CAPTURE | VOLUME 5 |SPRING 2017
place”. This is often lamented by lecturers who have instructed their students or their colleagues an infinite number of times as to where to hand work in or how to do X. And yet the information does not stick. A similar challenge presents with some assessment briefs, which we as tutors are convinced are limpid and self-explanatory, but by which the students are baffled. (The extent of their confusion is not always immediately apparent however, and sometimes too late). Over ten years ago Francis and LeMarquand (2006) wrote of their four year action research to demystify the language of assessment in an FE college. In 2008 they ran a series of Language of Assessment workshops with undergraduates at the London College of Fashion with the same goal. They drew on visual metaphors, and engaged students in creative and discursive activities designed to clarify information and instruction. They wrote: By observing students, and also through the later discussion, it is very clear that there is considerable variation in student and staff understanding of a whole sentence or even a single word. Students’ feedback has been
very similar each year – key words that recur are ‘confused, don’t understand, unfair’. These feelings of confusion and unfairness can persist in students today. Teaching postgraduates as well as undergraduates make clear that all students can experience anxiety, muddleheadedness or panic about assessment requirements. Through inviting students to mark up and voice instances of foggy language, opaque guidance, contradictory or interpretable advice, they became more confident and clearer as to what was needed. Visual embodiments of principles such as the integration of research, practice and academic convention through the interweaving of wool strands and use of colour and material enabled them to grasp the module requirements and develop their own capabilities. LEGO® workshops conducted at the University of the Arts London (Barton and James, 2017) also revealed in 3D form the diverse ways students can get stuck on the road to assessment. A creative and innovative approach to assessment might be as much about adopting appropriate practices to ‘unstick’ students and improve confidence in addressing what is required as it is about format of the task