Try once, refine once: a handy pattern from Aliy Fowler

Aliy Fowler from Kent is one of the participants in our formative e-Assessment group. She brought us a case story called String comparison in language learning. At the 2nd workshop of this group, we discussed this case, and identified a pattern, which she called Try Once, Refine Once. Aliy and her table posted the first version of this pattern, and we’ve been iterating on it for the last couple of weeks.

This pattern is far from complete. The discussions around it are still hot, and you’re welcome to pitch in. But even in its current form, it is worth a read. This pattern uses a clever grading scheme to promote students to make a serious effort to get the answer right, and then make good use of the feedback they receive.

try once refine once flow chart

Demand for patterns platform

I’ve just read the outcomes of Sheila MacNeil’s poll on “In the next year, where should JISC concentrate funding for learning, activities and resources?”. Top of the list was a user friendly tool for creating and sharing learning designs (63% of votes) – which suggests a lot of potential interest and user engagement for the patterns platform that the PLaNET project could tap into. Patterns are not necessarily the same as learning designs, but are closely related to them. See http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/Educational_Content/polls for details of the poll.