Mod 3 - Social Constructivist and Global Competencies

Consider the following:

● Why should students be involved in creating success criteria?
● What are the benefits of student-moderated marking?
● What might be done to improve feedback strategies?
● How could peer feedback, withholding grades and whole class feedback
support learning?

Students should be involved in creating success criteria so that they are developed using
language that the students understand. It will also help them understand what is expected of
them and what success looks like. In addition to being involved in creating the success criteria,
students need to use the success criteria for greater success. This can look like
self-reflection/assessment, peer assessment, using a checklist and many others.

Student-moderated marking

For students to effectively use and improve from feedback they need to actively engage with the
feedback, rather than focusing on the grade. Three things identified in the article that improve
feedback are acknowledging of the standards, comparing the standards to a student’s own
work, taking action to close the gap between the standards and a students’ work. One of the
ways that this can be done is by chunking large assignments into smaller pieces and providing
feedback at each stage. Another strategy suggested is to give work back to the students with
feedback only and no grade. Students are then asked to read the feedback and self-assess
how they think they did before receiving their mark/grade. The benefit to this last approach is
that students are focusing more on the feedback rather than the grade. This will encourage
them to look at where they can improve which will further increase their learning and success.
Giving whole class feedback can also be used effectively by giving general feedback that was
common to the class and having the students determine if that feedback applies to them. In this
case the standards (feedback) are given to the whole class and students need to evaluate their
work, compare work to the standards, and finally identify gaps between the two. This teaches
students how to self-assess their own work and how to set learning goals to improve their work,
which will be invaluable in their student life but also in their careers.

Consider the following:

● How might the Framework of Global Competencies and a social
constructivist assessment model support one another?
● How are the global competencies connected to learning and
assessment in today’s constructivist classroom?
The Framework of Global Competencies and social constructivist assessment model support
each other in many ways. When students are asked to self-assess their learning, identify
learning goals, or evaluate their work using a rubric or checklist, they are participating in the
competencies Self-Directed Learning and Critical Thinking. When they identify gaps in their
learning and formulate plans or goals to improve their learning they are participating in Problem
Solving. Collaboration, Communication, and Citizenship are all demonstrated when students
engage in peer evaluation. This is because they are seeing the work of another student from
their perspective, and they are learning social skills to communicate with their peers to deliver
that feedback. Students may also work together in groups evaluate each other or evaluate their
own group work, which involves a higher level of collaboration and reflection.