Tuesday 15 December 2009

Viewpoints at the CIES Reward and Recognition Residential

The Viewpoints A0 worksheets were available for each group at the CIES Reward and Recognition Programme IV: E-facilitated Assessment and Feedback Residential event, at the Rosspark Hotel, Kells on 14th and 15th December 09.

This event gave each group the time to develop a reusable learning object as part of their assessment and feedback project. External facilitators Tom Boyle (RLO-CETL Director, London Metropolitan University) and Dawn Leeder (Reward and Development Manager, University of Cambridge) helped them with this task.

The Viewpoints worksheets, developed in the assessment and feedback sessions with each group (delivered from the 1st -11th December), proved to be a good starting point and valuable resource for each group whilst developing their projects at the Residential.



Each group commented on how useful the Viewpoints sessions and worksheets were in the final group presentations at the end of the event. The facilitators also commented that they felt each group was better prepared as a result of the Viewpoints sessions, compared to previous Residential programme groups.

Friday 11 December 2009

Viewpoints Assessment and Feedback sessions (1-11th Dec 09)

Fiona Doherty and Catherine O’Donnell have been delivering Viewpoints assessment and feedback sessions to Ulster groups (consisting of several staff and a student) on the CETL Institutional E-learning Services (CIES) Reward and Recognition Programme IV: E-facilitated Assessment and Feedback.

The one-hour sessions let each group reflect on their chosen Reward and Recognition programme project. The session is based on six group tasks that encourage reflection, consider the student experience and provide some creative ideas on how to implement their project objective.

The hands-on session uses prompts, including a large laminated worksheet with a student timeline and nine assessment and feedback cards. The group work together using the worksheet, cards and markers to create an output tailored to address their chosen project objective.



The nine different coloured cards each depict an assessment and feedback principle (revised and adapted from the Re-engineering Assessment Practices (REAP) Project principles of good formative assessment and feedback). On the back of each card are several implementation ideas (revised and adapted from the QAA Enhancement Themes: The First Year Experience – Transforming assessment and feedback: enhancing interaction and empowerment in the first year
written by Professor David Nicol from the REAP Project).



Each participant gets an assessment and feedback pack at the end of the session. This pack contains several handouts that aim to bridge the gap between theory and practice at Ulster, e.g. the nine principles mapped to Ulster documentation (guidelines, strategies, etc.) and the principles mapped to e-learning technologies available at Ulster.

The completed worksheet outputs can then be used to help inform each group’s project development. The outputs are emailed to each group in a word document and as an image. The worksheets will be available for each group at the CIES Reward and Recognition Residential event on the 14th & 15th December at the Rosspark Hotel, Kells.

These initial sessions have been evaluated and will be analysed to inform future development of the Viewpoints workshops. Early feedback suggests that the sessions were very successful in helping the groups reflect on and plan their projects. One group member commented that the cards helped ‘to concentrate broad ideas’, while another said that the session ‘helped to clarify what is currently a problem for the group and provided some potential solutions’.