Describe and evaluate an innovative assessment approach or technology.

While researching innovative assessment strategies or approaches, I came across this paper – “Innovative assessment strategies in higher education” by Joao Ponciano and Koh Yit Yan. What caught my eye, initially was the sentence in the introduction, “The research aimed to design and implement an assessment model that recognises individual contributions of students within a team based on the work of the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP).” But then, going further in the paper, I became more interested in this Career Development and Employability (CDE) framework. Essentially this framework does not just bother itself with the skillsets and how job ready the students become by the time they finish higher education but invests itself with the EQ levels of the learners as well. This alone makes it deeper than Bloom’s taxonomy, I believe. Moreover, CDE also looks into how well the learner works in a real-life set up as a team player as well as how diligent are they with the ‘business talk.’ And these are skills beyond any knowledge one can gain from the books alone. During my attempt to evaluate this model or should I call it ‘philosophy’ I found that this has many phases which helps by opening dialogues in the form of feedback and also tries to keep ‘learning’ as real as possible, with ‘Employability’ followed by ‘Assessment’ in the first levels. Again, in my understanding of the model, then comes the push, the stimulus or that which acts as the catalyst for the learner to become better versions of themselves and this is the result of the said assessment. Thus, after the student is motivated and goes through the process of learning, (again), if that, he/she then gets feedback, both formatively and summatively.

The reason why this struck a chord with me is that the model is focused and revolves around feedback and makes it a point to instil that the teacher or the instructor needs to take up many roles. To quote the study, it says, (verbatim) “Feedback is instrumental and non-differential to the assessment of both IQ and EQ skills and independent of the mode of assessment … And that feedback is purposeful, that might include correction of errors, development of understanding, promotion of generic skills, development of metacognition and the maintenance of motivation. It is related to the degree of achievement of the set learning outcomes, that helps learners to see the goodness of fit between judgements and their work. The feedback is also timely so that students can respond to it with the work fresh in their mind and in time to act on it before tackling another similar task. Moreover, it is appropriate, in relation to students’ conceptions of learning, knowledge and the discourse of the discipline and helps in students’ development of their IQ and EQ skills.”

This, I think makes much more sense as it does not just forget the need for goals and outcomes, but rather makes sure that there is active participation and takes an innovative route to achieve the goals, which is to equip the learners to take on their jobs.

Reference:

https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2052&context=dubaipapers

Book - Teaching with Team Projects in Higher Education (Page 147-155)