I orginally started to use Django because I wanted to write some on-line survey instruments. However, I seemed to have become sidetracked with porting my old site to Django.
Well no more.
There is nothing wrong with the existing MovableType platform. So, it is back to business as usual.
I briefly talked with members of the Finance class (BUSADMIN 765 ) last night. They raised some interesting points, especially the desirability of the level of assessments being consistent throughout a course. In particular they were expressing a concern that on-course assessments should be at the same level of difficulty as final (examination) assessments.
Putting aside the difference between formative assessment (those designed to help the student develop; e.g. most on-course assessments) and summative assessments (those designed to assess the students level of achievement; e.g. examinations), the call for consistency of difficulty seems reasonable at first blush. However, this is not always desirable (or even achievable).
For example, let's look at the strategy course (BUSADMIN 768) that I taught earlier in the year (targeted at the same type of students). In that course, where assessment takes place each week, I clearly indicated that as students became familiar with the type of assessment (participation in case discussions) the bar would move up each week. Indeed, in such strategy classes, I always tell the students that what might be considered good work in the first week is likely to be considered only average or poor by the standards reached at the end of the course. In this class, as students become more accomplished at strategising (and getting their point across) our expectations (and standards) rise.
However, this isn't always the case. With different types of assignments, say essays and presentations, some students will be better at one type than the other -- this can be related to their preferred learning or communication style. Consequently, a students performance might vary over different types of assessment. This is often true in examinations where the examination is of a different type of structure compared to a take-home assignment. If someone has a more reflective learning style, they may not do well in the time-limited format of an examination.
There is also another factor that needs to be taken into account. It is hard to design assignments that are reliably "difficult". For example, when designing a multiple choice question (to be part of a test bank), I will often test it and analyse the results over several iterations and hundreds of students. I'll use
TestGraf to perform the analysis to ensure that question work in an appropriate (intended manner). Even with all my experience in writing multiple-choice questions I will still (occasionally) produce one that doesn't work in some way. For example, I have in the past accidentally produced questions that high performing students do poorly, whilst low performing students get it right. Clearly not the desired outcome.
All this means that assessment setting is not an exact science -- there are a number of things that may intentionally or accidentally get in the way of providing assignments that are 'consistent'. Most of the time this is managed in the marking processes across the whole range of on-course and final examinations. But sometimes, this results in students feeling "mistreated" by assignments. However, usually, when this happens the final spread of marks is sensible -- neither the examiner, the assessor, or the Head of Department who signs-off on the final grades would do so, if things were wildly out.
Entry in to the Auckland MBA™ programme, and progress through the programme is regulated by the use of average grades. For example, to move from the first year of the programme to the second year, one needs to achieve an average grade of B or better. Likewise, to enter the programme from the Postgraduate Diploma in Business, one also needs a similar grade.
As I've discussed elsewhere the combining of grades is not straightforward, and consequently neither is "averaging".
So how do I do it when looking at the grades of students. As a pragmatic response I look at both the mean and the median. The advantage is that the median reduces the impact of outliers, but there are problems with the median when the marks are quiet divergent. Overall, I'm looking for the central tendency ... is the student really a B student (or better). So, like most things it is down to a bit of math and some good judgement.
I've mentioned elsewhere that I've been moving over to Django as my "platform" for blogging, and so on.
We'll I've now started the process of importing the entries in my old blog to this new one. At first I thought I would do it by hand, but with more that 200+ entries, I thought I would try an automate it. So, a couple of python scripts later the data was pretty much transfred across.
Alas, I've choosen to use a different (reduced) system of tags now. So, I didn't automate the transfer of tags. I have, nevertheless, gone through all the old entries and amend the tags. All I need to do now is port the images to the new system and check all the links are working.
I'll do a final sweep to make sure that the Textile formating is working okay, and then I'll make the new system visible to all.
