Case Study: Case Study Reports

Keiko Yasukawa, Faculty of Engineering/Adult Education

Historical case study of a technological development/piece of technology

"Students required to research from a social, cultural perspective."

 A challenge for students to do something that they never expected to do in an engineering course. For these students, in most other subjects and assessment tasks there are 'right' and 'wrong' answers.

"Students have to learn to differentiate between expressing their personal opinion and presenting a well-argued, substantiated claim, backed up by authoritative sources."

 A challenge for staff development - this led to staff assessment moderation meetings that involved trial marking, comparing marks, discussing discrepancies.

"A big shift in the academic way of thinking about assessing students writing - most recognised that this was no longer just marking for content, but also for expression and structure."

 Had to separate mechanical problems of expression with content.

"Academics had to learn to look for substance and not assume lack of substance because the student was having mechanical problems with the English language."

Discovered through experience that students hadn't expected to have to think up own problems.

"we added an assessment task of having students develop and  present a proposal to their tutorial group and receive feedback."

Realised that focusing on student's writing is useful, but noted the need for more effective reading.

"now more focus on critical reading, linked to tutorial exercises."

 Initially the Engineering academics were not trained to teach academic literacy - introduced team teaching with ELSSA staff.

"Previously poor students were sent to ELSSA - now ELSSA have been involved in the design of the assessment taska and are able to communicate the requirements to the student."

Teaching with the ELSSA centre has introduced new language.

"It's made them rethink their teaching and writing process."

 Challenges them to go beyond what would normally be expected, avoids rote learning and helps them develop reading skills in a technical domain.

"Students have some ownership about what they're studying."

 Ensure students are clear on the assessment criteria.

"In some instances we gave them examples from previous years and journal articles."