Submitting the work (30th Dec 2011)
We have all had students who spend more time designing a fancy cover sheet for their coursework than on the work itself. I even had one student who only created the cover sheets and table of contents, assuring me that this this proved he could cover the material if required! He didn't pass.
So part of the thinking behind the classworks is to stop nonsense like that. Much more importantly though, students are better at completing small pieces of work than large ones. A large piece of work is daunting. Also, there will be sections that have not been covered in class yet, so there is no point in starting those. Most think it best if they leave the coursework until the teaching is done, i.e. the week before the work is due in. Then it's into panic mode - especially since several large pieces of work will be required at the same time. Oh, and by now the student has forgotten how that bit covered at the beginning actually worked, so that gets fudged (or worse, copied).
That is from the point of view of the student, but what about the teacher or lecturer? We blithely continue with our teaching, protected by our scheme of work, knowing that we will cover everything so any failures will not be our fault. It only becomes apparent that a student is failing once the deadline for the coursework has passed - when it is too late. That cannot be good for them or for us.
Small bits of work are more likely to produce a positive result. The students do not feel under as much pressure and we can monitor progress before a lack of work becomes a failing issue. Students apply their knowledge at the time it is delivered, making the probability it sticks greater. This then becomes one of those rare win-win situations.
So how do we break down an assignment into these classworks? Well, fortunately, all the hard work has been done. Each criterion (chapter in the book of the unit) will become one piece of work. That piece of work will then contain sub-sections for each of its atoms. We will be looking at how the students use this in a later blog (there is a plan - honest), but the starting point is the cover page. Mine start like this :-
It has the name of the unit, the unit number and the criterion being assessed at the top. There is then a space for the student to enter their name and enrolment number - always a good move. It is nice to give the students somewhere to add their comments, there is a box for that. Next comes space for the person marking this to add their contribution, along with a column saying whether they have achieved this criterion yet. Finally, there is the schedule of work. This has the current criterion highlighted which enables the student to see exactly when the work is expected. They (and we!) can also see if they are falling behind.
The next section contains the instructions on what to do with this coursework (again, more on that later) and the policy on plagiarism - just in case.
In the case of an EdExcel unit, this is followed by the criteria being covered taken from the text file we created at the beginning of this journey. It has been formatted into a nice looking table to make it easier to read.
We now get on to the work itself. The scenario is just copied from the assignment created in the previous blog - just a copy/paste job. The task is also copied from the assignments. It is the work required to cover this criterion so, again, it is just a copy/paste job.
Finally, the actual work expected for each atom is added. The example above is not very exciting, but it does give the flavour of sweeties on offer. The student will just fill in the gaps. The headings in brackets show that the work required has been covered and will (yet again, as explained in a later blog) be linked to the learning materials. This means that students have access to the materials whilst they complete the work.
This gets saved as an RTF file (yes, there is a logic - please stick with me). You do this by going to File -> Save As in your word processor. You will then be presented with a box in which you can enter the file name (Unit 14-P1 in this case) and below that is usually a drop-down list headed File Format. Click on the arrow on the right and then scroll to the RTF (Rich Text Format) option. You can then use this document as a template for all the other criteria.
This stage takes quite a a couple of hours for all the criteria, but again the pay-off comes later. You get a higher pass rate and your life is made easier because you will be able to mark as you go along rather than be faced with a mountain at the end.
