- Andrew Mearman
- (University of the West of England)
- and Don Webber
- (Auckland University of Technology)
- May create unreasonable certainty
- May demotivate those who question
- May not challenge the lecturer
- May not provide information useful to the student
- May not aid policy analysis
- May achieve reduced depth
- Aims:
- Expose students to theory and policy debates
- Develop students’ knowledge within and across theoretical perspectives
- Demand students display critical thinking and find evidential bases for claims
- Demand students recognise limitations of all theory and develop judgement
Assessment and pluralism - We adopted the following assessment strategy:
- Presentations
- These covered topics which built on each other during the course of the module
- Students in group presentations were particularly encouraged to take perspectives which were in stark contrast to other presenters’ perspectives
- A variety of literature needed to be made available for the students. The lecturer needed to source the variety of perspectives for the students in advance.
- Assessed discussions
- Essay
- Exam
Assessment and pluralism - We adopted the following assessment strategy:
- Presentations
- Assessed discussions
- Open questions.
- Students knew and prepared for assessed discussion in advance
- Students were encouraged to follow their own personal thoughts, backed up by theory and empirical evidence
- Needed 2 members of staff present
- Essay
- Exam
Assessment and pluralism - We adopted the following assessment strategy:
- Presentations
- Assessed discussions
- Essay (2000 words)
- E.g. “Should we reduce income inequalities if we wish to reduce unemployment?”
- “Economic policy making in open economies requires, above all, more sophisticated economic modelling”. Discuss
- Exam
Assessment and pluralism - We adopted the following assessment strategy:
- Presentations
- Assessed discussions
- Essay
- Exam
- Lomax (2004, p. 1) says that “success has many parents, and the trend to low inflation is no exception. But there is a broad consensus that better monetary policies run by more independent and more open central banks can claim a significant share of the credit”. Constructively criticise this perspective with reference to a range of literature.
Student feedback: - “the most difficult module I took, but also the most rewarding”
- “difficult assessment, but an important skill to develop”
- Students seemed to put in more effort to make sure they didn’t lose face in front of their friends (peer pressure).
- Students marked generally harder but remained positive about module
But… - “I do not see the relevance of discussion, apart from the building of confidence”
- “hard to know what was going to come up”
- “More structure (in assessed discussions) needed…difficult to know if a point is being laboured”
- “it took my time away from study for other modules”
- “I think this assessed discussion was a lot harder than the last one due to the lack of information accessible to me, whereas before there were around 50 journals [articles], this time I struggled to find 5”
Conclusions: - Don’t follow this path!
- It takes too much time and effort!
- Try this pluralistic teaching method.
- It might even increase the utility you receive from teaching!
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