Spinning the WebEx to capture opportunities for assessment prep and feedback (Interactive Session)

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Julia Fotheringham and Laurence Patterson (ASPEN Academic Strategy and Practice at Edinburgh Napier)

How can WebEx, the University’s new real time, collaborative web environment, support assessment and feedback? This session shares our experiences of using WebEx on ASPEN programmes to create opportunities for students to work together as co-tutors and co-learners.

We outline three different uses below.

  • Customised Study students meet together (synchronously) with their tutor as part of a formative assessment exercise prior to the submission of learning contracts.
  • Module 2 of the MSc BOE, students arrange their own meetings in WEbEx in order to collaboratively prepare for the delivery of short, online student led seminars which are peer and self-assessed. Tutors attend by invitation only.
  • Cross-programme ‘Preparation for assessment’ sessions recognizes that there are common issues associated with Masters level teaching and learning assignments. Students are invited from across PG Cert TLHE and MSc BOE to participate in a series of activities and discussion hosted online in WebEx.

Using WebEx in this way has enabled a more collaborative approach to assessment which fosters peer interaction, avoiding a traditional individualistic view of learning in favour of a more distributed, social and practice based professional learning encounter. The role of lecturer in these sessions moves from being the arbiter of standards, of content or of structure to become an enabler of dialogue, of reflection and respect for disciplinary difference.

We conclude that our use of WebEx enables a shift in the role of the tutor in preparation for assessment which creates space for students to step into an authentic role as co-learners and co-tutors. We hope that some of our students will join us online during the session. Join us to share experiences and explore the possibilities.