An EVS Clicker Based Hybrid Assessment to Engage Students with Marking Criteria

Over 4 iterations of a large course (>180 students) in introductory emedia design in a first year computer science course we have seen a year on year improvement. We believe this is due to the use of EVS clickers for feed-forward assessment: that is to say a method of getting the whole class to evaluate previous cohorts' submissions in public and discussing them, bringing to light the various properties they posess and how this maps to the marking rubric. This impacts on the students' practices as they attempt their assignment. Over time, the practice has become more refined, principally through a rewritten criteria sheet, better training samples, and finally the development of a hybrid in-class assessment: the "swarmative" assessment combining both formative and summative practices and relying on its visibly social nature for its transformative power. This involves (a) evaluating previous submissions (in a non-graded way)--allowing for the free exercise of discriminative judgment not measured against any "authoritative" standard, but also (b) answering a set of objective questions about the work being assessed (what techniques were used to realize various effects). It ensures full cohort coverage together with engagement with the marking criteria. [For complete proceedings, see ED557311.]