title: Assessment digital smarts: Using short text assignment formats for enhancing student learning

authors: Earl Rinehart, (Suzanne) Kerry

subjects: assessment

abstract: Lecturers and course designers need to be smart about assignment design. This is particularly so when time constraints of lecturer workload and students’ other commitments impact on teaching and learning coverage of objectives in tertiary courses, By reconsidering assignment formats with a focus on assessment as another opportunity for learning, course designers and lecturers may be able to take advantage of affordances of technology and maximise student engagement with assignments for learning. This study describes some short text assignment types and reports on a case study using a survey of student perceptions of these formats in a third year fully online degree course. Students expressed approval of the variety and opportunities for creativity in these assignments and found them useful for their own learning and for future application in their contexts.

text: Assessment digital smarts: Using short text assignment formats for enhancing student learning Lecturers and course designers need to be smart about assignment design. This is particularly so when time constraints of lecturer workload and students’ other commitments impact on teaching and learning coverage of objectives in tertiary courses, By reconsidering assignment formats with a focus on assessment as another opportunity for learning, course designers and lecturers may be able to take advantage of affordances of technology and maximise student engagement with assignments for learning. This study describes some short text assignment types and reports on a case study using a survey of student perceptions of these formats in a third year fully online degree course. Students expressed approval of the variety and opportunities for creativity in these assignments and found them useful for their own learning and for future application in their contexts.

year: 2015

title: Charles Peirce's limit concept of truth

authors: Legg, Catherine

abstract: This talk will present and explore Charles Peirce’s account of truth as “the opinion which is fated to be agreed to by all who investigate”. This account is arguably more objectivist than accounts of truth in terms of ‘usefulness’ found in other pragmatists such as William James and Richard Rorty. The account will be defended from three objections: i) Because it talks about a potentially infinite process of inquiry, it is incoherent. ii) Because it relies on a faith that inquirers will converge on one opinion if they inquire long and hard enough, it is too realist. iii) Because it defines truth as a kind of opinion, it is not realist enough.

text: Charles Peirce's limit concept of truth This talk will present and explore Charles Peirce’s account of truth as “the opinion which is fated to be agreed to by all who investigate”. This account is arguably more objectivist than accounts of truth in terms of ‘usefulness’ found in other pragmatists such as William James and Richard Rorty. The account will be defended from three objections: i) Because it talks about a potentially infinite process of inquiry, it is incoherent. ii) Because it relies on a faith that inquirers will converge on one opinion if they inquire long and hard enough, it is too realist. iii) Because it defines truth as a kind of opinion, it is not realist enough.

year: 2014

title: Informed consent in the Aotearoa New Zealand context

authors: Cargo, Tania

abstract: Psychologists are in very privileged positions; we use our clinical, community, academic, and research skills to support individuals, families, and communities, often during extremely vulnerable times in their lives. Psychologists have specific duties and responsibilities to not only offer a competent and ethical service, but to ensure that clients have been engaged in an open and honest process of gaining informed consent before a psychological service is offered, and either accepted or declined by the client (Knapp, Gottlieb, & Handelsman, 2015; Nagy, 2011).

text: Informed consent in the Aotearoa New Zealand context Psychologists are in very privileged positions; we use our clinical, community, academic, and research skills to support individuals, families, and communities, often during extremely vulnerable times in their lives. Psychologists have specific duties and responsibilities to not only offer a competent and ethical service, but to ensure that clients have been engaged in an open and honest process of gaining informed consent before a psychological service is offered, and either accepted or declined by the client (Knapp, Gottlieb, & Handelsman, 2015; Nagy, 2011).

year: 2016