The power of formative assessment in enhancing learning and teaching

Most teachers can empathise with Drs Adam Craig and Sophia Lin’s situation when teaching fully online and asynchronously. According to Adam: “It has always been a challenge to monitor how my students are going, what they are taking away from the course material, and where they may be having difficulties.” Without face-to-face interaction, it’s essential to make clear which course content is most important for students to grasp. To tackle these potential pitfalls, Sophia and Adam from the School of Public Health and Community Medicine collaborated with Educational Developers Dr Amanda Yeung and Clem Wong from Educational Design and Delivery Services (EDDS, PVCE) to redesign their formative assessments.

The solution was a weekly Moodle Questionnaire, made up of a learning outcomes checklist. Sophia says "The Learning Checklist consists of a series of tasks or activities that students are expected to master each week. Each task or activity is mapped to a weekly learning objective and to the course objectives. The information collected from the Learning Checklist is used to improve our own teaching. Review of the previous week’s completed checklists allows us to identify struggling students (and exactly what they are struggling with) or shared difficulties in the class which can be rapidly addressed."

Formative assessment story

The questionnaire's benefits were twofold. It helped students take ownership of their learning, as well as providing qualitative data on students' progress. Moodle Questionnaire also allowed creation of a reflective journal, enabling efficient collation of student reflections for both large and small classes, easily letting convenors refine how they covered content. Going forward, Adam says he will use the data to “frame how my class webinars will run or as a prompt to reach out to a student that may be struggling.” The Moodle Questionnaire helped to close the feedback loop, enabling a meaningful student learning experience. 

If you're keen to implement effective formative assessments or design a feedback cycle for your course, you can contact EDDS through the Educational Solutions consultation form for training or support. Combined with years of academic and teaching experience, the EDDS team have Masters or PhD qualifications in Education and/or various disciplines including Science, Medicine, Engineering and Arts and Social Sciences. In addition to offering educational design experience and disciplinary expertise, the team can support you in developing innovative educational resources and tools, as well as redesigning courses and assessments for blended and fully online delivery.

 

Sophia Lin

Dr Sophia Lin is a Lecturer in Global Health at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine. She is the Academic Advisor for the PLuS Alliance Bachelor of International Public Health program and convenes three courses integrating her research interests in global chronic disease risk factor control and community-driven approaches to reducing inequities in the social determinants of health. Click here for her profile.   

adam craig

Dr Adam Craig is a public health epidemiologist and researcher focusing on optimal disease outbreak early warning surveillance system design for low- and middle-income country settings. Adam currently holds a dual lecturer/research role in global health at UNSW. Click here for his profile. 

 

 

Clem

Clem Wong is an Educational Developer with teaching experience across a range of educational settings over many years. He focuses on enabling students to learn through active and authentic situations and has a passion for designing learning programs that cater effectively for students with diverse needs.

 

amanda

Amanda Yeung has over 13 years’ experience in the higher education sector with a career spanning educational development, medical research, English editing, and teaching within undergraduate and postgraduate Medicine at UNSW and USyd. She is also currently an adjunct lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Notre Dame.