Why Blogging Works as Formative Assessment

Amy Barlow, Head of Academic Development

2.00pm to 3.00pm

The presenter will share their experiences of teaching blogging, outlining challenges and highlights. The discussion will scaffold the pedagogical view that personal and peer-to-peer feedback on draft writing develops academic independence, confidence and identity. Practical insights in how to structure activities will enable participants to make links with their own practice and disciplinary contexts. The session will be interactive with questions, tasks and inductive strategies to engage participation.. For example, participants will have the opportunity to discuss artefacts (Example blog posts and their comments) and through their active participation, reflect on the influence of the blogging medium on effort, engagement and students’ learning.

Session Aims

By the end of this session, delegates will be able to:

• Adopt an evidence based approach to blogging as formative assessment

• Understand practical steps to reduce high summative assessment loads

• Introduce a feed forward approach to feedback

• Set up blogging tasks using a series of practical steps to increase digital literacy

• Understand assessment methods that create an open dialogue around academic writing, build writing confidence and increase engagement with reading

Pre-Session Notes

You may wish to read this discussion paper prior to the session :

https://www.seda.ac.uk/resources/files/24_Barlow,Jessop.pdf