Using negotiated assessments in higher education

Hook, A; Bodell, SJ

Abstract

By negotiating their assessment students gain an opportunity to develop
clearer understandings of themselves as learners and their own learning
processes within their own cultural and professional environment.



Our main consideration in developing negotiated assessment for the MSc
Advanced Occupational Therapy programme was to reflect the
constructivist pedagogy which emphasises gradual development of
knowledge through integration of ideas, opportunities for reflection and
for ownership of a given task (Rovai 2004). This approach provides
interactive environments and appropriate challenges, encourages
experimentation and the discovery of broad principles and frames
learning outcomes to encourage the development of autonomy.



In discussing assessment issues Vrasidas and Glass (2002) suggest that
students (a) use their own experiences, (b) apply ideas to their own or
at least to real-world contexts, (c) work collaboratively with their
peers, and (d) negotiate the assessment process with the instructor. We
therefore decided to introduce negotiated assessments into our new MSC
programme to enable the students to bespoke their learning to their own
specific cultural and professional situations.



Research is currently underway to collect the findings of the student
and module leader’s experiences of the first negotiated assessment. It
is these findings that will be demonstrated on the poster.

Citation

Hook, A., & Bodell, S. (2010, June). Using negotiated assessments in higher education. Poster presented at COT Annual Conference 2010, Brighton

• Presentation Conference Type: Poster
• Conference Name: COT Annual Conference 2010
• Conference Location: Brighton
• Start Date: Jun 1, 2010
• Deposit Date: Jan 11, 2012
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 11, 2012
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference; References : Rovai A (2004) A constructivist approach to online college learning Internet and Higher Education 7 79-93 Vrasidas, C., & Glass, G. V. (2002). Distance education and distributed learning. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing