagonists, this year saw both a greater variety of themes (ranging from motivation, gender and emotional intelligence to job design and multi-agency working) as well as a greater application of theory to health and social care settings. Judging by the questionnaire responses, learning from one another played a significant part in the success of the module. 

In previous years, students produced web based artefacts and feedback from other groups was both sparse and generalised, indicating little inter group learning. In those cases most groups focused on the same narrow set of theories and models so there was little incentive to look closely at each others' work. This year students attendence at each others' presentations was mandatory and there was minimal duplication of topics. As can be seen from the free text comment (H) above, one or two groups did choose similar themes: notably motivation and gender, although each group took a different approach to the topic. This appears to have added to the breadth of learning.

Already through informal conversations with the students I am aware that the process has been a challenging but generally positive one. My next step is to follow up the questionnaire with some individual interviews where respondents have indicated their willingness to participate in these. In addition, the final task for the module will be an individual reflection on the learning process (in the form of a digital story) which should hopefully yield even richer qualitative data.

Refs: 

Arkoudis, S., Yu, X., Baik, C., Borland, H., Chang,S.,

Lang,I., Lang,J., Pearce, A., Watty,K. (2010) ‘Finding Common Ground: enhancing interaction between domestic and international students.’ In Report of project supported by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd, an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Available at http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/research/projectsites/enhancing_interact.html 

Boud, D.; Cohen,R.;Sampson, J. (1999) ‘Peer Learning and Assessment.’ In Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp413-426 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.203.1370&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Collins, N.; Goyder, J. (2008) ‘Speed Dating: a Process of Forming Undergraduate Student Groups.’ In ECulture Vol.1 http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1075&context=eculture

Johnson, David W. (1991) ‘Cooperative Learning: Increasing College Faculty Instructional Productivity.’ In ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4. Available at: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED343465.pdf 

learning-by-doing : some feedback

D. Sharon Pruitt - Flickr: Happy Girl Hopscotch in Strawberry Free CC BY 2.0

I ran a small focus group discussion yesterday with my final year students to get their views about the student led learning activities.

They all agreed they had suffered from nerves before standing up to speak in front of the whole class (the first time many of them had presented to an audience of this size) but they were even more anxious about the interactive elements of the activities - what if their fellow students refused to participate?

For this particular group of students (none of whom had worked together on the task) issues of group cohesion were not highlighted, although I am aware (through other discussions) of three somewhat dysfunctional teams (out of 15).

In two cases the problems revolved around a single member who had never shown up to meetings and who contributed little and late. Other group members were angry that this "loafer" was able to get the same marks as the rest of them with minimal contribution. In situations like this a process of peer evaluation is sometimes used but this cohort voted against such a process at the outset, preferring to deal with things informally. I have mixed views about peer evaluation as I have seen groups where individuals are deliberately marginalised or excluded from a team and I dislike the competitiveness and devisiveness it can encourage. In the real world, teams don't get to vote on the performance related pay of their colleagues ("more's the pity" did I hear you say?) - difficulties have to be dealt with or tolerated in the interests of completing the task - and in some ways I think it is right that these student teams (on a module dedicated to teamwork and leadership) learn how to deal with differences.

The third "dysfunctional" group did just that. The group effectively split into two at one point and discussions became heated - one student left the session and another was in tears. When I inquired if I could help, the unofficial leader said they were planning a final group meeting to sort things out. The following week, they seemed to be back on track and this week they have just emailed me their session plan (the only group to have done so) which looks remarkably well organised and thought through.

I also asked my small focus group about the value of the feedback they had received. They were all immensely glad I had given them a provisional grade and regarded this as useful formative feedback indicating where they could improve. They also valued the feedback they had had from their peers, most of which was generally positive and in some cases very constructive. One or two students had complained to me in class about particularly rude, negative and unconstructive comments they had received, but that was a useful opportunity to talk about how best to receive - and use - feedback (in short - ignore what isn't useful to you!) In a fortnight I'll be facilitating a session about feedback and reflection, so I may just need to go over best practice in GIVING feedback too.

