New Assessment Strategies – The magic of feedback

Many times in students’ lives assessment is synonym of stressful experience, and connecting “learning” with “stress” means making it an awful experience after all, which compromises long term memory of what you have learned. Neuroscientific research proved it already; positive motivation, on the contrary, promote a qualitative improvement of the brain circuitry involved in memory and executive functions. Superior learning happens in classroom experiences relevant to students’ lives, interests and experiences.

So what if we moved the assessment within the learning path? We could transform it in a check-in to see if learning is there, otherwise we could give feedback and support students to get back on track. A question or an exercise, every once in a while, does not interrupt the learning flux but supports it in keeping the right direction, toward the achievement of the learning outcomes. After that learning will be already there, it’s only a matter of its measurement. This MOOC is entitled “New Assessment Strategies”, because it focuses on new ways to perform assessment, focusing on learning and not only on its measurement. It is part of the “MOOCs for Teachers” series and according to the series’ style, it talks mainly to teachers who want to improve their effective support to students. It could be interesting also for teachers and professors who already apply formative assessment strategies with their students and surround their class time and online activities with the magic of feedback, but are still willing to see new perspectives and are seeking for people to share their experience with. Any other participant, as usual, is more than welcome to share their non-professional, role-free, in-depth opinion on the subject

Their contribution can only enrich our participants further on!

This MOOC is part of the MOOCs for Teachers series, which is devoted to pedagogical innovation and is aimed at giving the chance to teachers and people involved in instructional design to develop skills in the didactical area.

“During the course there will be the chance to meet the other participants and one or more teachers online for a synchronous session, which will be announced by email, according to the course objectives. You can access the course absolutely free of charge and completely online. The course materials will still be available to all registered users, even after the closing of the edition. Further editions of this course will be activated each academic year. The forum of this MOOC is freely accessible and participation is not guided; you can use it to compare yourself with other participants, or to discuss course contents with them.

The course entails questions, in the form of self-assessment quizzes or as hints for reflection, as well as discussion activities in the Forum and design activities in WEEK 4. You are not required to answer these questions or participate to activities to complete the course, but we strongly believe they offer you a concrete opportunity to improve your knowledge! Instead, the quiz you will find at the end of the core WEEKs (except WEEK 0 and the final section on the pedagogical approach) will be evaluated. You can retry the quiz up to a maximum of 3 times.

Remember, the system will record the result of your final attempt, not the best of your attempts! The course is properly completed if the participant correctly answers to at least 60% of the questions, totally. The course’s total score will be calculated by averaging the scores of the quizzes for each individual week. Once you have successfully passed the course, you can request the Certificate of Accomplishment without waiting for the end of the edition. “

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