These are slides from an invited presentation I gave at a Higher Education Academy Arts and Humanities network meeting, held at St Mary's University, Twickenham in February 2014. The talk used two examples of work on bioethics we conduct with students at the University of Leicester, to illustrate some of the key principles of Authentic Assessment.

1. Assessment: Group effort or Individual achievement
Multimedia in Bioethics Education:
Examples of Authentic Assessment
Dr Chris Willmott
Dept of Biochemistry,
University of Leicester
cjrw2@le.ac.uk
University of
Leicester

2. Overview
• Context: geographical and disciplinary
• Multimedia in teaching
• Two assessed activities
• Some advice on running similar tasks (including
assessment of individual contribution to team)
• Authentic Assessment/Students as Producers
• Examples of student films

3. Context: Leicester
• University of Leicester
School of Biological Sciences
• Second Year Undergraduates
- Medical Biochemistry (n=40)
- Other Biologists (n= 180)

4. QAA Benchmarking for Bioscience
“Students should expect to be confronted by some
of the scientific, moral and ethical questions
raised by their study discipline, to consider
viewpoints other than their own, and to engage
in critical assessment and intellectual argument”
“Recognising the moral and ethical issues of
investigations and appreciating the need for
ethical standards and professional codes of
conduct”

5. QAA Benchmarking for Bioscience
All students should:
“Have some understanding of ethical issues and
the impact on society of advances in the
biosciences”
Good students should:
“Be able to construct reasoned arguments to
support their position on the ethical and social
impact of advances in the biosciences”

6. Multimedia in Bioethics Education
• Multimedia (esp visual media) can be integrated into
teaching about bioethics in variety of ways
Use of
broadcast clips
Video
production
News
analysis

7. News analysis
• Research Skills module
• Second year (second semester), n = 180
• Students write 1000 word commentaries on current
news story that raises bioethical issues
• Max 200 words summarising content, rest focussed
on ethical arguments
• Appropriately referenced

8. News analysis
• Story must be from previous calendar year
(i.e. Jan 2013 to Dec 2013 for 2014 cohort)
• Story must be available as video clip on BBC website
(max 5 mins, not clip from longer programme)
• Best summaries made available as resources for
wider community
• Authentic Assessment

9. News analysis

10. Film production
• Since 2008
• Require students to produce films
• Work in teams of ~ 4 (set by me)
• Make 3-5 min video on allocated topic
• Best films are made available more broadly via
YouTube (linked from Bioethicsbytes)

11. Film production
• Concerns that “you cannot say
anything meaningful in 5 minutes”
not substantiated
• Rare opportunity within biology curriculum for
students to express creativity
• Genuine team activity rather than just “group work”
• Authentic Assessment

12. Teamwork ≠ Groupwork
• Although “groupwork” and “teamwork” often used
interchangeably there are differences in meaning
Groupwork = Multi-person
task, but might have been
completed relatively easily
by individual
Teamwork = task would
be hard or impossible for
one person on their own

13. Topics covered
Bioethics
and Sport
Forensic
use of DNA
3-parent IVF
Pharmacogenetics
Neuroimaging
Organ trading
Genetic
enhancement
Transhumanism
Use of animals
in research
Ethical issues in
public health
Xenotransplantation
Egg donation
Gene
therapy
Cognitive
enhancement
Use of human
material

14. Student films: Genre
Interviews
24hr News

15. Student films: Genre
Role-play

16. Student films: Genre
Animation

17. Student films: Genre
Finger puppets
VideoScribe

18. Student self-evaluation

19. Student evaluation of exercise
Positive
• “Video project allowed us to research areas and topics
of science that were different, new, and exciting, and
also challenged us to using new equipment and
computer software”
• “The video project was interesting way of presenting
ideas on ethical issues and made sure preparation was
not last minute as with essays”
• “A positive, enjoyable experience – was something
different than writing essays etc, and allowed us some
creativity, something I miss doing the ‘sciency’ (sic)
course that we do”

20. Student evaluation of exercise
Positive
• “Enjoyable doing video project as it was quite a
novel, creative form of assessment”
• “The video project was a good learning experience”
• “Video gave good and varied experience of working
in teams”
• “Video production was different and enjoyable”
• “The bioethics video was interesting and has I feel
helped me to obtain skills I did not have before as I
had never had to make and edit a video”
• “Video project was ace”

