MCLA Blog

Posted for Michael Birch

Assessment in Media Production Group Work and Presentations: Tracking Learning in Media Theory-Practice Courses

In media production group work at MCLA students undertake theoretical study and practical activities aimed at producing a television product. Basic TV Production explores North Adams culture through interviews and small research projects; Advanced TV Production explores storytelling in documentary form; Broadcast Journalism produces news stories but all involve group projects and presentations.

Increasingly, a variety of learning experiences are facilitated through group learning processes. In these media courses, students develop ideas, question theories, learn research processes and come to terms with complex technologies both inside and outside of the television studio; editing, camera work and presentational process are just a few examples of the latter. As well as these skills, theoretical perspectives linked to what they produce in a mediation (i.e., a text such as TV program) contribute to their knowledge and understanding. However, neither theoretical nor practical skills can be taken as a sole activity; all are linked to group work and activities which the group must produce and reflect on, during and at the end of a group project. But how do students and faculty track learning through assessment points across a course? How do students know how they are doing and how can faculty help them do better?

This CASTL Roundtable meeting explored assessment in a current Advanced TV class looking at how the student was able to track their work from the Aims of the project brief, through Learning Objectives to Assessment Criteria and thus, to a regularly updated Grade; in how well or not so well they had done. In tracking their learning, clarity in what students achieved in a group project was complemented by discussions with the professors about how and where they were doing well or going awry. It is proved useful to determine at which assessment point the student complaining about their grade did not perform and enabled critical identification of the area in their work where they needed to do better.

At our meeting a number of handouts were passed to professors showing the project brief, its aims, learning objectives and assessment criteria. We tracked how a group’s work would develop across a semester.

* Of note here is that one group project student in the Advanced TV class did complain about his project grade, after the end of the semester. Amid a flurry of e-mails sent, all stopped when, in my response, I was able to inform where the student did not do so well, why he didn’t and how, after questions I offered him were not followed through on, had led to a very good rather than excellent grade.

Assessment Criteria