Hodder Murray teams up with Tata Interactive Systems for a revolutionary approach to science student assessment
Assessment for learning rather than the assessment of learning is the revolutionary approach to online testing devised by Tata Interactive Systems (TIS), the leading global e-learning producer, for 'Hodder Science', a science course used in over 1,000 schools in the UK which has been put forward for one of the prestigious BETT Awards, which are due to be announced in January 2006.
Assessment for learning rather than the assessment of learning is the revolutionary approach to online testing devised by Tata Interactive Systems (TIS), the leading global e-learning producer, for 'Hodder Science', a science course used in over 1,000 schools in the UK which has been put forward for one of the prestigious BETT Awards, which are due to be announced in January 2006.
TIS devised a unique interactive assessment process to accompany a revised version of this course - intended for pupils at Key Stage 3 (11 to 14 year olds) - which also comes with free access to a website to offer further support to teachers and pupils.
"The assessments in 'Hodder Science' do not aim to discover if the student has got the answer 'right or wrong'," explained Catherine Denton-Cox, senior product manager at Hodder Murray. "Rather, the aim of the assessment is to identify the most appropriate remedial action that a student, who has given a wrong answer, can take - since the aim of the programme is to enable all the students to understand all of the course.
"Assessment for learning rather than the assessment of learning is an important distinction," she added, "because this means that students don't view getting the 'wrong' answer as 'failure'. Rather, they are led - non-judgementally - to further materials that help to reinforce their learning and so help them achieve the grades that they, their parents and schools want."
In addition to directing the student to the relevant part of the course for some 'remedial learning', these assessments also enable the teacher to identify areas where the whole class are weak and so can prompt in-class brainstorming sessions, involving students making presentations and using a whiteboard to determine consensus answers to the questions posed by the course.
The TIS-devised assessments also provide the basis for a number of detailed reports, for teachers, of student progress and levels of understanding - as both a class and on an individual basis. According to Hodder Murray's Sales and Marketing Director, Janice Tolan: "This provides a degree of sophisticated feedback that is currently unique among commercial KS3 science courses.
"Hodder Murray has many years experience in educational publishing," Tolan added, "but we are relatively new to the world of e-learning. Rather than spend a great deal of time and money on developing our own e-learning content, we chose to work with a company such as TIS, which already has a high degree of expertise and a track record of both quality and success in producing e-learning materials for the education, public and corporate sectors."
"Naturally, we are delighted to be working with Hodder Murray on such a ground-breaking development in electronic educational publishing," commented Alan Samuel, head of TIS in the UK.
"Over recent years, TIS has won 22 major international awards for its e-learning materials - including a BETT Award in 2004. We would love to add to that tally in 2006!"
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