A conversation on hybrid teaching and online assessment design with Velda McCune

I’ve appropriated these clips from the University of Edinburgh hybrid teaching exchange in order to bring together the different strands of an interesting conversation with Velda that touched on lots of important issues for education during COVID-19 and more generally. Look out for some impromptu appearances from some of my children!

Designing Assessments for Hybrid Teaching (5 min)
A slightly rambling account of some online assessment designs I’ve been involved with and what I think were the most important considerations for the current situation.

Preparing Assessments for Semester 1 (5 min)
Some thoughts on design for online group assessment and peer learning.

Get to Know Your Students and Let Them Get to Know You (3 min)
Thoughts on the importance and limitations of design, and the importance of trust, honesty, getting to know your students and letting them know you.

The Pros and Cons of Online Exams (7 min)
Thoughts on the problems of remote invigilation (or “proctoring”), the limitations of exams more generally, and how we might think about changing our model of assessment.

There is much more to be said on all of these issues, and no doubt I will post more on all this over the coming academic year.

Links to external posts

While I slowly get my act together and write the first educational post on this site, I thought I’d link out to a couple of posts I wrote elsewhere. The first is with Jen Ross on online assessments and alternatives to exams. It was motivated by discomfort with remote invigilation and wanting to help educators think about how they could do things differently.

The second is my take on technology in education, and how context and purpose should drive our choices about technology as part of an integrated pedagogy.