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Winter School "Teaching Programming across Disciplines" - Edinburgh - 8 Jan 2025

Itamar Kastner (he/him)

Authentic assessment, alternative assessment and programming

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Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language

School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences

University of Edinburgh

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Winter School "Teaching Programming across Disciplines" - Edinburgh - 8 Jan 2025

Imaginary assessment structure

  1. Assignment every week (or two).
  2. Students work in pairs.
  3. Give each other feedback.
  4. Submission:
    • Not the code itself (optional).
    • Submit the feedback correspondence.
    • Write up the results and what you've learned.

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Winter School "Teaching Programming across Disciplines" - Edinburgh - 8 Jan 2025

Imaginary assessment structure

  1. Assignment every week (or two).
  2. Students work in pairs.
  3. Give each other feedback.
  4. Submission:
    • Not the code itself (optional).
    • Submit the feedback correspondence.
    • Write up the results and what you've learned.
  5. Benefits:
    • Ownership of the process.
    • Focus on learning rather than grades.

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Winter School "Teaching Programming across Disciplines" - Edinburgh - 8 Jan 2025

Some findings on assessment

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  • Grades hurt performance!
    • They also reduce motivation.

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  • Exams are not equitable.
    • Most traditional forms of assessment aren't.

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Winter School "Teaching Programming across Disciplines" - Edinburgh - 8 Jan 2025

Rethinking assessment

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  • Alternative assessment:
    • Focus on feedback over product.

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  • Authentic assessment:
    • Find the most natural way to evaluate learning outcomes.
    • (As opposed to saying: I can assign quizzes, what should I put in them)

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Winter School "Teaching Programming across Disciplines" - Edinburgh - 8 Jan 2025

Assessing programming

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  • Should be easy:
    • Immediate inherent feedback.
    • If the program works, it works!

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  • But what methods are we really using?
    • What do they really assess?
    • Is it all and only the learning outcomes?
    • How to maintain the advantages of pair programming in assessment too?

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Winter School "Teaching Programming across Disciplines" - Edinburgh - 8 Jan 2025

Summary

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  • Happy to give more examples and details.

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  • How can we help other disciplines? What can we learn from them?

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  • Let's chat!

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 (h/t Elizabeth Pankratz, Rebekka Puderbaugh)​