Reflections on self-control

Lorraine Stefani describes how engineering students logged their progress on a project and then negotiated their grades with staff

For many years I have supported and encouraged the provision of opportunities for student self-assessment. My early attempts to introduce an element of peer review and self-assessment into a biomedical science department practical class in a very traditional university left many of my colleagues gasping at my audacity. My attempt to overturn years of tradition, intrigue and secrecy surrounding assessment was viewed with suspicion.

On the verge of being ousted from the ivory towers of academe in disgrace for such an act of sheer heresy, two events took place that saved my career and my reputation. My developmental work with large classes, which included group work and peer and self-assessment, won a prestigious Partnership Award for the department for innovations in teaching and learning.

My reprieve was complete when my work was published to a moderate level of acclaim in a respectable journal.

These early publications have proved to be a double-edged sword. Their focus was the validity and reliability of student-derived marks or grades.

Many academic colleagues used these statistical analyses as a lever with senior staff or heads of department to implement self-assessment strategies in their own classes. However, the regular appearance of statistical comparisons between staff and student-derived marks seems to have swamped debate about the concept of self-assessment, self-evaluation or reflection on learning.

The use of such terminology as "reflection", "self-assessment" or "evaluation" is relatively new to the classroom. The definition of reflection has gradually broadened and understanding of assessment and evaluation varies across country and continent. How can we get across to students what these terms really mean in the short time made available for educational development and study skills.

Despite many years of discussing and encouraging the use of self-assessment and reflection with staff and students, only recently have I felt confident that it was being understood.

Some years ago an engineering professor at the University of Strathclyde asked if I could introduce a group of postgraduate diploma students to the idea of keeping a learning journal. I paled at the idea but rose to the challenge. I thought my first task was to explain my own understanding of the term reflection.

This proved to be a task not for the faint hearted. Students do not swoon with excitement at being guided round the Kolb cycle, which involves phases of activity, reflection, conceptualisation and application of those ideas.

I battled on bravely and suggested that if students were working in groups on a project they could keep a "free-flow reflective record" of the project's progress. I suggested a few headings as guidance but wanted the ownership to lie with the students themselves.

These "free-flow journals" turned out to be somewhat vitriolic accounts of the misdemeanours of other group members. Authentic perhaps but thoughtful and reflective - no.

When students were asked what they thought about the learning journals experiment they said that there had not been enough guidance. Slightly more successful was a project management logbook. This pre-prepared logbook had columns for students to fill in skills development, project progress, resources required, time management, etc.

Many students liked this idea and used the logbook, whereas others claimed they saw the benefit too late and wished they had used the logbook from the outset.

Encouraged by this minor success my next step in my quest to implement a self-assessment procedure that would truly support students in reflecting on their learning was inspired by the work of John Cowan in On Becoming an Innovative University Teacher: Reflection On Action To try to encourage the students to develop their own tool for reflection and their own language for expression or personal and professional development I asked them to carry out the following project-related tasks:

* Working in groups of four, prepare a brief for a group project assignment. Include in this brief the project title and a description of the project, the deadline for the completion of the project and what resources will be needed.

* Define the processes by which you as a group will carry out this project. For example, delegation of the task, skills required for completion, levels of commitment required from team members, what potential difficulties you perceive with the project, time management, etc.

* Having defined your project and what skills, resources, etc will be required to complete the project successfully, as a group write how both the task and the processes in your assignment should be assessed and evaluated. In other words what are your criteria for excellence in this project?

The overall grading process was then negotiated and agreed between staff and students.

The student groups were asked to present their deliberations to their engineering tutors, peer groups and myself for constructive comment. These outcomes then formed the basis for further development of a project management logbook/reflective learning tool.

Through completing a project planning process the students had set their own attainment targets and goals, project stages, time management planners, skills to be developed, etc and they had expressed this in their own terms. To maintain the recording, reflecting and reviewing processes was to live up to the goals they had set for themselves.

A further innovation has been to encourage students to present their engineering projects as a set of web pages and to complement the product of the project task, the students present their reflective logbook also as a set of web pages. If has become a point of pride for the students to present employers with their project outcomes and processes. Examples of the work can be viewed on three websites.

This project has helped me get across my own understanding of effective self-assessment for staff and students. Hopefully this innovative means of supporting students in the development of reflective learning tools will prove to be a positive contribution to the goal of developing the independent, autonomous, reflective learner.

Lorraine Stefani is a senior lecturer at the centre for academic practice at Strathclyde University.