Blockbusters engaging assessment - Bromley College Engineering Section 1/2

Overview

“A little while ago we bought a set of voting buttons for our computer system. I loved the instant feedback I could get from the quick formative assessment quizzes I could run – testing out the learners’ understanding on the fly. But then the company we bought from introduced me to the computer version of the Blockbusters game – it’s fantastic! It comes as a complete package to help you build your own vocational version of the TV quiz show.

The impact of using it has been massive – suddenly, the learners looked forward to being assessed! It generates good camaraderie, they’re enthused and engaged throughout, and there’s a great, and healthy, competitive atmosphere.”

Advice for others? ”It’s not the only game we use – there are loads out there. Think about variety and appropriateness. Keep it fun, vary it and you’ll keep having the impact.”

Errol Ince – Head of Engineering

The good practice in detail

Have you watched any of the quality improvement programmes on the EGTV channel?
Click the link below to watch Errol and his students bring this good practice study to life:

Blockbusters – Bromley College

‘Exams’, ‘tests’, ‘assessments’ – not the sort of terms that make learners relax and not the sorts of activities that most people look forward to. But Errol and his team found that the on-going task of measuring the impact of their training could actually be quite a lot of fun if they stopped doing what they’d always done and tried something new.

Why not download the Q-box Action Plan for this example and make notes while you read?

This case study is very short and straightforward, but it asks one very big question – how much fun do your learners have whilst learning?

Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-born American industrialist and arguably the second-richest man in history, said in his book Think and Grow Rich that you should ‘turn your shortcomings into assets’. In our educational context, we could interpret this as ‘which bit of the programme/process do the learners dislike, and how can we make this the area they look forward to the most?’

For Errol and his team, this was assessment – initial, formative and summative.

The game

The Blockbusters game is a simple piece of software that is free to download from Promethean Planet* . “Producing the quizzes is easy,” says Errol, “though it can be a little time consuming at first.”

Step 1: Write 20 questions and their corresponding answers on your chosen subject.
Step 2: Take the first letter of each answer and transfer to the Blockbusters game grid.
Step 3: Add the questions to the corresponding grid letter.

And that’s it...

“All the students enjoy it tremendously,” says Errol, “but it’s also a very good assessment tool. I can quickly determine what their knowledge is - how much distance they’ve travelled. It also helps them with their team-working skills – it’s very good development for them."

Induction and initial assessment:  Errol uses the game during induction as an ice-breaker activity – helping to build the group dynamic whilst also getting a strong sense of what individuals already know.

Formative assessment:  At the end of each theory workshop, Errol tests his learners’ new knowledge.

Hasan Koulle (student): “You spend the whole afternoon learning very technically about it (the subject) then you’re tested, but in a fun way. There’s competition between each other, but it’s a great laugh and you’re learning at the same time – which is the best thing about it.”

But rather than just finding out what the students know, the game engages each team in a debate to work through possible answers before deciding on which one to submit. This enables those learners who did not know the answer to contribute, or at least hear the debate, so giving them an extra chance at learning the key points being tested in a risk-free environment.

Lincoln Gordon (student): “I think it’s a brilliant way to learn. After a lesson, when you do the game, it’s like going over what you’ve just done so it sticks, and you enjoy it – it’s really fun at the same time.”

Summative assessment:  Finally, Errol also uses the game at the end of a unit of study to help assess the distance his learners have travelled and the effectiveness of his teaching.

Using the Blockbusters game is just a small part of the approach Errol’s department uses to assess the on-going skills and knowledge development of their learners. Errol’s second case study on fault finding shows how his team also makes very effective use of vocationally-specific computer programs. And in the college’s last inspection report, inspectors highlighted this area as a key strength:

• highly innovative use of ILT to support teaching and learning in motor vehicle lessons.

How do you judge the impact of each of your lessons? How could you use a healthy competitive environment to encourage and engage your learners? What sort of comments would your learners give about the way you assess them? What other popular quiz formats are your learners familiar with? How do you feel you could improve your practice?

*           Ofsted will not be held responsible for any problems that arise as a result of downloading others’ resources. The link provided, is to the Blockbusters graphic as illustrated. For the full game program, further purchases would be necessary. To view the graphic, users will also need to download the PC Activeprimary Flipchart Viewer.

Uploaded – June 2009

What could you do next to improve your provision?

Answering all of the italicised questions in the Q boxes above will help you begin to health-check your current practice. Download all of the linked documents, compare them with your own or adapt them for your own use. Write a short action plan to get you from where you are now (what is good and what needs improving) to where you want to be.

The Building Better Practice (BBP) web resource is a great place to start if you want to benchmark yourself against other providers. It will show you the most common inspection strengths and weaknesses for each issue or topic, an analysis of the good practice found on inspection and a series of health-check questions to help you establish how you compare to others. Look specifically at how you could use BBP to improve your off-the-job training.

Actions for Quality Improvement (AQI) is a set of activities with resources around which you can run staff development sessions with your teams. The activities cover all aspects of the learner's journey and will help your staff embed quality improvement in the heart of your provision. Look specifically at how you could use AQI to improve your teaching and learning practice.

If you need more help, ideas and resources for the process of self assessment then look at the Learner-Centred Self Assessment (LCSA) materials. This is a web-based or hard-copy resource to help you generate a rich source of evidence for your self-assessment report through professional discussion rather than the completion of lengthy forms.

9 Data Projects to Improve Your Provision is a set of projects which help you use data to explore all aspects of the learner's journey for improvement themes.

The Self-Assessment Surgery Projects have proved very popular at the Preparing for Inspection events. They will help you determine whether or not your SAR is fit for purpose.

Interpreting the Common Inspection Framework (CIF) is essential guidance on how to interpret the CIF for your remit and is now contained in the appendices of the Ofsted inspection handbook for work-related and adult and community learning.

The Inspection Toolkit contains step-by-step guidance on how to prepare for inspection and covers such topics as choosing the right person to be nominee, using data and self assessment.