Developing students’ agency by enabling them to design their own patchwork assessment journey

What is patchwork assessment?

Patchwork assessment includes core elements. When completing a course that uses patchwork assessment, throughout the semester, students will:

• Complete multiple, evenly staggered assessments, termed ‘patches’ (often relatively small in weight and size)
• Choose from a selection of patches, or design patches, or both
• Share their patchwork with their peers (usually formatively, can also be summatively)
• Receive feedback from instructor(s) during the patchwork process
• Formally reflect on their learning, including their assessments (this can be a single ‘final reflection’, or a series of reflections throughout).

Through this process, each student creates their own unique patchwork quilt of assessments.

Teachers can build in more or less choice, can make certain skills or topics compulsory within the patchwork, and can decide which formats in which to assess student learning.

In her 2021 senior Latin course, Maxine chose a high-choice and high-autonomy framework to assess students’ learning about a Roman poet. All students had to complete four patches of equal weight (25%). For the first three patches, students had eight formats from which to pick. The eighth topic was “Choose your own format (in agreement with Maxine)”, a wildcard option that gave students freedom to create a bespoke format. Students used this to complete varied patches, including an essay, Latin translations of Taylor Swift lyrics, and a Latin re-telling of a Greek myth with a modern feminist spin.

Students had to choose their own topic for each of their first three patches. They came up with topics through the course syllabus, group brainstorming sessions, an online course platform, and mentoring sessions with Maxine in office hours. This level of choice encouraged students to engage personally with course content and generated deep learning, as each student chose their own journey through a broad field of knowledge. Students had the opportunity to bring their whole selves to the material, choosing topics that related to them culturally.

The high level of autonomy also allowed students to select which skills they would prioritise in their assessments. All the skills across the set formats – including formal academic writing, primary source analysis, high-level independent research, creative writing in Latin, and oral presentations – have academic value in the discipline. Conversely, no course could formally assess all the skills. The high-choice framework thus gave students the right – and responsibility – to select which ones mattered the most to them. This framework gave students with health conditions or disabilities control over what formats their assessments would take, fostering inclusivity.

Students had the option to share their work on the online platforms Padlet and many did. The course Padlet thus served as an online repository for exemplar assessments as the course proceeded. Students gave feedback and received comments on their own work through this platform.

All students completed a final written reflection, serving as the fourth 25% patch.

To ensure rigorous, transparent and fair marking, students received detailed rubrics for each patch prior to completing them. The cohort spanned students at stage II, III and Honours. To assess each student at the appropriate level, the rubric for each patch type specified the work count or time limit, expectation of using scholarship, skills required, and criteria for each grade level.

On workload

The topic for this course is one of Maxine’s research specialities. This meant that she already knew the primary sources and secondary scholarship, and did not have to prepare to mark any of the patches by conducting any further reading. She recommends that teachers interested in adopting this type of high-choice, student-led form of patchwork choose one of their own research fields as the course topic, or select material that they have taught and are very familiar with. When teaching topics outside her research expertise, Maxine has used patchwork assessment but provided fewer choices of topic, to limit the amount of preparation needed for marking.

On marking

Overall, Maxine found the marking enjoyable, because there was so much variety and the quality was high overall. The variety lessened marking fatigue and made some marking quicker. Many patches generally required the same amount of time to mark as assessments in previous years teaching the course. Bespoke, “choose your own format” patches did take additional time to generate a rubric for each and then mark.

On academic integrity

A passion to see all students thrive and succeed led Maxine to adopt patchwork assessment. However, a pragmatic side benefit arose. Because students had to design each patch and complete a final reflection on their learning journey, the assessment scheme ensured a high level of academic integrity. Firstly, removing any exam component eliminated the possibility that students would cheat in online, non-invigilated exams. Second, because each student had to construct their own assessments and reflect on them, the patches clearly related to each individual student. This made it difficult, if not impossible, for students to use a contract cheating service to produce rote or standardised coursework.

If you’d like to chat about implementing patchwork assessment in your courses, contact Maxine Lewis: maxine.lewis@auckland.ac.nz