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University of Padua

e-mail:
valentina.grion@unipd.it

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Aim
The aim of the workshop is to stimulate awareness in the participants of the didactic potential of peer feedback and peer assessment processes. A further and parallel goal is to make teachers aware of the role of students as key agents and not just passive users or mere performers within the assessment processes.

Activities
The workshop will be structured according to the following steps
1. In plenary meeting: brief theoretical presentation of the purposes of assessment in educational contexts and especially in higher education
2. In groups of three people: text production activity on a topic proposed by the trainer and peer review of the same. Use of format prepared by the trainer
3. In plenary meeting: reflection on the processes carried out through guiding questions
4. In plenary meeting: elaboration of intentions to introduce activities such as those experienced in own teaching

Duration: 1.5 hours

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QWERTY Call for paper 19_1_Technology mediated New Assessment

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Welcome and Meet Up
Andrius Uždanavičius and Luciana Peixoto

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Workshops 3 and 2

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Workshops 4 and 1

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Lunch Break

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Assessing the Development of Different Skills and Competencies

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Assessing the Development of Different Skills and Competencies

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University of Minho

e-mail : luciana.peixoto@deb.uminho.pt

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A practical workshop will be held to introduce the difference between competences and skills, as well the complexity of each definition. We will start to listen to the participants about their concepts of both definitions, and We will promote one first task: Identify 5 skills we should develop in students.

After that, we get participants to think about the validity and reliability of assessing skills and competences, presenting the Millers Pyramid. The participants will reflect on what competences would they like to assess and what processes would they use to assess, identifying these practices at the levels of Miller's pyramid.

Some methodologies and tools for assessing skills and competences will be presented, emphasizing assessment as and for learning, reinforcing that it is not possible to assess transversal skills without integrating them into a context.

In the end, we will develop an activity for the participants to position their own practices.

Workshop Objectives: The objective of this workshop is to equip participants with the knowledge and tools to effectively assess and evaluate a range of skills and competencies. Participants will gain an understanding of the distinction between skills and competencies, explore various assessment methods, and learn how to apply them in different contexts.

Expected result:

-        To awaken participants to the relevance and urgency of the theme of assessment of different skills in the context of Higher Education.

-        Make a distinction between competences and skills.

-        Understand that skills are not acquired but developed.

-        know some methodologies for assessing competences and skills.

-        Initiate the participants on the transformation of their own course, including the assessment of skills.

Duration: 1.5 hours

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Dimensions of Assessment :: Assessment in Active Learning in Higher Education – Function and Alignment

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Dimensions of Assessment :: Assessment in Active Learning in Higher Education – Function and Alignment

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University of Minho

e-mail:
rml@dps.uminho.pt

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Summative and formative assessment in Active Learning – a practical approach

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Summative and formative assessment in Active Learning – a practical approach

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The Miller's pyramid was proposed by Dr. George Miller, a psychologist, to outline different levels of competence in the field of clinical skills. The pyramid consists of four levels, which are:

1. Knows: This level represents the basic knowledge and understanding of concepts and facts. It assesses whether a learner has the necessary theoretical knowledge.

2. Knows how: At this level, the learner demonstrates the ability to apply the knowledge in a practical setting. It focuses on the learner's skills in using the acquired knowledge.

3. Shows how: This level evaluates the learner's ability to perform the required skills in a controlled environment, such as a simulation or laboratory setting. It assesses whether the learner can demonstrate the desired competencies.

4. Does: The highest level of the pyramid represents the learner's ability to perform the required skills in a real-world clinical setting. It evaluates the learner's competence in practical application and decision-making in actual patient care scenarios.

The Miller's pyramid provides a progressive framework for assessing clinical competencies, starting from basic knowledge and progressing to real-world application. It is often used as a guide for designing medical education curricula and evaluating learners' proficiency in clinical skills.

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An inspiring interactive session on Assessment in Active Learning in Higher Education will engage assistance in an interactive way, discussing conceptions, principles, evidence, and contexts of active learning in higher education and the modalities of assessment. It is intended to build a common understanding from the existing conceptions, supported by positions and principles based on research on the subject. This part will give the motto to advance to the evidence that guarantees us the best results of active learning approaches, leaving clues and challenges for the development of assessment approaches in the teaching-learning contexts of each teacher, researcher or student who is in the audience. We will introduce a simple instrument for the participants to contextualize a course that they would like to use as their own case during summer school. This will be a starting point for them to identify their own needs on assessment for that course.

Expected result:

-        To awaken participants to the relevance and urgency of the theme of assessment in active learning in the context of Higher Education.

-        Make a distinction between the modalities and the function of assessment.

-        Initiate the participants on the transformation of their own course.

