Designing and Assessing Learning in a Writing Course

摘要：

基于Biggs的建构主义理论，通过对学校双学位课程写作课的课程设计与评价进行比较与分析，从Nicholls 的课程设计的循环模式的几个重要方面，即情景分析，目标，学习体验，学习评价入手，提出了改进现有写作课程的课程设计与评价的方法。

关键词：课程设计与评价；Nicholls 的课程设计的循环模式；情景分析

Abstract

By comparison with and analysis of the original curriculum design and assessment in the writing course of a joint degree program， the paper puts forward some new proposals for improvement in terms of such important elements in the Nicholls cyclical model as the situational analysis， objectives， the learning experiences and varieties of assessment， based on Biggs’ constructive alignment and some other impressive theories.

Key words： curriculum design and assessment； the Nicholls cyclical model；

the situational analysis

1. Context

The year 2006 witnessed my offering and designing a writing course for a joint degree class， 20 students from the same grade but with different specialties. There are 48 sessions for this writing course， with the first half offered at the end of the first semester of Year Two and the second half in the weekends of the second semester of the same year.

To achieve the joint degree in English， the students need to finish all the courses required by the English Department， School of Foreign Languages， pass a second language achievement examination organized by Yunnan Province and a final dissertation. So it is essential for them to be able to master the necessary writing skills.

2. Course design and implementation

The designated textbook for this course is English Writing： Words， Sentences and Paragraphs for English majors with clear organization， plenty of exercises and elaborate answers to these exercises. And I was required to assess the students in this way： 60 percent from the second half of the module， 20 percent from the first half and the rest 20 percent from the students’ performance in the process such as attendance and assignments.

This is my first independent course design. Unconsciously， I adopted a sequential mode of the curriculum process， similar to Tyler model but with the third step missing：

Objectives Teaching / learning methods Evaluation

According to the English Syllabus for English Majors in Institutions of Higher Learning， as a skill course， “the purpose of writing course lies in developing the students’ preliminary English writing competency， including outline， abstract， short passage and simple practical writing…The organization of its content can begin with choice of words and sentence structures. The students should be able to write with the help of prompt， to imitate models， or to write in the certain context and then to transform to the mastery of skills of paragraph writing， organization and passage writing. If possible， it also should further train the students in different types of writing and their organization such as descriptive， narrative， expository and argumentative writing” （2000：24-25）.

Since the joint degree program condenses eight levels of learning into two levels， I accordingly adapted the learning outcomes. By the end of the writing course， the students should be able to：

write different types of writing of 120 to 150 words within 30 minutes with relevance to the topic， clear presentation and correct expressions and grammar；

rewrite or abridge the texts；

write practical writing such as letters， notes and notices， without any serious mistakes in their forms and styles and with conformation to the standards.

To cover the content within such limited time， I gave lectures and redesigned the content with some addition and some omission to the textbook in the form of power-point. There were occasional pair work， if time was permitted， in which the pairs were required to correct each other’s paragraphs， but no effort would be counted in the formative assessment.

For the 20 percent of course grades， I distributed 10 percent to the students’ attendance and another 10 percent to their take-home writing practice； for the 60 percent and 20 percent， I mainly adopted traditional unseen， time-constrained written exams as required to monitor the students achievement with many different types of questions， for instance， mistake correction， blank-filling， topic sentence completion， translation， rewriting， abridging and paragraph writing. Part of the questions came from the classroom lectures as I informed the students at the very beginning of the course. This kind of exam really put me under heavy workload of correction， for there might be more than two answers to one single flexible question sometimes， so I must be very careful. And the fairness was doubtful because of the halo effects or just the neatness of the paper or the handwriting.

The feedback I got from the students at the end of the course was not so positive as I expected. They were satisfied with the organization of the content and agreed that my classes were well prepared， adding that they could understand the skills but felt it difficult to apply them in due course. The summative assessment also justified their response. Most students seemed improved a little， making the same common mistakes with what I had already presented in the classes. It seemed that the students just stayed at the level of declarative knowledge without moving up to the functional knowledge with which the students could put declarative knowledge to work by solving problems.

