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Social Science
- Engaging later-life learners through portfolio writing The ever increasing enrollment of later-life students in institutions of higher learning warrants innovative teaching strategies to promote successful learning outcomes. This article discusses the academic challenges that instructors face and argues in support of an important assessment method, that is, portfolio writing. This novel strategy was adopted as a shift from the traditional essay writing in an undergraduate course in sociology. Scores from students who wrote the portfolio were compared with scores from students who wrote the traditional essay. Analysis revealed increased understanding among portfolio writers. They were better able to conceptualize, acquire and apply knowledge through a wealth of visual aids and real-world experiences. The authors suggest that this assessment method can be successfully adopted across some other disciplines, cultures and countries.
Other
- Authentic assessment and pedagogical strategies in higher education Problem statement: Researchers have noted that there is a mismatch between curriculum content and assessment practices in higher education. At the moment, the focus is still on the assessment of learning and not much on assessment for learning. Therefore, this study was conducted to examine the implementation of authentic assessment in higher education in Malaysia. Approach: The study employed a qualitative research method and involved the use of instruments such as interviews, document analysis and unobtrusive classroom observations to collect the relevant data in the classrooms of a three-credit hour course from a Masters degree programme. The total population consisted of 2 lecturers and 20 students from the two selected intact TSL 752 classes. Results: In this study, researchers identified different types of authentic assessment with the suitability to certain pedagogical strategies, their effects on students' learning and the appropriate procedures of conducting authentic assessment.