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University of Minho

e-mail:
rml@dps.uminho.pt

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University of Minho

e-mail:
ruipso@bio.uminho.pt

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A practical workshop will be held to introduce summative and formative assessment in the context of Active Learning. We will start to listen to the participants about their concepts of summative and formative assessment, creating a common base ground on terminology and founding concepts.

After that, we will develop an activity for the participants to position their own practices of assessment in a model of/for/as assessment, and to clearly identify what are the changes they would like to make. They will be sharing their ideas in groups.

Finally, we will end up with a short summary from each group and share hints to collect and give feedback.

This workshop will require collaborative work in groups of 4 to 5 teachers, developed in workspaces with desks suitable for working on flip-chart sheets. The necessary material will be a video projector, flip chart sheets, post-its, paper tape, and markers of various colours for each team.

The teachers will be able to:

-        Classify their practices of assessment in the model of/for/as.

-        Identify at least one point of change in the assessment.

-        Create a plan to change their own assessment.

Duration: 1.5 hours

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Dimensions of Assessment :: Assessment in Active Learning in Higher Education – Function and Alignment
Lecture :: Rui Lima

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Team work 3 - Course transformation projects presentation - Poster session
Each teacher will prepare one A3 paper with her transformation proposal and present this in 4 minutes in new sharing groups.

Finally, we will end up with a short summary from each group and share hints to improve the assessment methodologies for active learning.

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Final Remarks

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Workshop Overview: This workshop aims to introduce higher education teachers to a variety of digital tools that can enhance their assessment practices. By the end of the workshop, participants will have gained insights into the potential of digital tools and will be equipped with ideas to integrate them into their teaching and assessment strategies.

Duration: 1.5 hours

Workshop Objectives:

1. Understand the benefits of utilizing digital tools in assessment for higher education.

2. Explore a selection of digital tools suitable for various assessment formats.

3. Discuss the potential applications and considerations when using digital tools in assessment.

4. Gain practical ideas to incorporate digital tools into teaching and assessment practices.

Workshop Outline:

I. Introduction and Benefits of Digital Tools (15 minutes)

Welcome and introductions

Overview of the workshop objectives

Discussion: Benefits and advantages of using digital tools in assessment

II. Types of Digital Tools for Assessment (30 minutes)

Presentation: Introduction to a range of digital tools suitable for assessment (e.g., online quizzes, rubric-based tools, feedback platforms)

Demonstration: Brief demonstrations of selected digital tools and their key features

III. Applying Digital Tools in Assessment (30 minutes)

Small-group activity: Participants discuss potential applications and benefits of digital tools for assessment in their specific teaching contexts.

Group sharing: Each group presents one or two ideas from their discussions.

IV. Considerations and Best Practices (15 minutes)

Discussion: Ethical considerations and challenges when using digital tools in assessment

Presentation: Overview of best practices for integrating digital tools effectively and ensuring validity and fairness.

V. Exploring Integration Strategies (20 minutes)

Facilitated discussion: Participants share their ideas and brainstorm strategies for integrating digital tools into their assessment practices.

Q&A session: Addressing participants' questions and concerns regarding tool integration.

VI. Reflection and Wrap-up (15 minutes)

Recap key insights from the workshop

Reflection activity: Participants individually reflect on one digital tool they find most intriguing and how they can incorporate it into their assessments.

Sharing and closing remarks: Volunteers share their reflections, and the facilitator provides closing remarks.

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Beyond the “real world”: exploring authentic assessment design.

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Beyond the “real world”: exploring authentic assessment design.

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The Learning Design team at the OU has been exploring assessment practices, which has led to some rich discussions on accessibility, student choice, learning outcomes and authenticity. Discussions around authentic assessment have led us to think about how we can design assessments, well... more authentically!

Let's start with an analogy...

Imagine being given a recipe for the best brownie in the world. Wouldn't you want to bake and taste the brownies? This is called a taste test and it gives bakers the opportunity to experiment before selling products.

Similarly, authentic assessment provides students with a taste test where they mix, measure, and stir ingredients, applying methods to create a final product. A key stage is reviewing how well the process worked and this is akin to reflection, a major component of authentic assessment.

Now that we're all hungry for brownies, here's a more concrete definition:

Authentic Assessment Definition:
Authentic assessment places the learner in a context relevant to their studies, goals, and ambitions. It provides them with the opportunity to apply what they've learned in this context, and to relate knowledge to both their personal lives and wider society. Reflection is a key component.

The issue with the term 'authentic'

Authentic assessment is often interpreted as placing students in the 'real-world', which is mostly professionally orientated. We want to avoid this term because it draws a line between the 'student world' and the 'real world' which is unhelpful as it suggests that students won't occupy the 'real world' until they have finished their studies (which we know is not true).

