From quality assurance to quality enhancement

As Coats (2003) points out, the LOTA project evolved rapidly from quality assurance to quality enhancement: "What is the difference? Quality assurance (QA) is about checking the standard of what is done; identifying 'good practice'; awarding classifications or scores. Quality enhancement (QE) is about improving and developing; not just doing things well but doing things better."

For LOTA quality enhancement means looking closely not only at the documentation and institutional processes but also at the way learning outcomes are actually being used. Just as importantly it also raises questions about how outcomes are being understood, not just by the academics in the faculties and course teams, but by the ALs who are in the 'front line' of distance teaching, and by the students themselves.

It quickly became apparent that the shift to an outcomes-based approach involved not only identifying learning outcomes and making sure that the assessment supported them, but also in involving staff in exploring how this process could be made meaningful to students such that it added value to their learning experience. The triad in Figure 1 emphasizes that outcomes, assessment, and teaching and learning are mutually connected, and should be seen as complementary aspects of quality enhancement. Underlying this triad are three main principles: transparency, transformation and transferability.

• Clearly identifying outcomes leads to transparency: teaching and assessment intentions are made explicit, and both tutors and students work with the same set of criteria to assess progress and to focus on ways to improve.

• Integrating formative and self-assessment, as well as summative assessment, into the learning process is transformative: students are encouraged to become actively involved in understanding how they are learning and how they can adapt their learning to new situations.

• Learning in a formal HE environment is about developing as an independent learner who can transfer the ability to learn effectively from HE into other, more educationally informal, environments such as the workplace.

Enhancing the quality of teaching so that it leads to transparent, transformative and transferable quality learning is the key role of academic staff development. Good staff development needs to prompt new thinking about the curriculum, and how students engage with it. Academics need to start from an outcomes perspective not only by asking the question 'what do we want students to get out of this course or program - and how can the assessment help them achieve and demonstrate it?', but also by exploring how students can answer for themselves the question 'what am I getting out my studies - and how can I explain and demonstrate what that is to others'.

The heart of the LOTA approach is about making things explicit so that there is a framework and a language for asking - and answering - these questions. Enhancing learning, therefore, is not just about improving assessment practices but about understanding how the outcomes - teaching-assessment triad underpins curriculum and staff development.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

أهالي كربلاء يشيعون النعش الرمزي للإمام الحسن (عليه السلام) عند العتبتين المقدستين

العتبة العباسية المقدسة تقيم مجلس عزاء بذكرى شهادة الإمام الحسن (عليه السلام)

قاعة العرض المتحفي في العتبة العباسية المقدسة تشهد إقبالًا واسعًا من الزائرين

خلال لقائه ملاكات مدارس العميد.. سماحة السيّد الصافي يؤكّد أهمّية التعلّم المستمرّ الذي يفتح آفاق الفهم والمعرف

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

تسارع الشيخوخة.. متى يبدأ وأي الأعضاء أكثر تأثرا؟

9 مسببات شائعة للالتهاب المزمن قد تهدد صحتك

باحثون يطورون علاجا لهشاشة العظام.. النتائج مذهلة

تحمي من أمراض عديدة.. 6 فوائد لتناول البطاطا الحلوة

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

عودة التعاون الفضائي بين روسيا وأميركا.. وبحث ملفات "هامة"

المعلمون في خطر.. خاصية جديدة في "تشات جي بي تي" تشرح الدروس

بشرى لمرضى الشلل.. شريحة في الدماغ قد تتيح التحكم بالأدوات

مدينة غارقة.. هل يخفي قاع البحر الكاريبي سرّ حضارة مفقودة؟

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Action learning as a path forward

Implications of the study for enhancing assessment Questions raised by the study

Summary of findings

Contributions in the placement

Learning outcomes

Affordances and bricolage

Learning processes Qualitative differences in placement experiences

Results, analysis and discussions

Research methodology

Conceptualizing learning and its assessment in community placements

Ecology, Identity and Assessment: The Implications of a Case Study of Police Students Learning in Community Placements for Assessment

Combining Novel Pedagogic and IT Approaches to Align the Assessment of Workplace Learning with Criteria for Academic Credit Conclusions