Beyond Grades: How can we improve our students' experience of assessment? Forum 21 March 2024 by

submission

2024-03-20 11:11:11 UTC

practice based assessment, variety in types of assessment, longer deadlines

2024-03-20 11:11:59 UTC

open ended assessment question giving choice to students to decide the topic

2024-03-20 11:12:28 UTC

provide help workshops on writing, formatting etc

2024-03-20 11:13:20 UTC

regular feedback, class discussion

2024-03-20 11:13:41 UTC

Student perceptions of and reactions to assessment

routhore1 — 2024-03-20 11:25:49 UTC

Young UK learners have had disrupted and highly pressurised assessment experiences for the last few years and schools/colleges also often feel the pressure to 'teach to the test'. Where university models of assessment are different, learners need support to understand assessment in terms of practical expectations and with the emotional/academic support available. Obviously mature and international students have different experiences and expectations too, so there is a pressure on staff to help very different learners understand requirements and be empowered to engage positively, no matter their prior experience.

Multiple methods of assessment

routhore1 — 2024-03-20 11:28:50 UTC

Essays, reports, multimedia, presentations etc throughout the year, offering students multiple chances to show their strengths in more, lower stakes assessments (e.g. Nancy Behizadeh, 2014)

revisit and rework, with consultation from teaching staff, the current assessment tariffs with mininum word counts/minutes stated per module. These are restrictive, very high, and disadvantage students, possibly contributing to further awarding gaps and inequalities. There needs to be a thought out policy informed by best practice pedagogy and much more flexibility for staff to assess as they see fit within reasonable guidelines, rather than forcing students to write a required number of words

2024-03-20 12:08:44 UTC

Integration of AI within teaching and learning so that it becomes a valuable tool for assessment - supporting and enhancing students' work

2024-03-20 13:15:27 UTC

Over-assessment. This leads to multiple failure points and overburdening workload which often leads to non-submission. On the flip side of this, with fewer assessments we need to ensure they are inclusive, as multiple assessment points allow for students to demonstrate their strength in one type of assessment over another.

2024-03-20 13:19:12 UTC

In our subject area, at the lower levels (3&4) scientific knowledge needs to be assessed before the higher level skills such as evaluation, synthesis etc can be built. This often requires in person short answer/MCQs to assess knowledge, which limits creativity and inclusivity to some degree.

2024-03-20 13:22:56 UTC

Values-based assessments, real-life problem solving, practical assessments. These are excellent for building authentic, inclusive and interesting assessments which students engage with.

2024-03-20 13:24:17 UTC

Looking at previous examples of student work for the same assessment, encouraging students to use marking rubrics to mark previous examples of work, submitting drafts, formative assessments, discussion/co-creating of marking schemes/rubrics. Having said that, we do many of these things and non-submission is still one of the biggest issues in our subject area so I would be interested to hear other suggestions.

2024-03-20 13:26:05 UTC

Ro_Tomlin_Wills — 2024-03-20 13:53:14 UTC

by offering wider optionality with assessment briefs on how the student wishes to deliver information, to be able to play to their strengths, for example, video essay vs written assignment

Trying to get a balance of assessment

vasants1 — 2024-03-20 16:51:04 UTC

Trying to get a balance of assessment in a course designed to teach teachers, who are time pressured already, who come with different experiences, backgrounds and expectations.

Creativity - not doing the same old

vasants1 — 2024-03-20 16:53:47 UTC

Being Creative with Assessment is Inclusive Assessment, is offering choice and as long as learning outcomes are met, this is the main thing.

Know what it is you want from the assessment

vasants1 — 2024-03-20 16:56:18 UTC

Working with students and employers to design assessment, that gives real life opportunities is crucial. Students have to see themselves and their place in the world differently into, through and outside higher education

Test and Test Again....

vasants1 — 2024-03-20 16:57:33 UTC

Quizzes in our VLE can be set up to test and test again our students, at a time, place and pace of their choosing.

More clarity across the university in terms of assessment (number of assessments/word count for written work) expectations/requirement for 15, 20, 30 etc credit modules. This will help begin to address some of the over assessment issues on some modules.

2024-03-22 08:51:01 UTC

Practice based assessments where outputs can take innovative and creative forms- clear regulations to support such outputs to ensure they are meeting subject requirements etc

2024-03-22 08:53:39 UTC

Co-creation with students and staff to either create new forms of assessments and/or adopt and creatively adapt existing assessments

2024-03-22 08:55:34 UTC

Use of marking criteria rubric on Turnitin for example to enhance transparency

2024-03-22 08:56:36 UTC

Provide examples of previous work

2024-03-25 08:34:04 UTC

Share extracts from previous students' work on the VLE with some commentary - what is good about it and why and what could be improved (across a range of grades) or invite the students to assess the work then discuss their opinions, making sure to clarify any misunderstandings

Reviewing assessment at a course level

2024-03-25 08:37:16 UTC

Don't wait for revalidation to check whether small changes in individual modules have led to duplication, gaps, lack of scaffolding. Are they suddenly expected to create a high stakes podcast or sit an exam with little preparation? Or do the assignments build sequentially and are we explicit about how they all fit together? How can we think together about the students' experience of assessment and how we can support them to do the best they can?