The $64,000 question is: did they think the activity gave them a good understanding of their chosen topics?  All said they thought they had had to work harder and get a deeper understanding of their topics than was normally the case (in writing an essay for example) because they didn't want to be caught out by a question from other students that they couldn't answer.

They also said that they had found other students' sessions very interesting and informative and that they had learned a lot through those too.

OK- so this is just one informal discussion and other students may have different views - something I hope will emerge through their self evaluations and final reflections on the module - but I did find their views very encouraging.

For myself, I also really enjoyed week 3 of the sessions and again found much to admire in the creative learning activities students had devised for their peers - as well as noting the confidence displayed by some in the way they facilitated group discussions. One or two had decided on a formal presentation plus quiz (I am wondering here if this is a delivery model they have become familiar with during their studies?) but one had developed really interesting, health and social care based scenarios and asked groups to decide on an approach to the problem based on one of two specific managerial philosophies. I admit I picked up a couple of tips myself on how to facilitate learning around some quite dry subjects!

So, overall I do feel this has been a  positive learning experience for us all and the students' enthusiasm is still palpable, which is quite something in these cold winter days. It's the final set of sessions next Monday and I will definitely feel some regret to be returning to the more "normal" teaching mode after that. Or maybe, things will never be quite "normal" again.....

Student-led learning

Krissy Venosdale on Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

I decided this year to encourage my final year students to do something a little different for their team work assessment. Instead of me teaching the usual curriculum for the module I asked them to research whatever theories or practices (related to leadership and teamwork) interested them and then design a learning activity which would involve the whole class.

The teams were self selecting and they chose the topics - although I asked teams to negotiate these with me so that we didn't end up with 15 presentations about Tuckman....

I also emphasised that these were very much NOT mean to be presentations at all, but rather active learning experiences that would engage their audience. Some found it hard to break out of old patterns and largely read from notes in front of a Powerpoint, the interactive element of their session generally being a quiz or word search.

The more engaging sessions attempted a different approach: the first one for example divided students into three tables and gave each a relatively simple task to do (completing a jigsaw) but, unbeknown to the participants, facilitators were each using a different management style. Student reflections and feedback were encouraged to try to illustrate the differences and relate these to the theory.

Others incorporated videos of role plays that they had acted and filmed themselves to illustrate different motivational factors and a third asked the audience to role play different professional partners in a multi agency team, reviewing the communication failings in a (real) murder case.

Designing and running a teaching session has many benefits as an inquiry-based learning task. Students are having to learn on a number of levels - how to function as a collaborative team; how to divide up tasks; how to get to grips with technology; thinking about what constitutes an engaging and active learning session; how to control classroom behaviour and get the cooperation of your peers.....oh, and yes, the actual theoretical concepts they are trying to put across.

Some outcomes were unexpected: one or two students commented to me that the exercise had given them a greater insight into the challenges facing their lecturers - such as managing behavour, preparing resources and dealing with stage fright! Others have had to negotiate some very difficult team dynamics and manage differing levels of contribution. One group told me this had been a brilliant experience and they wished they'd done projects like this from the first year.

The next step is about evaluation. I asked each group to design an evaluation questionnaire and seek the feedback of their peers. Based on this - and my provisional assessment - they will now go on to produce a short self-evaluation of their sessions. I am rather wishing that I had held off giving them my feedback until they had done this next task, but hopefully the motivation for them to do a thorough job is that my grade is only provisional and may be improved if they provide more evidence in the form of references, notes and group reflections.

If I did this exercise again next year (and I am tempted to, as generally it has been very successful so far) I think I would place more emphasis on the peer and self evaluation.

What I chiefly hope from all of this is that the sessions do provide genine learning, not just for the teams who have carried out the research, but for those students in the audience. I confess I am a bit anxious about this aspect however.

