Fig. 1. Slide from Dr Daphne Koller‘s recent TED lecture (Sadler and Goodie, 2006)

I just watched Daphne Koller’s TED lecture on the necessity and value of students marking their own work. (for the fifth time!)

Whilst there will always be one or two who cheat or those who are plagiarists, the results from ‘Big Data’ on open learning courses indicate that it can be a highly effective way forward on many counts.

1. it permits grading where you have 1,000 or 10,000 students that would otherwise be very expensive, cumbersome and time consuming
2. as a student you learn from the assessment process – of your work and that of others
3. student assessment of other’s work is close to that of tutors though it tends to be a little more harsh
4. student assessment of their own work is even closer to the grade their tutor would have given with exceptions at opposite ends of the scale – poor students give themselves too high a grade and top students mark themselves down.

Conclusions

•  it works
•  it’s necessary if learning reach is to be vastly extended
• isn’t human nature a wonderful thing?! It makes me smile. There’s an expression, is it Cockney? Where one person says to another ‘what are you like?’

Fascinating.

‘What are we like?’ indeed!

REFERENCE

Philip M. Sadler & Eddie Good (2006): The Impact of Self- and Peer-Grading on Student Learning, Educational Assessment, 11:1, 1-31

Related articles

• Online university giant gets bigger (bbc.co.uk)
• To be told when you are right or wrong is essential to student learning (mymindbursts.com)
• Massive online education: Daphne Koller at TEDGlobal 2012 (ted.com)
• Who would you invite to an e-learning dinner party? (mymindbursts.com)
• TED Talk: What we’re learning from online education (ezrasf.com)
• Technology brings classroom experience to distance learners (guardian.co.uk)
• What we’re learning from online education by Daphne Koller (bluesyemre.com)