3.1.3. Engage students in reflecting and self-assessing their learning process

At the beginning of the course, establish what learners already know, understand, and can do. This will make it easier to plan learning and teaching that responds to learners’ needs and expectations. Then, ensure that learning outcomes are aligned with the learning content, activities and assessment strategies and that the tasks to be carried out are explained beforehand (see 1.2.). In addition, not only do teachers have to take into account the quality of the learning materials but also the quantity. In other words, it is important not to exceed the number of learning materials. In the case of a blended course, align in-class and out-of-class activities and show them in a tutorial. Propose interesting learning resources and show students Bloom’s taxonomy at the beginning of the course to improve their critical skills.

Figure 5. Bloom’s Taxonomy revised to show students how to improve critical thinking skills and achieve higher-order learning (Anderson et al., 2001).   Image source: Armstrong, P. (2010). Bloom’s Taxonomy. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [14-12-22] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/

Bloom’s taxonomy (1959) is a hierarchy of learning objectives and embraces three facets of learning: thinking (mental skills), feeling (emotional skills) and doing (practical skills). Bloom’s work suggests that students need to be cognitively challenged through remembering-type questions, thought-provoking questions and questions that allow them to make connections.

In the revised version (Anderson et al., 2001), for each level of the taxonomy, there are action verbs that help teachers put together a lesson plan and inform students about how to develop their critical skills. For more information about these verbs, please click here.

During the course, provide students with opportunities for self-reflection and reflection in a group, offer continuous feedback and help them develop collaboration in groups. Design not only a summative assessment, but also formative assessment strategies that would help students identify their learning strengths, and weaknesses and help you as a teacher recognise where students are struggling. Examples of a formative assessment may include prompt quizzes, concept mapping, 1-sentence summary, in-class discussion, teamwork, etc. Another important aspect is that students need to feel the teacher’s presence and s/he has to provide frequent feedback to their assignments.

At the end of the course, make sure that you recollect feedback from your students and that they are allowed the possibility to reflect on their own learning (e-portfolio tool, feedback survey, interviews with students).

A proper design of assessment criteria also plays a very important role in fostering students’ engagement (sharing assessment instruments, for example). However, these training materials do not revolve around this aspect. If you want to know more about assessment, please check this course. https://teacamp.vdu.lt/course/view.php?id=89

The following best practices will shed more light on the aforementioned issues.