3. Reflection

The sequential mode of the curriculum process I followed in the original design is convenient to use but neglects the interrelationship of the three fundamental elements in curriculum design. The Nicholls cyclical model emphasizes detailed and serious consideration of the context or situation， taking the step of situational analysis.

This joint degree class had great interest and enormous reserves of potentials to be tapped out only if the teacher facilitates the constructive alignment from the learning and the teaching. The teacher needs care about their disadvantages of comparatively weak foundation of English language and tight schedule of self-study. Thus， First of all， the learning outcomes should be adapted to their imperative needs.

In Biggs’ constructive alignment， “a good teaching system aligns teaching method and assessment to the leaning activities stated in the objectives， so that all aspects of this system act in accord to support appropriate learning”. Specific and elaborate learning outcomes for the students are of topmost priorities， for they can make sure that the students understand what the teacher expects of them clearly so that the students will be certain in which direction they are going and how they are going to align themselves to meet the expectations.

Such learning outcomes can be displayed by use of verbs of four SOLO levels， and the gradual process from low level to high level helps motivate students and cultivate their interests in the learning practice. “An effective course will have its material arranged in such a way that the issues addressed generate confidence and interest in students… At the start of a course students should be given a few tasks to perform at which they can succeed quickly”. It is also true of the according objectives or aims of this effective course. Therefore， the learning outcomes can be aligned as follows：

To identify the grammar mistakes；

To comprehend the writing skills learned；

To describe the criteria of correction；

To explain the correct form and styles of writing；

To apply the writing skills and the criteria of self-assessment or peer-assessment to different styles of writing；

To appreciate the value of a well-written passage.

A Level 3 perspective of a teacher should focus on what the students do. As for the theories of effective teaching， Ramsden also thinks that teaching is “making learning possible” instead of just transforming information to the students. In guidance to students accumulating the learning experience and acquiring the effective approach to learning， what the teacher can do is to help create suitable context in which students are able to go through constructive experiences and form positive conceptions of learning.

Lectures were not good learning experiences for the students in the writing course. In such expository teaching activities as lectures， they only involve “the transmission of information in a single direction from a source to learners” and learners are “passive receivers of information in information ”. In this sense， lectures still rest with level 1 perspective of teaching. But it does not mean that lectures themselves are inferior to other teaching and learning strategies. Print finds that the literature demonstrates the need for variety of teaching-learning strategies， for “no one strategy is appropriate， or can hope to be appropriate， to all learning contexts” and the most efficient and effective one is the one which “must be matched to objectives”.

Pairwork or small group teaching or discussion are nice alternatives and additions to lectures. Their biggest concern should be to find out their remaining problems， to try to solve the problems and improve their abilities of independent decision-making， and to negotiate for a set of criteria in correction and assessment of their products or others’.

These learning experiences can promote students learning by doing and offer them great autonomy to go as far as they can. If the students are involved and highly motivated in the process of learning， effective learning can take place as expected. Ramsden finds that “students’ perceptions of the degree of choice and independence offered in a course are associated with positive evaluations and deep approaches to learning” and that “Variety in method， which we may usefully combine with a degree of student choice over the methods themselves…will tend to encourage greater responsibility for self-direction in learning”. Student-directed or student-centered， not teacher-centered teaching and learning is just what the English Syllabus for English Majors in Institutions of Higher Learning advocates （2000：20）.

The handouts I distributed to the students should have been made better use of. As Brown and Race suggest that “when handouts are full of things for students to do， during and after lectures， they become a much more valuable resource than just yet more information”. Some consolidation exercises can be incorporated on the handouts into the system of formative assessment to provide more prompt feedback to the students.

Portfolios of evidence of achievement are also common learning activities. They can tell much more about students than exam results， reflect the learners’ development and reflect attitudes and values as well as skills and knowledge. The class of 20 students are manageable as for the time for assessment； on the other hand， they can even up the workload in the tight module schedule without reducing the quality of learning.

