Presenter: Dr. Dylan P. Williams, University of Leicester Friday 3 July, 11am – 12 noon in Rutland room 02 You are invited to attend the above seminar that will discuss the practicalities of developing and integrating context and problem based learning into a physical science programme. Information and ideas will be transferable to other disciplineRead more
In a recent post Chris Millward, Director for Policy at the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), summarised the findings and recommendations of a Which? report into Higher Education, placing it within the context of the HEFCEs own work. Millward begins with a note of caution, contrasting the reports “relatively small” sample size (the undergraduate survey, conducted by YouthSight, on behalf of Which?, surveyed 1023 first and second year undergraduates online) to the National Student Survey (NSS), which last year received 320,000 responses of which 86% reported they were satisfied or strongly satisfied with their course. Even this figure, Millward concedes, still “leaves a significant minority who weren’t satisfied” and that while “there is good work going on…there is room for improvement”.
Jisc’s Assessment and Feedback Programme has been exploring ways in which technology can be used to address student dissatisfaction with feedback and assessment. Ros Smith, drawing upon this work, identifies four common problem areas, providing examples of interventions being developed to address each (Smith’s original blog post can be accessed here).
Problem 1
“assessment and feedback is by and large devolved to individual curriculum areas, making it hard for institutions to provide a consistent assessment experience and harder still to implement on any scale the enhancements technology can bring.”