Recent literature suggests that it's "not simply about the task, but the relationship the person/student has to the task" (McArthur, 2023). To be truly authentic, then, assessments should provide opportunities for students to understand society, to relate tasks to their identity, sense of self, values, and beliefs and to understand why and how their efforts can have an impact.

How do we design an Authentic Assessment?

We identified five key stages. Some, such as learning outcomes, could be applied to all assessment designs, but others, such as the context and task stage, help us to understand truly authentic assessment design.

Stage 1: Learning outcomes

Most assessment designs begin with the learning outcomes (LOs).

Here is an example LO for a Creative Writing course: "[...] To communicate objective evaluations of others' work through constructive criticism".

The verb 'to communicate' reveals exactly what we want students to do. This is a good starting point for assessment design. To find out more about LOs, check out Sarah Fulmer's checklist for creating effective learning outcomes (2017).

Stage 2: Relevant contexts

After identifying what students will be doing, we can begin to explore contexts. As mentioned, there's often an overemphasis on professional contexts in authentic assessment. To avoid this, we've broken it down into three categories (work contexts, societal issues/principles, and personal/relational contexts). For example, a creative writing course might include the following ideas:

LO: "Communicate objective evaluations of others' work through constructive criticism"

Work contexts Societal issues/principles Personal contexts and relationships

Traditional editorial work (newspapers, magazines)

Working in film and media

Advertising

Contributing to a just society relying on peer review

Objectivity reflects society's emphasis on scientific approaches

Balanced communication strengthens international relations

Communicating with friends and family

Being able to express disagreement appropriately

Being able to communicate values and beliefs

In practice, we'd expect this list to be longer, but by mapping a LO to students' future professional contexts, wider societal issues/principles, and personal relationships, we can explore authenticity beyond the work-related view.

Stage 3: Identifying relevant tasks

Now we need to explore each category and formulate tasks, for example:

Scene setting:
You're working with a media team for X company, and your team is developing a new radio drama series based on X.

Part 1
Work

Working in film and media

A colleague approaches you with the first draft script for the pilot episode and asks for your feedback. Read the script and write an objective evaluation to provide feedback.

Part 2
Societal

Strengthening relationships

You are asked to produce a set of guidelines for providing constructive feedback. Reflect on how they might impact relationships within the team. Can you think of any other contexts where constructive communication guidelines are critical?

Part 3
Personal

Communicating with friends and family

Reflect on your evaluation and subsequent guidelines.

How might you apply these guidelines in your personal life, for example, when communicating with friends and family?

In this example we've included a relevant working context, tied it to wider societal principles (the ability to strengthen relationships), and related it to students' personal lives. In practice, the process would be more complex. There may be multiple LOs, inclusivity issues or workload concerns, but as an initial framework, these categories help us to consider authentic assessment beyond the 'real-world' definition.

Other things to consider...

There are some other things to consider, including:

Building a problem or scenario: in practice we would expand on the above example, perhaps with a problem for students to solve.

Task instructions: clear, concise, and workable instructions should accompany the task.

Collaboration: consider asking students to collaborate, particularly where communication is the focus of the LO.

Pilot test: as designers, we too should taste test our work (though ours might not always taste as good as a brownie!) and try it out with a small group of students to gain feedback.

Key questions to ask:

Will all students identify with or have knowledge of this context?

Does this context disadvantage any students?

Does this fit with students' goals and ambitions?

Have students been scaffolded for this context?

Stage 4: Managing the workload

Authentic assessments can quickly spiral into large tasks. It's always worth revisiting an assessment design with workload in mind.

Stage 5: Evidence of achievement

Authentic assessment can be more nuanced than traditional assessment because it relies on reflection. This needs careful consideration when planning the marking. Consider the key concepts, such as how well a student has applied knowledge from a task to their personal lives.

Rounding it all up

Designing authentic assessment isn't about creating a 'real-world' context for students to work in. It's about giving them room to taste test the skills they've acquired in professional, societal, and personal contexts. Designing an authentic assessment is not simple, but our exploration has revealed principles that underpin truly authentic assessments, and we're looking forward to building on this approach in the future. We hope you'll have fun experimenting with these ideas.

