Requesting Progress Reports from Students: A simple but profound method of motivation

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Requesting Progress Reports from StudentsA
simple but profound method of motivation

• Andrew Creed, Melissa Parris Don Swanson
• School of Management and Marketing

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• We acknowledge the original occupants of this
  land, the Kulin Nations, the Gunditjamara and the
  Wutherong traditional owners of the lands on
  which this meeting is taking place. May the
  spirit of Reconciliation live in our hearts and
  show in our actions.

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Formative Assessment

• Formative assessment has three purposes (Knight
  Yorke, 2003 35)
• give recognition for what has been done,
  referring to an expected standard
• correct what is wrong so student can avoid
  repeating the error (ie. not enough to say
  something is wrong)
• empower students by alerting to possibilities
  they might not have previously considered and
  help them become self-regulated learners (Nicol
  Macfarlane-Dick, 2006)

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Importance of Feedback

• Learning depends on knowledge of results, at a
  time when, and at a place where, the knowledge
  can be used for correction (Bruner, 1970, cited
  in Knight Yorke, 2003 36).
• If students do not get feedback, they may
  continue to make the same mistakes repeatedly and
  fail to improve performance (Brown Knight,
  1994 34)
• Formative assessment/feedback also provides
  information to teachers to help shape teaching
  (Nicol Macfarlane-Dick, 2006)

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Deadlines

• Deadlines drive most human activity.
• Daily activities such as paying bills, getting to
  work, submitting assignments, and more global
  processes like biological clocks and grieving.
• The contemporary student is time poor and as
  such works even more stridently to deadlines.

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The False Deadline

• In order to give students effective feedback on
  their processes, teachers need to see students
  processes before the task is complete or even
  very far along.
• Creating a false deadline meets this need.

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MMM240 Organisational Behaviour

• 2nd year Management unit
• Currently offered in
• Semester 1 (B, G, W, X approx 550 students)
• Summer Semester (B, X approx 140 students)
• Assessment task used since Semester 1, 2005 with
  two recent variants
• Summer 2007/2008 aim to embed generic skills
• Semester 1 2008 Faculty-wide assessment change

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Assessment Task

• Critical Essay on a topic determined each
  semester (30 marks)
• 4 marks allocated to two progress reports
  submitted during the semester
• Progress Report 1 submitted approx 1/3 of way
  into semester
• Progress Report 2 submitted one week before essay

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Required Progress Report Content

• 3 main areas (250 words in total)
• Work achieved to date
• How well I think Im going
• Problems I want some help with are
• Plus - if working in a team
• Who Im working with and the effort being applied
  by my team mates up until this time
• Submission example

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Summer 2008

• It is assumed that students will learn generic
  skills, but little teaching of these actually
  occurs (Thies Wallis, 2007)
• One method including mini-assignments that
  require students to demonstrate skills in
  summarising, paraphrasing, critical analysis,
  building an argument, referencing and/or
  citation (James et al, 2002 44)
• Progress Report 2 incorporated referencing
  exercise with annotated solution then provided

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Benefits

• Time management
• Early identification of issues with groups
• Ability for teaching staff to identify common
  issues/concerns
• Students get feedback on their concerns, plus
  other areas they may not yet have thought about

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The Future

• Reincorporate progress reports
• Continue with referencing exercise
• Option to focus on other generic skills