Speakers

On-line assessment - an opportunity to rethink our teaching

10:30-11:30 Monday MCS0001

In his research, Hattie emphasizes that independent practice facilitated by formative assessment and direct feedback significantly improves learning outcomes. This presentation aims to demonstrate how the use of STACK can advance these principles, particularly in contexts with large student populations.

The talk will begin by exploring our approach to designing effective questions and feedback mechanisms, using e.g. statistical evidence from Moodle. Introducing STACK as a central tool prompted a transformation in my teaching methodology. This talk will highlight the adjustments made, wherein traditional lecture components were replaced with interactive STACK elements. This adaptation not only optimizes student engagement but also allows more classroom time for in-depth comprehension of course content.

Attendees will gain practical insights into implementing STACK to foster a more effective learning environment, showcasing real-world applications that support and extend Hattie's findings.

Maximising the benefits: Making our (e)-assessment better.

11:00-12:00 Wednesday MCS0001

The development of tools such as STACK has transformed the way we teach and assess our students, but assessment design has not always kept pace with the digital world (Bearman et al., 2023). There are those who believe that the impact of plagiarism, generative AI, and a wish for authenticity have resulted in much current assessment practice being unfit for purpose (Farazouli, Nieminen and Ajjawi, 2024). In this talk, I will take a more optimistic stance, considering ways in which we can maximise the benefits of our e-assessment for our students and ourselves. I will consider a wide-range of different aspects, including ways in which the assessments themselves can be improved, but I will focus on careful assessment design, innovative pedagogic uses of e-assessment, and honest evaluation.

Dr Clare Wallace and Dr Sam Fearn

Students as STACKers: using STACK as a dissertation project

11:00-12:00 Tuesday MCS0001

If we believe the maxim that “the best way to learn to do something is to teach it to someone else,” can we apply this to STACK? As part of a final-year dissertation style project with Maths undergraduate students, we taught them to write STACK questions and asked them to apply their new knowledge to a part of one of their taught courses. In this talk, we’ll reflect on the experience of teaching pedagogy to final-year students, the technical issues inherent in asking them to write STACK questions, and their experience of “seeing behind the curtain”.

Dr Michael Obiero Oyengo, Zachariah Mbasu

Development of a digital textbook for the Junior Secondary Schools in Kenya

11:30-11:50 Monday MCS0001 (online)

Kenya is in the process of implementing a Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) that will revolutionize education at all levels to focus on a student’s competencies. The implementation of this curriculum has faced many hurdles including inadequate and inaccurate instruction materials, lack of trained teachers for the Junior Secondary Schools (JSS), an entirely new level of education that is the hallmark of the curriculum and inadequate interactive learning materials for students. Mathematics, and other STEM subjects, will suffer a great deal as a result of these challenges. To address these challenges, we have embarked on an ambitious project to write digital math textbooks using the PreTeXt technology and employing both WeBWorK and STACK questions for assessment. We will discuss the progress made and the challenges encountered, especially integrating STACK into PreTeXt. We will also discuss the future direction of the project and how people can get involved and support.