Assessment come Curriculum Map

Today in the planning day come workshop thingie we talked through, about, around, down, in, out, and up assessment and learning. This is what has come out in the wash:

Starting backwards. Semester two is straightforward, some hurdle tasks in the lab would be useful to keep students on track, measure progress and milestones, and provide support, scaffolding, but the key outcome of all subjects in semester two is the honours research outcome which will be examined. This provides all the assessment tasks and outcomes for the semester.

The assessment tasks for semester one have been planned from the point of view of aligning them towards maximising the research done in honours, and the quality of the honours research outcomes (the theses and projects undertaken). Each of the assessable tasks are designed to be formative in terms of the final honours outcome, with one caveat at this point being the media futures subject which is a theoretical island within the program.

Semester one has four subjects, the research practice subject has no timetabled teaching and is an allocation of time (measured by credit points) for students to be doing the research work that honours requires. As mentioned, the media futures subject will have two essays as outcomes, but these are not part of the formative model for the rest of the assessment at this point.

The research strategies subject will see students develop a research problem/statement in the early weeks. This will be a hurdle task, it will not be assessed, but must be completed. It will change during the course of the semester and the year, but is important to develop a trajectory to everything else that is going on. Here they will also learn some basic project management, and by the end of the semester will have also identified/signed on with a supervisor. The project management, supervision documentation and a project plan (timeline) for semester two will form a hurdle portfolio task. The two assessable tasks for the research strategies subject will be a 2000 word written piece due mid semester. This will be a preliminary investigation of what the key methods are for the individual research problem, who are the key figures in the field, what do they say, and how do you actually do/use these methods (what are they exactly?). This is assessed, and based on the feedback you get will form the basis for a larger, expanded writing task (4000 words) that writes out in much more complexity and detail your method/s, the key figures, theories and ideas, what they are, and how they are used (and perhaps why). This can also be used as the basis for the opening chapter of the thesis or the exegesis.

The first semester research lab is orientated around learning a lot about the theme or topic of the lab. A suggested model for the content is to use a tripartite structure that spends a third defining ‘boundaries, edges and tipping points’. What are the definitional terms and debates, what are the edges and boundaries of the problem (where does it begin, when does it become something else) and at what point, or where ‘in between’ do things change? A third examining why this topic actually matters (what are its ethical implications, what relation does this have to other things?), and a final third investigating how the theme intersects with the students’ individual discipline, field or practice.

For example, in non fiction the first third might think about where does non fiction as a concept have purchase (writing, film making, video, art, journalism, but what about in design? advertising? gaming?), and within these about what point or moment does nonfiction become fiction or whatever the oppositional other is to nonfiction? The second third examining the import of non fiction in terms of an ethics of practice (who gets to speak? why? how?), why does it even matter to distinguish things that make nonfiction truth claims from fictional truth claims, how non fiction can non fiction be? And a final third thinking about these questions in the context of my own discipline and field – which is where I can bring in my research problem and concerns to provide a lens to focus this theme.

For assessment we want to assess what has been learnt about the theme, but in a manner that is relevant to the disciplinary mix and the larger research projects being undertaken. We also want the emphasis and effort here being on doing a lot of reading, watching, listening, trying to be a sponge with the assessment not detracting from the effort to learn as much as you can. The first task will be a highly constrained presentation (let’s say 3 minutes long) where you must express a point of view about the lab theme from the point of view of your research problem/field/discipline/practice. You are to argue for your opinion (but not just opinion since it should be informed by your emerging understanding of the topic area) using evidence from what you have learnt. This will happen mid semester. The presentations will be critiqued by the lab, and assessed. The second task will be to develop this point of view further, to turn it into a substantial argument that again takes a position in relation to the lab topic and your research problem/practice/discipline/field. This work can take any form that is relevant to your practice/discipline but if it is not an essay but is some other sort of artefact then it must have a written accompaniment.

Things to consider. Semester two labs, what should a lab leave behind? why? how?