ENroute Yearbook 2015-16
A Happy Accident ! Connie McLuckie , School of Health & Social Care , Senior Fellow
I am not sure if I am meant to document this , but this assessment was a bit of a happy accident ( for me , anyway ). It started out as a way of incorporating women ’ s voices into an LTA strategy in a way that would encourage meaningful engagement by students with the process . It also aimed to enable students to bring or explore ( or both ) different parts of themselves in the context of learning through assessment .
In brief , women were recorded talking about their birth experiences . The recordings were then made available to the students , who were asked to select an area of interest arising from their hearing of the stories . This area of interest had to be relevant to the learning outcomes of the module and was initially evidenced through a summative assessment plan and literature review .
The second time the module ran , a student asked how the plan should be presented . “ Interpret it in any way that you feel communicates what you were inspired by and what you intend to do with that .” That was what came out of my mouth and what we decided to go with ; all bar one did a written piece . One did ‘ Hold On ’.
The following year we adapted the assessment brief to a ‘ project ’, more chose the interpretive piece , the work by ‘ The Art of Shoe Jumping ’ was one such student . This year , the majority chose the interpretive piece , of which the quilt was one , nestled amongst interpretive dance , poetry , Pinterest , a ( brilliant ) blog , photography , sculpture and many more .
It isn ’ t everyone ’ s cup of tea . Some prefer to write a literature review , the option for which still exists . Closing the loop means communicating the work back to the women who gave us their voices in the first place . This is the next thing on my ‘ to do ’ list . Watch examples of creative assessments
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