Findings and discussion

The course audits and the case studies provide information about how outcomes, teaching and assessment can be aligned. Some of these are detailed and specific to individual courses. However, more general learning points and recommendations also emerged which may have resonances within the wider HE community:

• The assessment tasks, the guidance given to students and tutors, and the feedback provided by the tutors were not always well-aligned with the intended learning outcomes of a course.

Recommendation: Assessment activities should be devised with the course learning outcomes in mind, and should identify clearly which outcomes are being addressed. (Indeed, course design should start from the intended outcomes and assessment, not from detailed subject content.) Tutors should bring relevant learning outcomes to the students' attention and refer to them explicitly when providing feedback to students. Where several assessments contribute to an overall course grade, the learning outcomes should be seen as developmental and revisited several times.

Guidance notes for students and marking schemes for tutors should give, as far as possible, the same information so that there is transparency about what is expected, and a shared understanding about the assessment criteria. There should be no hidden agenda in teaching. For students to be effective learners they, as well as tutors, need good explanations about what learning outcomes are for and how they can be used to enhance learning.

• It was not always clear whether assessment was 'for' learning or 'of' learning or both.

Recommendation: Effective developmental assessment should offer opportunities for both summative and formative feedback. Tutor feedback should be aligned with the outcomes and provide not only marks and comments on the quality of the work, but also 'feedforward' to help students move on and further improve their performance.

Learning outcomes can act both as 'hooks' for feedback and feedforward from the tutor, and as criteria which the student can use to assess and improve their own performance. A parallel project FAST - Formative Assessment in Science Teaching is looking in more detail at what feedback is provided by tutors and how it is used by the students.

Assessment can often be seen as something that is not an integrated part of the process of learning but a different type of activity more concerned with measuring what has been learnt. The aim of LOTA is to engage staff to think consciously about what a piece of assessment is for, and be explicit about how it supports learning.

• Different academic areas will see things in different ways.

Recommendation: Academic areas should take ownership of outcomes and assessment and explore what the approach means for them if the pedagogic shift to outcomes is to have a lasting effect.

Approaches to assessment developed in one discipline area may not necessarily work in another. The case studies confirmed that the styles, traditions and expectations of student learning differed across the faculties. For many colleagues, explicitly linking outcomes to assessment and feedback is not a familiar

or comfortable way of devising assessment or commenting on students' work. This was evident, for example, when it came to auditing the assessment of cognitive and key skills in subjects such as mathematics compared with, for example, arts and humanities.

The LOTA project recognized from the outset that there would be no one single approach to outcomes-based learning and teaching that would suit all academic areas. More work is needed at the OU in different academic areas to explore how these changes impact on practice and professional development.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

متحف الكفيل يباشر صيانة منسوجات تراثية تابعة للعتبة العسكرية المقدسة

العتبة العباسية المقدسة تستذكر مظلومية الإمام الكاظم (عليه السلام) عبر مجلس عزاء

قسم العلاقات العامة يناقش مع منتدى شباب الإسكان إقامة مهرجان تكريم طالبات المدارس المرتديات العباءة في القادسية

سماحة السيد الصافي يدعو إلى توحيد الجهود في تحقيق التراث لضمان الرصانة والدقة وخدمة الساحة العلمية

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

6 فواكة تساعدك على الشعور بتحسّن عند المرض

حفاظا على صحة العين.. هذا أفضل وقت لتناول فيتامين أ

الاستخدام اليومي لسماعات الأذن.. أخطر مما تتصور !

هل توقيت نشاطك اليومي يؤثر على صحة دماغك؟.. العلماء يجيبون

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

ابتكار ألماني قد يغيّر مستقبل صناعة البلاستيك

تحديثات وأرباح عبر المشاهدات.. ما الذي تخطط له "لينكد إن"؟

"الكوكايين الوردي".. مخدر جديد يثير قلق السلطات الأميركية

دراسة: تغيّرات في أسلوب القيادة قد تكشف مبكرا عن الخرف !

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Parents with Learning Disabilities CONCLUSION

PROVISION OF SUPPORT

CARING FOR CHILDREN

EUGENICS AND ETHICAL ISSUES

PARENTING

DISCRIMINATION AND DIVERSITY

THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Parents with Learning Disabilities

Legislation and Learning Disabilities CONCLUSION

LEGAL SAFEGUARDS

MENTAL CAPACITY ACT 2005

THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT 1998