Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Our first step towards understanding how peer
assessment could be organised in this context was
to design a peer assessment element based on ideas
gained from previous studies of peer assessment
and peer assessment preparation, which we tried
to fit into our existing online and distance courses.
An important key to enhancing the quality of
peer assessment/peer review, as will be further
presented in this chapter, seems to be the oppor-
tunity for students to share, interpret and discuss
criteria in order to gain a deeper understanding
of their tacit dimensions.
The common means for communication in
our online and distance education courses are
postings on asynchronous message boards. But
how would this method of communication work
in the context of peer assessment?
In this chapter I will present some of the back-
ground studies we carried out before we designed
and implemented the peer assessment element in
a course within a special needs teacher training
programme and also report some early findings
from the project.
course at a degree granting institution during the
autumn 2005 (Allen & Seaman, 2006). The Open
University in the United Kingdom provides online
and distance education for around 150,000 under-
graduate students and more than 20,000 postgradu-
ate students (QS Top Universities, 2008).
The same trend is visible in Sweden, where all
universities provide distance and online courses
and programs through the Swedish Net University
(SwedishAgency for Networks and cooperation in
Higher Education (NSHU). Statistics from 2006
show that as many as every fifth student in higher
education, which means around 77 000 Swedish
students, were registered on courses at the Swed-
ish Net University (NSHU, 2008).
Courses and programmes offered partly or en-
tirely through ICT create flexible opportunities for
students to conduct higher studies at the location
and the times which are best suited to fit with other
commitments in their lives. Students of today are
expected to become autonomous, independent and
self-directed learners who take responsibility for
their own personal and professional development
(e.g. Stefani, 1998; Sainsbury & Walker, 2007),
thus changing the educator's role from expert to
coach and facilitator.
Sociocultural and constructivist theories of
learning are often consulted when setting the
scene for the active learner with their situated
approach to learning and emphasis on learning as
a collective activity in a cultural context. Simul-
taneously, we are experiencing a trend towards
extremely fine-grained approaches to measuring
student achievements (e.g. Sadler, 2005). This
may seem paradoxical as the idea of being able
to find methods to make an absolute valid judge-
ment about the level of someone's knowledge and
skills derives from positivist theories and as such
is questionable in this context (Orr, 2007).
This means that teachers in online and distance
education are facing a challenging task to meet
the demand to provide high quality education
for highly heterogeneous groups of students by
means of fairly new technical solutions, whose
•
Are there any signs that the interaction
with other students had any impact on the
students' understanding of criteria?
Did the students value the
•
peer assessment
element and consider it to be of any impor-
tance for their learning process?
How did the students judge that the text-
•
based communication worked for negoti-
ating meaning? What strengths and limita-
tions can be identified?
Current Challenges in
university education
Recent developments in information and commu-
nication technology (ICT) have literally brought
the University into our homes. For example,
figures from 2005 show that 17 percent of all
American students in higher education, or more
than 3, 2 million persons, took at least one online
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