Welcome to this video,
which focuses on the concept of assessment.
My name is Irmeli Maunonen-Eskelinen
from Jamk University of Applied Sciences and my colleague is…
Hello, my name is Telle Hailikari
and I come from Hamk University of Applied Sciences.
Telle, would you like to say a few words about the basics of assessment?
The basic purpose of assessment?
Assessment has many different purposes,
but at least two main purposes can be identified.
Traditionally, assessment has been seen as a way to control student learning
and assess what they have learned,
for example, during a course or during a module.
Then, using this information,
for example, for selection purposes or certification purposes.
The main purpose has been to control
that the students have learned what they are supposed to learn.
Nowadays, the modern view of assessment
sees assessment as a very powerful way to promote student learning.
We know from a lot of research
that assessment guides student learning very strongly.
By designing assessment carefully,
it's possible to support student learning
and enhance their current and future learning.
The main thing is to align the assessment with the intended learning outcomes
and the competencies that the students are supposed to learn during the course,
and in that way, steer student learning in the right direction.
Both of these purposes are still prevalent.
We still need to assess student learning,
but also bring this perspective
of promoting learning to this assessment culture.
Well, that's a clear and important aspect regarding assessment.
Let's move from the basic purposes of assessment
to look at the different types of assessments.
In particular, those which promote learning.
Yes, there are different types of assessments that can be used
when assessing student learning and knowledge
within a certain course or course entity.
All these different types of assessments have a little difference in purpose.
Let's start with this diagnostic assessment.
A diagnostic assessment is the type of assessment
that usually happens at the beginning of the course
or before the course starts.
The purpose of this type of assessment
is to assess what the students know before the course,
and what prior knowledge they have before they start the course.
Also, to activate their prior knowledge in order to start the learning process.
Then, another type of assessment is summative assessment,
which is the traditional type of assessment
that usually happens at the end of the course.
The aim of this assessment
is to assess what the students have learned during the course
and whether they have reached the learning outcomes of the course.
This is still a very prevalent type of assessment.
However, it should not be the only type of assessment
because this usually happens at the end of the course,
and then it's not possible for the students
to change their course of learning anymore or get the feedback.
There should also be types of formative assessment during the course.
This type of assessment is the one that happens during the course.
It gives the students a possibility
to see where they still need to improve and change their course of learning.
This type of assessment is very important
when we think about enhancing students' learning during the course.
Then, the fourth type of assessment is integrative assessment,
which is where the focus
is more on influencing students as future learners.
This means that the assessment
should focus on promoting skills that are needed in the future,
so beyond the course content.
This means that the focus is also on assessing future skills
and skills that the students will need
in their working life or in their future studies.
When we talk about assessment, it should enhance both current learning,
the learning that happens during the course,
as well as provide students with feedback and possibilities
to reflect on their own learning
and give them tools for future learning experiences as well.
Yes, maybe we can move on to look at the planning of assessment,
and planning assessment activities.
Here we have six questions to consider and make a decision on
when we plan assessment activities.
The basic questions are,
what to assess.
For example, Telle already mentioned learning outcomes many times.
That the assessment should focus on learning outcomes
and the things that we want the students to learn.
Why we assess.
The basic purpose of the assessment has to be considered as well.
Are we enhancing the learning process?
Do we want to find out what the students have learnt.
What they have achieved at the end of the learning process?
Also, we have to consider who the one who assesses is.
Is it the students themselves, peers, teachers, or someone else?
For example, a person in the workplace?
Then, again, the question is, when do we assess?
Is it before we start a learning process, during the learning process,
or at the end of the learning process?
A very important question is, how we assess.
We should have a variety of ways to assess learning
because it is linked with the learning outcomes.
What are the ways that we can find out
what the students have achieved
or what they still need to study and learn?
One question is about where the assessment takes place.
Is it in the classroom
or is it, for example, in the teaching place,
or somewhere else?
At least these questions are important to consider
and make decisions on
in planning the assessment process.
If we want to summarise what we should focus on
in the modern way of assessment,
how would you summarise the direction that we should take?
Yes, well, here are some main points.
We should move from only the assessment of learning
to also use the assessment as a tool for learning.
Assessment can be used to enhance student learning and so on.
We should also move from control- and teacher-led assessment practices
to assessment of processes and student activities,
and provide students with feedback already during the course.
Also, to move from final exams and summative assessment
to assessment practices that provide students with timely feedback
so that they can reflect on their learning
and get feedback on their learning during the course.
Therefore, the assessment can also be a learning situation.
Yes, surely it is so.
Finally, we can summarise the whole video by using these thoughts.
Would you say the final words of this video, please?
Yes, well, to put it very simply, if you want to change student learning,
then change the methods of assessments.
As we already mentioned, assessment is a very powerful way
to start influencing the students' learning process.
It's very important to consider it very carefully,
and use it as a part of the whole learning process.
As David Boud has said,
"Students can escape the effects of bad teaching,"
"but they can't escape the effects of bad assessment."
Here is some food for thought, and thank you for listening.
Thank you very much.