I came across this interesting quote as I was researching into the idea of student-led teaching

“Becoming a teacher who helps students to search rather than follow is challenging and, in many ways, frightening” (Brooks & Brooks, 1999, p. 102) - cited here: (Kim Bouman, 2012) 

I guess my biggest fear is that, in the end, the students' learning proves to have been fairly superficial and that the module (and by association, me as a teacher) has therefore "failed". Because the quality of the presentations has been variable and some of the "reinforcing" activities a little simplistic, I suspect that understanding of the actual concepts or theories is not particularly deep.

Previous iterations of this module have required students to develop a digital resource focusing on leadership  - usually by analysing the characteristics of various leaders in history, or in popular culture. Again, I couldn't claim that learning about the theoretical concepts in those instances was particularly deep then either, as evidenced in their final reflective essays. Students though necessarily had to develop leadership and team working skills in order to successfully complete the project and they also learned a lot of useful technical skills in creating a web site or blog. This year's task has added the dimension of live presentation and facilitating learning in others - which I would say are also pretty useful skills!

For me it has been an interetsing learning experience too. I have had to let go of controlling the "content delivery" side of the module (I think this is where the "fear" creeps in) but a welcome spin off has been fewer actual "teaching" sessions. I have been able to spend more time in discussion with groups as a result -  facilitating their understanding of some concepts, challenging them to also let go of didactic approaches and be more creative in the design of their learning experiences. I have also done quite a bit of counselling when relationships have threatened to break down, with some cajoling of anxious performers along the way.

At the end of the year students will be reflecting on the module through a digital storytelling exercise. It will be interesting to see and hear what they have made of the experience and in particular of having the curriculum taught by their peers - and I guess that is the point at which I will be able to gather any evidence about the depth and breadth of their learning.

Aim higher?

So my final year group are currently planning their student led learning activities. I am enjoying the process of negotiating with them about their topics - ensuring a good spread so that the curriculum is covered but allowing for personal preferences and interests to direct the process.

Yesterday I tried out a new approach to developing the assessment criteria for the presentations - by getting them to contribute to writing them. I have toyed with doing this for some time but been put off by the complexity - especially when working with a large group.

Here's what I did. In preparation I created a blank spreadsheet listing the learning outcomes for the module and suggesting four key areas that might be relevant for this assignment: communication and IT skills; research; Academic Skills (such as referencing) and collaborative teamwork.

On the spreadsheet I gave them the core descriptors for each grade band (as prescribed by the University) to indicate the spread from Exceptional First to Fail.

Then, in small groups they worked to come up with descriptors for specified outcomes at specified levels:  Communication Skills - First and Fail;  Academic skills: 2:1 and 3rd etc

At the end of the exercise I collected in their descriptors and used these to construct the finished assessment feedback sheet.

In truth this wasn't radically different from grading matrices used elsewhere on the course (which is good because it demonstrates that they have engaged with those!). Most interesting was the discussions we had on differentiating between a 2:1 and a first: most tend to think that if they tick the boxes then they should get a first whereas the assessment model used in this University would say that a first is beyond what would normally be expected. This is a useful point to try and get across, especially for final year students who are hoping for those important higher degree classifications, and this is perhaps a good time to be reminding them of the standards for the level to which they aspire.

Peer evaluation is also built into the process and the next phase will be to work with the students on designing an evaluation questionnaire which they will distribute following their sessions.The final step is to use the assessment criteria to create a self-evaluation of their own work.

#rhizo14 Week 2 Enforced Independence

Well there's an oxymoron if ever I heard one....

.... and yet this is exactly what I am wrestling with in my first year undergraduate module. The students enter University expecting - and sometimes even demanding - very detailed guidance, worksheets, notes and handouts. They think lectures are the way University education should be done - I even had some first year students tell me today that they preferred exams as course work required them to do too much reading and they couldn't handle the distant deadlines: pressure, recall of facts, 2 hours of hand cramps - this is what learning is all about!

