Book of abstracts
Reframing assessment of practical activities in Biology courses: Evolving Covid 19 pandemic approaches Mapula Matimolane The shift to ERTLA (emergency teaching, learning and assessment) necessitated the need to adapt and reimage traditional hands-on practical activities linked to laboratory learning in many Science courses. This presentation is based on my interrogation and reflection of my teaching and assessment practices of lab components in two team-taught introductory medical sciences courses during ERTLA. One of the key objectives of these first year Biology courses is to foreground medical relevance in our pedagogical activities. Part of the presentation will focus on how we adapted some of our laboratory activities in these two courses and how these activities are evolving over this ERTLA period. Some of the challenges and insights gained from teaching and assessing student learning in a Semester-long course in the initial semester of emergency remote teaching in 2020 will be compared to approaches adopted in a Year-long course in the same year and how these approaches are evolving in the current academic year. Villarroel, Bloxham, Bruna, Bruna, and Herrera-Seda’s (2018) three dimensions of authentic assessment for learning: realism, cognitive challenge and evaluative judgement will be used to interrogate the approaches adopted. I will conclude the presentation by highlighting possible future learnings and actions particularly with the need to use digital tools to sustain student engagement and learning. Type of Contribution Presentation Reference Villarroel, V., Bloxham, S., Bruna, D., Bruna, C., & Herrera-Seda, C. (2018). Authentic assessment: Creating a blueprint for course design. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(5), 840-854.
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