Biggs thinks that “what and how students learn depends to a major extent on how they think they will be assessed”. The original mode of assessment system emphasizes summative assessment and norm-referenced assessment with one 20 percent of the course grade at disposal as formative assessment and criteria-referenced assessment. Norm-referenced assessment distinguishes the students from the others according to grades， thus it encourages the existence of competition and reduces students’ motivation in reciprocity and cooperation among students， which resulted in one of the difficulties in pair work.

Race suggests diversifying assessment in order to increase the chance that all students will be able to demonstrate their best performance in at least some of the formats. A recommendation is more formative assessment， criteria-referenced assessment and peer-assessment， and less summative assessment and norm-referenced assessment in the writing course， for example， 30 percent for final examination， 20 percent for mid-term examination and the rest 50 percent for formative assessment （10 percent for attendance， 10 for incomplete handouts， 10 for group work and 30 for the portfolio）.

Before formative assessment， the teacher should encourage the whole class to discuss appropriate methods， to make a staff-student design of assessment and to negotiate a set of criteria for success and failure. Race agrees that “when students are practiced in interpreting and making use of assessment criteria， the standard of their assessed work rises dramatically”. If the set of criteria become innate in the students’ mind， they will be able to assess their own writing， appreciate others’ works and understand how their writing is assessed and why it should go in this way or that way. Self/ Peer-assessment can be made possible and rational on the solid basis of agreed criteria， and help reduce much of the teacher’s workload. In addition， Self/ Peer assessment in itself is a useful learning experience and brings about positive learning experience for the students. In the process of negotiating the set of criteria， the teacher can scaffold for the students to construct a reasonable and complete set in terms of ideas， skills， organization and personal style.

Portfolio might take a lot of time for the teacher to go over， but meanwhile it can save a lot of labor and energy of the teacher， for the students are able to depend on the set of agreed criteria for proofreading and self-assessment before handing in their products. Biggs thinks of it as “a neat way of throwing the responsibility of matching the assessment tasks to the objectives onto the student” and that “Alignment is them clinched when the learning activities are themselves the assessment tasks”.

The teacher’s frequent and timely feedback to the students is extremely important in the learning process. Race describes feedback as the oil that lubricates the cogs of understanding. Effective feedback should include written comment about how well the job has been accomplished and suggestions for what can be done next. This kind of advice can be particularly to students especially “when it is received during the progress of ongoing work， so that adjustments can be made in a progressive manner”. That is， the response from the teacher should function not only as feedback， but also as feed-forward constructive to the future improvement. It is also the case of Self/ Peer assessment. The assessor needs to assess the achievement according to a pre-determined set of criteria and propose for feed-forward.

4. Conclusion

In the whole process of curriculum design and assessment， it is indispensable to be under the monitoring and supervision in terms of the situational analysis， the objectives and adapted objectives， the teaching and learning activities and assessments. Being concerned about what the students do can ensure that we are always reflective for action， in action and on action， so that both the teachers and the students will be discreet reflectors to align our teaching and learning experiences in a much more constructive structure.

References

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Brown， S. & Race. P. （2002） Lecturing. London： Kogan Page Limited.

Chickering， A.W. & Ehrmann， S.C. （2003） Implement the Seven Principles： Technology as Lever [Online]. [assessed 27 June 2003]. Available from：

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Print， M. （1993） Curriculum Development and Design： 2nd ed. Australia： Allen & Unwin.

Ramsden， P. （2003） Learning to Teach in Higher Education： 2nd ed. London： RoutledgeFalmer.

Race， P. （2007） The Lecturer’s Toolkit： a Practical guide to assessment， Learning and teaching， 3rd ed. London & New York： Routledge.

Schon， D. A. （1987） Educating the Reflective Practitioner. San Francisco： Jossey-Bass & A Wiley Imprint.

Tyler， R. W. （1949） Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. Chicago： University of Chicago Press.