Catriona Forrest from the University of Glasgow, UK presented at the Alternative Assessment Institute 2022 on “Practical News Stories.” This course and assignments have developed over time. This masters of sociology course teaches research methods and practical journalism skills. The MSc Media, Communications and International Journalism Program has four core courses. They use a rubric that aligns with the “Intended Learning Objectives.” For the “Producing News” assignment, the formative assessment includes teacher-led formative comments and feedback and peer review/feedback. The summative assessment is group work to produce a six-minute news story and the individual reflective report consists of 2,000 words. The group work includes roles for the tasks with the goal of resembling video production for news. This assignment provides students with support for production of the videos and journalism. Forrest explained that this practical assessment model is based on professional journalism practices and feedback. Forrest acknowledged challenges with group work. However, they explained that the group work is based on common industry/journalism practices. They are now implementing group and intercultural communication training. Students get Adobe Cloud licenses though Forrest explained some students don’t have devices that are capable of doing all the processing. Forrest also explained that they are providing training on giving and receiving feedback and a new module on ethics. Forrest trains students how to use Adobe Premiere for video editing. During the question and answer session Forrest explained that students have to tell the instructor their group role and keep it throughout the semester. Another participant suggested 360 peer feedback. This assignment seems to be a lot of fun, though I get the sense from the speaker that there were several group work challenges. Nevertheless, the team is addressing them through training that will ultimately benefit all learners.
