2.2 Three aligned assessment tasks
The assessment was designed around preparing a group-work documentary
video exploring in depth a topic related to plant responses to soil
environments. The first assessed coursework requires submission of a
storyboard describing the flow of the documentary and a poster about the
science to be covered (worth 20% of the course mark). These were
designed to ensure feedback on the science content and flow of the
videos with plenty of time for adjustments. Students presented the
posters to the class and had group meetings with the lecturer
(Rasmussen) to talk through their storyboard and receive feedback to
maximise the quality of the end-product (documentary).
The second assessed coursework is the final video submission (10-15
minutes; worth 70%). This was marked in two ways: 1) As a class the
videos were viewed in the last session (including each staff member
involved in the course, ensuring moderation of video marks); 2) Within
the groups they rated each member’s contribution. This second rating was
to ensure each group member was held accountable for their work and was
supported by training session 4 (see below). If a student was not
contributing appropriately (and if these issues had been raised prior to
the final submission) the marks would be scaled according to their
contributions. In 2020 several groups discussed issues early and they
were appropriately resolved resulting in all group members in each group
receiving the same final marks. Marking rubrics (Supplementary Materials
1) were provided for both the poster (with an emphasis on science rather
than artistic expression) and the video.
Finally, to ensure students had the opportunity to learn teamwork skills
and strategies there were 4 compulsory tutorial sessions dedicated to
the team assignment and team skill information (worth 2.5% each;
details of sessions below) and were based on (Rasmussen et al., 2011)).