CRADLE Seminar Series #5: Developing students’ evaluative judgements: pedagogical activities and practices – 7 June 2022 – Join Us!
10 May 2022
Join us to hear from CRADLE doctoral students and their latest research in evaluative judgement.
Be part of the event by registering now.
When: Tuesday 7 June 2022
Time: 2.00pm-3.30pm (AEDT)
Where: Online
Cost: This is a free event
What is the seminar about?
Developing students’ evaluative judgement is key for gaining expertise and lifelong learning. Evaluative judgement is the capability of making decisions about the quality of work of self and others (Tai et al., 2018). In this seminar PhD graduate Dr Abbas Mehrabi Boshrabadi and PhD candidate Juan Fischer will present their PhD research on evaluative judgement in first year academic writing and writing laboratory reports in undergraduate physics.
These presentations will discuss the importance of designing sequences of activities that support students’ development of their evaluative judgement in a sustainable way and that are sensitive to contextual aspects of students’ learning.
Talk 1: Dr Abbas Mehrabi Boshrabadi
In the first talk Abbas will present his research which sought to better understand the “what” and “how” of students’ development of evaluative judgement. Using multiple sequenced interview and document analysis he interviewed 21 first year students about their evaluative judgements of academic writing. He found that evaluative judgement is a capability that encapsulates three interrelated components of understanding quality standards, making judgements, and taking actions.
Three key pedagogical activities that promoted judgement making were:
- peer review,
- group discussion, and
- reflection on performance in the context of sequenced assessment tasks.
Abbas will discuss the significant role of these pedagogical activities on students’ development of evaluative judgement.
Abbas Mehrabi Boshrabadi is a recent PhD Graduate from CRADLE. Abbas does research in Assessment and Feedback in Higher Education, Teaching Methods, and Teacher Education. He is particularly interested in exploring sustainable assessment practices that assist undergraduates to not only adjust to their academic setting but also to develop lifelong learning behaviours.
Talk 2: Mr Juan Fischer
In the second talk, Juan will use theory of practice architectures to offer insights into the situated aspects that mediate students’ judgement-making about writing laboratory reports in undergraduate physics. These findings are part of Juan’s doctoral research, in which he used ethnographic approaches to explore the development of evaluative judgement as part of learning in disciplinary everyday practices.
Through longitudinal observations and interviews with students of all year levels of undergraduate physics, this talk will uncover how decisions about quality are mediated by discourses on assessment, the use of material artefacts, and local social arrangements, resulting in judgements that at times are in tension with the expectations of educators. This raises questions about what the aims of supporting students’ evaluative judgement may look like.
Juan Fischer (MEd) is a PhD candidate at CRADLE. His research interests include the connections between teaching, assessment, and learning as socially and materially situated practices, including those in traditional classroom education and work-integrated learning. He is currently a casual academic in the Graduate Certificate in Higher Education at Deakin University.
