As a technician, I am not involved in summative assessments, designing learning outcomes and assessment criteria but I have been speaking to the HPL’s who have marked YR 1 students work in the absence of the year leader. I was surprised to see the grades for Into to costume (Y1 block 1) as I noticed that some students who’s attendance had been very poor had achieved good grades. 2 students in particular had not attended 2 of the 3 technical workshops for this unit, and had not attended the academic sessions either. They did not have EC’s or ISAs and managed to achieve B grades. When I asked the HPLs how this was possible, I was told they’re process logs had fulfilled the learning outcomes and assessment criteria sufficiently. There were students who had attended every class, worked hard and finished all the practical work who then achieved a lower grade. This made me question if the learning outcomes and assessment criteria are critically flawed. I read over the LO’s for this unit which are the following:
LO 1: Demonstrate a foundational competency in a range of subject specialist skills and their application (knowledge, realisation)
LO 2: Demonstrate the development of your subject specialist skill set (communication)
LO 3: Research and analyse subject specialist techniques making connections with your own work and the work of other practitioners (enquiry)
I came to the conclusion that they are.
Practical outcomes for this unit are not assessed, they are not even handed in. We are a design and making course, so why are the practical outcomes not assessed? If students can achieve a high grade without attending my classes, what am I here for? This has also contributed to another issue particularly for our year one students. As most students are new to sewing, every student makes the same items in the same fabric for the first 2 workshops. A half scale petticoat and a corset. We have been made aware that students were photographing others work on different dress stands and claiming it as their own as they had not finished their own work. As they were not being marked on the physical outcomes themselves, they can not be penalised for this. They understood the assessment criteria only required them to demonstrate they understood how these items are constructed within a the process log, something that can easily be fabricated .
I simple solution. We ask students to submit their practical outcomes even if they are not assessed. There has to be an incentive for students to finish practical work in order to retain students in the following years. The skill level expectation for Y2 is much higher and this year we have seen 8 students out of 30 defer in y2 due to the core skills unit being too difficult.