So these same students then turn up to my module and they are in a large open space with 100 other students, seated at round tables with Apple Macs available. Or they can bring their own device. Whatever. They get a few minutes of introduction from me for this week's theme and then they get to it - searching the internet, answering questions, posting responses on Twitter, Facebook, Padlet. Whatever. We think about digital identity, digital citizenship, research skills, ethics, intellectual property.  I provide a detailed written structure for the module through the VLE where I post links to videos and articles for them to read in their own time. They get feedback through a short formative piece evaluating the role of social media in research; they choose their own work groups for a final summative project using Storify or Pinterest (or... whatever) to curate their online research.

Yup. They hate it.

There's not enough teaching. They don't understand the point of what they are doing. They don't get the relevance of social media to social science research. There are no handouts! (Well, very few). The group is too big and too noisy (these are justifiable complaints in my view!). They can't find anything on the VLE (also possibly justified - its UI is Byzantine). They hate the Macs.

and yet ...... Week 13 of the module: they settle down to the task, they use the Macs with ease, they ask fewer questions. They seem engaged - with the task, with the conversations in their groups. They may just be getting it.

I cut my teeth, teaching wise, in a Person Centred Counselling course.  The curriculum was designed by the students (within some constraints). Students peer assessed all the time - in formative practical work and in the final summative dissertation and case study. The group process was in the hands of the group - I was a facilitator. Things got messy - a lot of the time. They hated it. One particularly angry student stated (to the whole group) that the course was rubbish because everything the students learnt they did entirely by themselves. On the final day, after a year of being angry with me about this, she repeated her claim - only now she got it. Yes - they had done it all by themselves. They were/had become independent learners.

The difference with my current students is that they don't really have the same Freedom to Learn. Other parts of their course are taught traditionally. There are exams and course work and grades and structures that will judge the worthiness of the student to progress to another level. There are rules about plagiarism and using Google and Facebook and Twitter and Wikipedia will be frowned upon (maybe even punished). And the biggest oxymoron of all - I am forcing them to be independent. I am not permitting them to learn in the way that is cosy for them, I am imposing (through my power as teacher) a set of conditions and expectations about what is good for them. Just as I do as a parent to my children.

Knowing when to nurture and when to push the chicks out of the nest is key - as is knowing the difference between encouraging independence and abandonment. I don't know how, when or if I ever get this "right" - but then, I am still learning....

Responding to Employers - Moving into the Mainstream

SLIDES Leading and Learning Virtually

View more PowerPoint from Jane Challinor

These are the papers and slides from my presentation at the Employer Engagament Conference at DMU on June 11th. Please feel free to explore the rest of this blog for more discussion about e-learning and virtual teams.

Informal Learning: Part Dos

Four weeks in and the Spanish class is settling down to some good work. Our tutor is continuing to bring written material for us to work on and the combination of reading outloud, translating on the hoof, chatting and discussing topics is going quite well. Most people seem to feel that we are actually learning more than we did previously (I certainly am)!

There has however been some discussion via email about the topics and format of the classes and whether they were suitable for everyone, and so last week we had a quick review to check everyone was getting what they needed from the process.

We have subsequently agreed to do more "every day" chat topics - to give those with a more limited vocabulary a chance to join in - and each person is going to bring an article or other piece of writing to share and discuss alongside the material that the tutor prepares.

It is no small feat really that we managed to work out all the costs, find a room, a tutor, get everyone to pay up front without major disagreements amongst nine very strong minded individuals and the very slight note of dissent about what we were doing in class has resulted in everyone getting more of a say in what we do in future.

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Busuu.com also continues to be a great source of fun and learning. It provides a huge amount of vocabulary and subtle encouragement to explore grammar at the same time.

I really love the "gaming" feel of the site - right and wrong answers are signified by sound effects, points are awarded for completing sections of work and the learner's "homepage" is a garden where your trees grow and gifts are added as you progress.