References:

Fulmer, S. (2017) GUEST POST: Should I share my learning outcomes with students? T HE LEARNING SCIENTISTS (online) available at https://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2017/10/4-1 (accessed 10 th May 2023)

McArthur, J. (2023) Rethinking authentic assessment: work, well-being, and society, Higher Education, SpringerLink (online) available at https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-022-00822-y (accessed 6 th May 2023)

Resources:

Brown, S. (2023) Working towards more authentic assessment: a pragmatic approach to choosing alternatives that are right for you, Sally Brown (online) available at https://sally-brown.net/?s=portfolio&submit=Search

Heriot Watt University (ND) A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO DESIGNING MORE AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENTS (online) available at https://lta.hw.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/GUIDE-NO31_A-step-by-step-guide-to-designing-more-authentic-assessments.pdf

Banner image: via Canva

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Beyond the "real world": exploring authentic assessment design

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The Learning Design team at the OU has been exploring assessment practices, which has led to some rich discussions on accessibility, student choice, learning outcomes and authenticity. Discussions around authentic assessment have led us to think about how we can design assessments, well... more authentically!

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Lunch Break

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Lunch Break

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Teamwork 2 - Challenge – Brainstorm
What would I like to change in my course assessment?...

Identify what are the changes they would like to make. They will be sharing their ideas in groups.

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Team work 1 - Starting point – mapping
In teams, each participant should reflect and share about their teaching practice and to position their own practices of assessment (individual project – points 1 and 2).

What course I would I like to transform and why?

How do I assess my students in this course?

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Individual work in each “Course transformation project”

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travel do Druskininkai and visit of Čiurlionis Museum

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Dinner in Druskininkai

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Distribution of participants by teams. They go to the respective tables (4) whose distribution will be defined in a sign. At each table, each participant is challenged to write on a piece of paper to later share with the group and Trainers spread out over tables (3 min individual and 15 min for team share):

1. Upper left quadrant: Name and country

2. Upper right quadrant: Training/teaching area

3. Lower right quadrant: My superpower as a teacher

4. Lower left fourth quadrant: How many years have you been teaching?

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Travel to Vilnius

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Workshops 1 and 2

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The first summer school for teaching staff organized within Arqus II will give participants from different partner universities the chance to get together for three days in order to learn and exchange ideas about assessment in higher education. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on the restructuring of their existing courses and assessment techniques. The work on innovative teaching and assessment techniques will be a central part of the summer school programme.

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Each participant needs to present herself with “Two Truths and One Lie,” Start by asking each person to come up with two facts about themselves and one believable fib. Next, everyone shares their three statements and the group votes or discusses their guess for the lie (15min).

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Vilnius University visit

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Workshops 3 and 4

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·       Participants from different partner universities get together for three days to learn and exchange ideas about (learning) assessment

·       Creating conditions that encourage participant to reflect on the restructuring of their existing teaching courses

·       Stimulating engagement of the participants in the process of formulation of teaching objectives and the selection of methods for assessing the level of their realization

·       Promoting assessment using innovative teaching approaches and technologies

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Reflexion - What are the 3 main challenges in your teaching practice? (20min)

- Individual reflexion – 3 min

- Group discussion – 5 min

- Summary presentation – 2 min

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Dinner in Vilnius

Dinner venue:
"Etno dvaras" at Pilies str. 16, Vilnius.
Google maps: https://goo.gl/maps/6guKUpuqB1UKWJKJ7
Reservation at 20:00 by Andrius.

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Etno Dvaras · Pilies g. 16, 01124 Vilnius, Lithuania

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Etno Dvaras · Pilies g. 16, 01124 Vilnius, Lithuania

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7:30 pm

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In the end of the Summer school the participants will be able to ...

·       … evaluate the interrelation between assessment and student motivation

·       … understand (evaluate) the interrelation between the type of assessment and students enhancing in teaching and learning

·       … decide on the use of (digital) tools in assessment

·       … choose adequate techniques for assessing different professional, personal and communication skills (including those that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people)

·       … apply the principles of Constructive Alignment (Learning outcomes/Learning & Teaching activities and type of assessment) to design a course

·       … compare and contrast the principles of formative and summative assessment and decide on the appropriate assessment type for their courses

·       … conduct a peer assessment process

·       …  create/formulate testing items and decide which criteria must be fulfilled – how do I know that I measure/assess, what I want to assess?

·       … exchange their ideas on assessment techniques with further participants and

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The Arqus European University Alliance is supported by the European Union via different project funding. The Arqus project 2022-2026 is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. The Arqus Research and Innovation project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 101017448.

Arqus is also supported at a national level by: the Spanish Service for the Internationalization of Education (SEPIE, Ministry of Universities of Spain); the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research as well as the OedAD (Austria); the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Sächsisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft, Kultur und Tourismus, SMWK, DAAD (Germany); IDEXLYON, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and ANR (France); Ministry for Universities and Research (MUR, Italy). At a local level, it is supported by the City of Graz (Austria) for the implementation of activities within the Action Line 6 “Research Support & Early Stage Researcher Development”.

The European Commission's support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.