Assesslog

In preparation for last week’s session on Assessment & Creativity, we read a range of sources related to the assessment of process.

Jill Porter’s article on promoting self-assessment with pupils with severe learning difficulties highlighted how central self-assessment can be in the assessment of process; if students are evaluating their performance, reflecting on what they know and setting targets, they are documenting the process as they go. The author suggests a number of tools and technologies for aiding the reflective process – the use of mirrors and cameras to assist self-assessment; circle-time and plan-do-review boards that introduce an element of peer-assessment, and one-to-one sessions to enable teacher assessment. The ideas presented in this article, although in the context of the primary sector, are also relevant to higher education; giving students the opportunity to video face-to-face groupwork, or using mirrors to enable students to sit outside the group and perform a peer-assessment, would both be of benefit to the self- and peer-assessment of process.

Another source we were given to read was a student assignment on the contradictory nature of assessment of the arts. It challenged the viewpoint that objective assessment is a desirable goal, suggesting that any truly objective assessment of the arts can at best only measure ‘technical proficiency’. The ideas presented here reminded me of those of Elliot Eisner, evident in The Art of Educational Evaluation (discussed in an earlier post) as he challenges the setting of educational objectives prior to the learning process.

This piece of writing explained the concept of legitimation of exclusion in a way that I found much clearer than in the Broadfoot article I read previously, noting that, in today’s society, failure is as much of a necessity as success. The author of this piece emphasised, as others have, the weakness of the correlation between exam success at school and success at university and in general employment; however, the fact remains that selection has to occur, and therefore we need something to base that selection on. But it does seem logical that we are compromising pupil and student confidence and success in favour of objectivity and comparability.

I found the author’s reference to the Mcnamara Fallacy thought-provoking. It struck a chord with me as I am currently trying to reconcile the assessment of group discussion within a framework for module assessment in the ICM programme. Not providing credit for these activities does appear to give some students the impression that they are less important that the credit-bearing activities – it’s interesting to look at the fallacy from the perspective of the person who is being measured!

The central conclusions of this text were that teaching students to reflect, evaluate and recognise creation will assist the creative process, and the assessment of that process too, but creativity itself cannot be ‘pre-ordered’. A combination of discussion, feedback, ipsative assessment and self-evaluation is required for the valid assessment of a creative process. The final assessment should draw heavily on the student’s own reflections and self-evaluation, which also helps to foster independence and self-discipline.

The third piece I read was a foreward to Anna Craft’s 2005 book, ‘Creativity in Schools’, by Tim Smit, co-founder of the Eden Project. This drew briefly on a number of ideas, such as the link between emotional development and observation and their contribution towards creativity, and the differing notions of creativity between cultures. I found particularly interesting the idea that creativity in problem-solving is evident in all cultures, but creativity in the arts is generally in inverse proportion to the power of the state and degree of atrophy within a culture. The author also touched on the concept of the ‘throwaway culture’ and suggested that this is a symptom of our constant quest for the new and innovative. Finally – I liked the definition of creativity given here as the interface between self expression (a person’s ‘unique voice’) and the outside world. This surprised me as, to be honest, the wording is far ‘fluffier’ than what I would normally feel at ease with – I might have to explore what this definition means to me in more depth later on.

The final text I read was ‘Assessing the Creative work of Groups’ by Cordelia Bryan, a chapter from the 2004 publication ‘Collaborative Creativity’ (Miell & Littleton, eds). The context of collaborative group work is highly relevant to the work I’m doing at the moment with the ICM programme, and I took some valuable ideas away from this reading. Bryan emphasises the need to prepare students for collaborative groupwork by building trust and understanding of group dynamics and techniques, and explained why this is best carried out within the context of a standard unit of study rather than a separate ’study skills’ unit. The challenges of allocating credit for group tasks were also explored, and the importance of self and peer assessment – on both achievement of the task and facilitation of the process – was emphasised. Bryan advises that students should be given the opportunity to complete the entire cycle as a learning process, and to share their perceptions of assessing and being assessed on groupwork, before a credit-bearing assessed activity takes place. She also suggests that criteria and grading methods should be discussed and agreed upon after the students have experienced the initial groupwork activity.

One of Bryan’s ideas I found most interesting was the use of ‘peer observers’ – students who observe another group working and make notes in response to key questions, and then feed back to the group on completion of the group task.