A STUDENT'S PERSPECTIVE ON CURRICULUM AND ASSESSMENT

A 3rd Year UWA student was asked to comment on curriculum and assessment. Here is a transcript of what was said.

ACCOUNTABILITY

• Teacher evaluations should be collated and published for students enrolling in next semester (even if done voluntarily it will send a signal to students).

ASSESSMENT

• Some lecturers don't like to allow students to see past exams which is unreasonable. It implies a certain lack of effort on the teachers part in not formulating new exam questions. Students should be able to know the structure, format and areas of previous exam questions.

MORE EXPLICIT COURSE OUTLINES.

• Explicit detailed statements on what are the goals/aims of the unit help orient the students' frame of mind from the start. As well, goal or mission statements, skills needed and the reason that the area is important to learn are extremely useful. For example, a reading list should have the seminal/important readings indicated (so students can spend most of their precious study time on these and use the other readings as support) and their place in the course goals/aims stated.

TRANSPARENCY

• On a more philosophical level, some lecturers hide behind the idea that they don't want to spoon-feed students, but this can effectively make learning more difficult than necessary. It can be made more `political' than it should be. The consequence of this sort of reticence for revealing information can be that those students who do the best are not necessarily the students who have more ability and work the hardest, but those who have `sussed out' the system. The justification that this situation is reflected in the `real work world' is debatable. What is being asked for is a little more transparency, as often it is a guess (eg. readings, study areas, exam topics). Sometime you guess right, sometimes wrong. It is not motivating when your success is random. Being clearer about what we (students) are to do is more motivating and less stressful.