Recently I’ve heard two different people say the following about assessment:
I think that both of these statements are obviously wrong, or they ought to be.
I can, sadly, understand how assessment becomes the motivating factor for many students because the stresses of being a student and the pressure to always get the best grade override any joy that there might be in learning for the sake of learning, so I can appreciate (1) being said, at least as an observation about the current state of affairs in HE.
The last semester that I taught undergraduate philosophy was particularly fraught, with many tutorials being cancelled due to union strikes and others snowed off, but one event stands out, even now. A particularly bright student went off at a tangent, and I suggested some reading that might interest him, probably some Wittgenstein. After the tutorial, a group complained to the course convenor that I was wasting their time by talking about materials that would not be needed for the final exam. This wasn’t the only reason that I handed in my notice and walked away from that post, but it was a contributing factor.
However, (2) just strikes me as bizarre. Putting to one side my issues with the term ‘active learning’ (I don’t believe that learning can be passive – for learning to be happening, there must be something active ‘in the learner’s head’), then I think that we could reasonably assert that a student who is working on an assessment is actively learning, but that does not entail that all (active) learning is or involves assessment. When I reflect on the times that I have learnt the most, they have usually had nothing to do with assessment. The serious fun that happens during experiences such as #CLMooc, #DS106 and the rhizos have led to some of the most meaningful learning that I’ve ever experienced – and assessment most definitely had no part in those experiences.
The bright student in my story above might have ended up using the ‘extra’ learning he had done as part of a future assessment, or he might not – learning is not contingent on past or future assessment. All of this shows that active learning and assessment are not the same thing, and that there can be learning without assessment. And I think I am going to go further and assert that there can also be a type of learning that happens despite assessment. If students are over assessed, as they sometimes can be, then any extra curricula activity – and the meaningful learning that happens as a result of serendipity – will have to be fitted in somehow. And if there is pressure, from whichever direction, to teach to the test, then the keen student who strays beyond the required materials will be learning despite assessment.
Assessment has its place, and accreditation is important. But assessment is not the whole picture, and we should firmly resist anyone who suggests that it is.
On 22nd January an invite appeared in my inbox
I am writing to invite you for a collaborative paper on ChatGPT and AI…The planned paper will adopt a speculative future design methodology.
Each of us was invited to write two short stories, one positive and one negative, and then we were invited into a collaborative Google Doc. Over the next few weeks I watched the paper evolve as we wrote and edited together. The final paper was published yesterday and, as Jon Dron says, the stories themselves make great reading.
It’s amazing how quickly things can happen with the right catalyst. Thanks Aras!
Bozkurt, A., Xiao, J., Lambert, S., Pazurek, A., Crompton, H., Koseoglu, S., Farrow, R., Bond, M., Nerantzi, C., Honeychurch, S., Bali, M., Dron, J., Mir, K., Stewart, B., Costello, E., Mason, J., Stracke, C. M., Romero-Hall, E., Koutropoulos, A., Toquero, C. M., Singh, L Tlili, A., Lee, K., Nichols, M., Ossiannilsson, E., Brown, M., Irvine, V., Raffaghelli, J. E., Santos-Hermosa, G Farrell, O., Adam, T., Thong, Y. L., Sani-Bozkurt, S., Sharma, R. C., Hrastinski, S., & Jandrić, P. (2023). Speculative futures on ChatGPT and generative artificial intelligence (AI): A collective reflection from the educational landscape. Asian Journal of Distance Education, 18(1), 53-130. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7636568
I am reduced to silence
Promising ideas dance at the edge of my mind
Quietly vanishing when caught on paper
Inky moths, stilled by a lepidopterist’s pin
Dying, dissolving, leaving me bereft
Exhausted by the effort of achieving nothing, I submit to this uneasy silence
And so the dance begins again
I haven’t written much here recently. I used to write at least one post a month, but once I started posting my Silent Sunday photo posts time has passed my by without me noticing that has been all I’ve been posting. I love my daily and weekly challenges, but I miss the peace that reflective writing brings to me.
As time passes, it gets harder to get back into the habit. It’s easy to press publish on an imperfect post when it’s written quickly – but when posts become irregular it’s somehow harder to release them into the world, and I hesitate to write unless I have something polished.
I should know better – I do know better. A strand of my PhD thesis was about being ‘good enough’ rather than ‘perfect’, and I have learnt to let go of my makes and remixes and not to worry that they are rough around the edges. I know it too, really, when I write – but somehow I have got out of the habit of talking out loud.
So now, with only minutes before I need to go and cook tea, I am going to hit publish in this post and promise myself to remember to talk out loud here, sometimes.
