ED401 Reflective Writing 8: Assessment
Pita Tuisawau (S82530500)
I think I have learnt the most in this last topic. Below are some of the key issues that are a
concern to me and how I hope to apply the ideas learnt in my work as an Instructional Designer.
Key issue Why is it a concern
1. Which ILO • This is a concern for me because it is one
does one assess? of the first questions that a teacher and
Instructional designer should ask when
designing or revising a course/program.
• In the School of Law (SOL) it has been
admitted by staff that some ILOs have
been ignored and others overused across
the program.
2. Does • Again this a key part of an instructional
approach to designer’s work—ensuring that
assessment align assessment tasks are matched to the
with ILOs? learning outcomes and marking criteria
3. Justifying • Although most if not all SOL courses
one’s choice of have a section called “Rationale for
assessment assessment” in their course guides, some
methods are more elaborate and useful than others
• Also one or two staff have intimated the
overuse of one or two assessment
methods (e.g., assignments)
4. Communica • I have come across assessment tasks
tion & where criteria for assessment are not
justification of known to students which makes you
marking criteria wonder about the consistency in marking
of these tasks
5. Approaches • This has been an issue especially when
to feedback to assessing large numbers of students at
students SOL
• Inadequate/superficial and even no
feedback provided to students especially
through crowded disc. Forums and MCQs
Application of ideas
• I hope to through the use of Biggs’
SOLO taxonomy push for more
effective assessment of declarative
and functional knowledge
• I intend to suggest to SOL lecturers
some of the suggested options for
assessment suggested by Biggs for
both types of knowledge
• I hope to pilot the use of the
Moodle learning outcomes feature
in conjunction with some of the
things I have learnt in this topic on
alignment of ILOs and ATs in a
Law course this semester
• Improve the use of synoptic group
assessments where tasks cover a
number of ILOs
• I intend to improve the section on
Rationale for assessment in the
course guides with the knowledge I
have gained from the readings in
this topic
• Biggs sort of reluctantly says that
theoretically MCQs can assess high
level verbs. Liz Polden in an online
article on using MCQs for higher
learning in law seems to have
discovered this by using a
combination of MCQs with legal
case scenarios. I would like to use
MCQs for higher level learning and
have been talking with a SOL
lecturer about designing some
using Liz Polden’s examples.
• I intend to continue to work on
helping lecturers use rubrics which
have useful criteria for their
students.
• I intend to showcase the
Criteria/checklists plus personal
comments format that a staff has
used for his past course to other
staff members
• Also would like to look further into
Pro-forma and Global reports
 possibilities and suggest where
appropriate

• Intend to push for more meaningful

feedback in formative assessment
activities like discussion forums
through teaching weaving and
MCQs through more detailed
feedback
6. Plagiarism • Plagiarism is one of the biggest concerns • I hope to do more in the area of
with SOL prevention by putting up a block
with helpful links regarding
plagiarism in all SOL courses
7. Marking • It is a concern for SOL lecturers trying to • Trying to see whether we can
techniques mark a huge load of assessment from 200 replicate peer marking online as
plus students described by Boud in Chapter 10 of
the Biggs reading
• I was asked to mark UU100 papers in the
last semester • Clear criteria and rubrics by the
UU100 course coordinator helped
make this exercise more fair,
reliable and valid. I hope to show
the excel marking sheet to
interested SOL staff