The assessment and feedback for AIE2502 has begun for this academic year. The design, which last year was changed to incorporate formative feedback on reflective journal entries in the first five weeks of term, has already begun. Using a blog to manage student learning journals has brought key advantages:

• it makes it much easier for us to see whether or not students are reflecting regularly (rather than cobbling together a journal at the end of the year)
• it makes it possible for us to give formative feedback and the quality and depth of their reflective writing while they are doing it (formatively) as well as at the end of the module (summatively) rather than only at the end
• it ensures the learning journals are backed up (no more lost journals)
• it allows students to upload and link multimedia files which they can ‘collect’ and reflect upon in preparation for their final portfolio

There are some disadvantages as well – some students feel less comfortable reflecting with full honesty and attention to their emotions in an online environment than they would in a paper-based format. Others find the technology a challenge even though it’s not much more technical than editing a basic word document.

Over the last two weeks I’ve run three workshops supporting students in better understanding why reflection  is important and what qualities we, as their markers, are looking for in their reflective writing. The three tutors on the module have agreed an assessment criteria rubric for reflective writing and the workshops was designed to support their first engagement with the rubric that will be used to measure their final summative assessment task.