Chapter 7

Choice, voice and authentic


Student agency boils down to students having a voice in the classroom
Laurie Manville & Alva Lefevre

Abstract

This chapter makes the case for providing students with voice and choice, in all aspects of their learning and particularly in the area of assessment. One of the best ways to promote students’ agency in assessment is to co-create it with students, so that they own the process.

This chapter discusses three interrelated approaches to assessment design that support more inclusive practices:

– providing assessment choice

– lifting students’ voice and

– designing authentic outputs.


About the case studies

All the case studies of this chapter are in the printed/ebook edition.

Choice

There are two case-studies regarding choice of output:

1. ‘Choice of output’ by Gustavo Espinoza Ramos (Peru/UK) which highlights the pros and cons of providing students’ assessment choice.

2. ‘Project-based learning and assessment’ by Stephan Hughes (Trinidad/Brazil) which discusses projects as a way of providing natural differentiation and choice to students. Watch the author’s video about this approach.

Voice

There is a case study entitled ‘Why did you click? The use of Photovoice (PV) methods in assessment to advance student agency’ by Fionnuala Darby (Ireland) which discusses this innovative assessment method: a combination of students’ produced photographic images which give voice to a social issue they want to advocate for. Watch the author discuss the implications for practice of using Photovoice to design more inclusive learning.

Authentic

There are two case-studies:

1. ‘Listen to what I produced: Student produced podcasts for learning and assessment’ by Nellie El Enany (Egypt) where the author used podcasts as input and output of the learning experience and the effect on students.

2. ‘A Quickie Wiki, that’s not tricky in the classroom’ by Abd Alsattar Ardati (Scotland) and Mossab Banat (Jordan) which discusses Wikipedia assessment outputs where students contribute to Wikipedia, a platform which has gone from foe to friend for teaching and learning.