Improving Student Assessment Choice Using Blackboard's e-Assessment Tools

This paper reports on using Blackboard as the central tool in an experiment in maximising student assessment choice. It focuses on the five key areas in which students can be given increased choice and control in their assessment: method, subject, criteria, timing and result. The key objective in this work is to increase student control, engagement and empowerment in their assessment and to make the tasks more authentic and more closely aligned with learning outcomes.

With assessment and feedback major issues for educational institutions, we'll provide audience members with ideas and inspiration to explore some of these ideas in their institutions. In particular, we'll discuss: ways to efficiently and effectively manage the real and perceived risks for students thereby minimising anxiety and maximising learning achievement; guidance on the democratic construction of rubrics and assessment criteria, and socialised activities which allow students to engage with the 'tacit' knowledge contained within them and to allow staff to undertake commensurate marking; practical suggestions for managing the complexity of varying assessment methods and timings; and an efficient strategy for administering a self-evaluation and result negotiation activity.