21. Student evaluation of exercise
Mixed
• “Whilst doing it I thought it was a bit of a pain to be
honest! But by the end I was quite pleased with the
result!”
• “Fun to do and spend time on, however… the marks
allocated for this project were disproportionate to the
amount of time and effort we had put in.”
Negative
• “No more video assessment (we’re scientists not media
students)”

22. If you wish to run this activity...
• Digital video:
- Excellent way to boost engagement
- Develops transferable skills
- Produces resource for wider community
• Recommended equipment:
- HD quality cameras recording to SD card
- Tripods and external microphones
• Decide if you will accept submissions made using
GoAnimate or Videoscribe
• Don’t use their own names in role-play
• Award appropriate credit – this is not an easy task

23. Individual contribution to team
• One of the issues with groupwork tasks (including
genuine teamwork) = fair marks individuals
• Appropriately reward those who put most into
project
• Reduce unwarranted marks for “free riders”
• Various methods exist for deriving individual mark
• We have used scheme of Conway et al (1993)

24. Weighting students’ contributions
• Each student awards a mark of 1 to 5 to each
member of their team (inc themselves) for a number
of different criteria
• Average mark (= A):
Grand total (all scores for all students in team)
Number of student in team
• Individual student total (= B):
Sum of all that student’s scores awarded by
all team members (inc themselves)
• Weighting for individual student:
Individual total (B)
Average mark (A)

25. Weighting students’ contributions
• Criteria in video task:
• Research on the ethics of the topic
• Research on the science of the topic
• Administration
• Scriptwriting and planning
• Camerawork and filming
• Animation and other artwork
• “on screen” role
• Editing of the video

26. Potential problems
• We have found this system to work well, but…
• An individual making a large contribution to a high
scoring project can theoretically score >100%
• A student doing no work receives some credit

27. Authentic Assessment
• Term generally attributed to Grant Wiggins in 1989
• “Assessment that poses …intellectually interesting
and personally meaningful… questions, tasks or
problems [that] have value and interest beyond the
classroom” (Frey et al, 2012:p13)
• “Assessment of learning… is conducted through ‘real
world’ tasks requiring students to demonstrate their
knowledge and skills in meaningful contexts”
(Swaffield, 2011:p434)

28. Authentic Assessment
• Characteristics of authenticity include:
• Real-world relevance
• Meaningful
• Challenging
• Involve students in own research
• Knowledge construction
• Opportunity for “ownership”
• Generates product or performance
“Students as Producers”
• Collaboration/Teamwork

29. Bioethicsbytes
• www.bioethicsbytes.wordpress.com
• Set up in 2006
• A hub for sharing multimedia resources for teaching
about bioethics
• Variety of formats

30. Bioethicsbytes
Suggested sections of
films & TV programmes

31. Bioethicsbytes
In depth reviews

32. Bioethicsbytes
Recommendation of
external resources

33. Bioethicsbytes
Book Reviews

34. Bioethicsbytes
Student-produced

35. Student films (1)
Forensic Uses of DNA
(2010, http://youtu.be/NLpwVpuLIac)

36. Student films (2)
Mitochondrial Diseases and 3-Parent IVF
(2013, http://youtu.be/7xJcKa6QrBc)

37. Student films (3)
Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing
(2013, http://youtu.be/26jb7m8mkLs)

38. Student films (4)
Ethical Issues in Public Health
(2011, http://youtu.be/r3a7qAZvAsU)

39. Any Questions?
E-mail:
cjrw2@le.ac.uk
Twitter:
cjrw
Slideshare: cjrw2
Delicious: chriswillmott
Blogs:
www.bioethicsbytes.wordpress.com
www.biosciencecareers.wordpress.com
www.lefthandedbiochemist.wordpress.com
University of
Leicester

40. References
Conway R. et al (1993) Peer assessment of an individual’s
contribution to a group project Assessment and Evaluation in
Higher Education 18:45-56
Frey B.B. et al (2012) Defining authentic classroom assessment
Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation 17 ISSN 1531-7714
Swaffield S. (2011) Getting to the heart of authentic Assessment
for Learning Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and
Practice 18:433-449
Willmott C. (2013) Headline Bioethics: Engagement with bioethics
in the news Bioscience Education 21:3-6
Willmott CJR (2014, in press) Teaching bioethics via the
production of student-generated videos Journal of Biological
Education