Open Assessment Method for Better Understanding of Student’s Learnability to Create Personalised Recommendations

Abstract

It is well accepted that learners even at academic institutions come with different abilities and flavours. Personalising the education is one of the 16 grand challenges as per the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Measuring the outcomes of an education, progress of learning, etc., plays an important role in generating personalised feedbacks and recommendations in personalised learning environments facilitated by either an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) or an expert academician in conventional institutions. Any assessment would require a medium of expression to measure the achievements/outcomes of learning. Most common among them are writing a set of reasoning statements, writing algorithms, diagrams/sketches, occasional viva voce, etc.. The intention of this paper is to share one of our assessment practices during 2011–2013 where the medium of expression is as chosen by the students; we call this method of assessment as “open assessment”. We also share the techniques of recording assessment data, policies to ensure student‘s participation in assessments and grading philosophy for such assessment methods. Finally, we present a short analysis to highlight advantages and disadvantages of this method when practiced in institutions with academic autonomy in India.

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FormalPara Abstract

It is well accepted that learners even at academic institutions come with different abilities and flavours. Personalising the education is one of the 16 grand challenges as per the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Measuring the outcomes of an education, progress of learning, etc., plays an important role in generating personalised feedbacks and recommendations in personalised learning environments facilitated by either an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) or an expert academician in conventional institutions. Any assessment would require a medium of expression to measure the achievements/outcomes of learning. Most common among them are writing a set of reasoning statements, writing algorithms, diagrams/sketches, occasional viva voce, etc.. The intention of this paper is to share one of our assessment practices during 2011–2013 where the medium of expression is as chosen by the students; we call this method of assessment as “open assessment”. We also share the techniques of recording assessment data, policies to ensure student‘s participation in assessments and grading philosophy for such assessment methods. Finally, we present a short analysis to highlight advantages and disadvantages of this method when practiced in institutions with academic autonomy in India.

FormalPara Keywords

Open assessments • Teaching practices • Google docs • Students modelling • Personalised education