You are encouraged to network by the award of a gold heart if you get lots of friends. Online chat is still a daunting prospect for me but I enjoyed a discussion in two languages with a young man from Mallorca the other day - he wrote in English and I in Spanish, and we corrected each other as we went along. Another time, I chatted in English to an Italian housewife who is trying to learn the language whilst her kids are at school.

I think the reward aspect is very powerful: even the element of competition (similar to Farmville I suspect). My partner , my son and I are all competing to get the highest number of points,(or busberries!) for example. The fact that this is encouraging my son to study French alongside his normal homework and revision is an astounding achievement. And even more amazing is the way it has completely hooked my normally technophobe partner who has never been on Facebook or any other social networking site.

It has made me start to think about how I could introduce more elements of gaming, competition, reward, networking and fun into the distance/e-learning programmes I manage - I am sure with some creative thinking it must be possible to liven up the VLE and make people want to log on for another dose of learning?

One of the other really good things about the site is the way you get instant feedback - not just automated right/wrong on the multiple choice vocabulary tests but in the form of corrections from native speakers (other learners who happen to be on line) - bringing peer feedback into the equation too! This has two effects - for the person being corrected, you get speedy feedback from an expert or experts (in the sense that they are native speakers of the language you are learning) - sometimes you might get two or more options for translating a particular phrase. Secondly, as you are also required to correct another learner's posts you get the feeling yourself of being an expert and of being able to contribute to someone else's development. Oh and those all important 5 busberries!

Peer assessment

image: flickr chrissuderman

Not been on the blog for a while - holiday in Spain took precedence, I am afraid!

So today just a few thoughts about peer assessment as I am contemplating the topic for an assignment I am writing. This has led me to some interesting reading: predominantly Rethinking Assessment in Higher Education by Boud and Falchikov (2007: Routledge)

The main arguments against peer assessment seem to be concern for the reliability of the marking process and consequent need for training of the students. I would add that it is also deeply unpopular amongst students who generally would much rather hand over total responsibility for the process to tutors - so as not to be put in the position of sitting in judgement on their friends and colleagues ( or even on themselves: self assessment is no less unpopular in my experience).

In favour is the real world analogy - in their working lives students (and particularly work based/distance learning/ mature students) are already involved in the business of peer and colleague assessment in the course of their work - checking reports, carrying out staff appraisals, NVQ assessing, supervising another's practice.

Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that learning with & from peers is the most natural way we pick up new ideas and information (that's certainly why I blog, Twitter, diigo and wiki every day!), which is certainly an argument for collaborative learning if not peer assessment. And it furthers life long learning: if we can turn to friends and colleagues for coaching and feedback as we approach new challenges in our work or even in our hobbies, we continue the process of reflection and informal learning almost without being aware of it.

So how do we make it work?

Some ideas from Nancy Falchikov include

1. sharing the assessment criteria or


2. even better, designing such criteria with the students


3. training or scaffolding so that assessment skills are developed over time and not sprung as a surprise (and a big scary task) right at the end of the course

In another place in the book, there is a chapter on assessment and emotion. It is important not to forget how emotionally fraught assessment (judgement) is. Awaiting the marks on an assignment is deeply stressful for some: we feel we are being judged for who we are, not what we wrote/created. Getting those marks from a tutor allows us a measure of distance: we can be angry at them or the system if we are disappointed. Being judged by our peers may actually be more terrifying!!

In my own experience I have had mixed feelings about peer assessment. It was a system used widely in training for counsellors and because we worked in "triads" with peer observers of counselling practice at every workshop for three years, we all became relatively skilled at and relaxed with the practice. The final assessment with peer assessment on the practice portfolio was consequently less daunting.

However, at its worst, peer assessment puts the peer in the authority position and encourages them to take on the prevalent culture of whatever educational institution they have experienced: if their own experience of assessment is largely critical or punitive, peers will mirror this. Tutors therefore have to train students not only in the mechanics of assessment, but need also to model how it is applied - with fairness, humility, self awareness and respect for the student being assessed.

Hmmmm - training the institution's markers sounds like the FIRST step!!