I teach IT courses in the areas of web design and development, database design, multimedia and programming. All these courses are very practical in nature and most entail logical challenges for which students need to find creative solutions. I teach students from Year 1 to Year 4 in their bachelor program. Needless to say, the teaching and assessing strategies differ as students progress in their studies.
Why do students learn? - Mostly students learn to get good grades, to progress to the next semester, get a good job - all extrinsic factors. Learning is just a way to achieve their goal. Learning in this case is not deep and does not last for long!
There are very few students who are who are passionate about their learning motivated by intrinsic factors such as gaining knowledge, curiosity, expanding their skills, interest etc.
As educators we try to foster deeper learning by making learning fun and authentic at the same time, by creating good and engaging learning environments and by trying to get the students focus off the grades (challenging I know!)
What do students learn? - the outcomes of students learning are predefined by the curriculum leaders, i.e. the level of skill or knowledge that a student is expected to exhibit upon completion of the course. For example, the following are the learning outcomes of the Web Technologies course:
- Describe the evolution of the World Wide Web from inception to the present and explore the technology behind current and emerging web applications.
- Identify and describe the various elements that make up the World Wide Web and the supporting infrastructure and technologies.
- Explore the structure of HTML pages with emphasis on emerging technologies, such as HTML5, CSS3, AJAX, and apply HTML/CSS rules to create basic web pages.
- Understand and apply website structure, planning, design and implementation using a web authoring tool.
However, as educators we have more control over how the students will learn what they are supposed to. My students are encouraged to actively learn through various methods such as problem solving, discussions, collaboration and by using technology to research and learn new things and most importantly to learn by doing. I encourage students to gain control of their own learning by often including in their assessments (formative or summative) tasks for which they need to seek information on their own. So to summarize, my students learn by:
- doing things
- reflecting on their learning
- gathering information (research), understanding and summarizing or applying concepts
- working in groups (learning from and with other students)
Assessment of learning - A very traditional definition of assessment would be to determine what a student has learned for the purpose of evaluation.
However, I believe that assessments are much more than this. I think assessments should be a way for us to gather information of students learning and understanding of the learning outcomes in order to improve our teaching and learning strategies. All assessments do not have to be graded. Assessments may be formative or summative in nature.Formative assessments held at regular intervals during a course help us gather immediate evidence of student's learning and thereby allow us to make changes to our teaching strategies and improve the quality of learning. With my students, I give a lot of importance to formative assessments since I believe that they are important in preparing students for summative assessments that are often determined by the course learning outcomes and program goals.
The following is a definition of Assessments by the Higher Learning Commission
“Assessment of student learning is a participatory, iterative process that:
Provides data/information you need on your students’ learning
Engages you and others in analyzing and using this data/information to confirm and improve teaching and learning
Produces evidence that students are learning the outcomes you intended
Guides you in making educational and institutional improvements
Evaluates whether changes made improve/impact student learning, and documents the learning and your efforts.”
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