SPIDER – enabling seminar presentations for distance education

Abstract

Key graduate attributes of engineering students do not only focus on technical but also transferable skills. With the rapid changes in technology, skills such as critical evaluation and lifelong learning are becoming a major focus of educators. The nature of distance education makes it difficult to provide students with opportunities to develop and hone these skills. A SPIDER Activity is a comprehensive learning and assessment strategy including Selection, Preparation and Investigation, Discussion, Evaluation and Reflection. The activity is supported by a custom learning management system implementation in Moodle. This learning activity has been trialled in a number of subjects and evidence suggests that student learning outcomes have improved. This study focuses on how this tool is used by students and particularly investigates the relationship between peer assessment and the level of student engagement. The SPIDER tool enables several key features of good assessment and this work provides evidence of increased student engagement by analyzing the comments students provided for their peers.