Assessment practice: a manifesto for change

The literature on learning and teaching is clear about the central importance of assessment in the learning process, both in terms of feedback, and in its influence on students’ approaches to their learning. But the literature is also full of serious criticisms of our current practice, supported by any number of different performance indicators. To put it bluntly, all the evidence is that it is something we generally do very badly.

In November 2007, over 40 recognised researchers and experts in the field of student assessment were brought together and tasked with identifying the changes in practice they believed to be necessary. This keynote will focus on the six tenets of the ‘manifesto for change’ that resulted from these discussions, and especially the underpinning theory that supports the arguments for these changes. Participants will be encouraged throughout to consider the implications of the proposed changes for their own context and practice, and how they might implement them.

About Dr Rust

Dr Chris Rust is also Deputy Director of the Human Resource Directorate at Oxford Brookes University, as well as Deputy Director for two Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning - ASKe (Assessment Standards Knowledge Exchange) and the Reinvention Centre for undergraduate research (led by Warwick University). He was Course Leader for the University’s initial training course for new teaching staff for six years, and with (currently) thirteen colleagues has helped to provide both staff and educational development support to the University’s academic Schools and support Directorates for over twenty years.

Chris has researched and published on a range of issues including: the experiences of new teachers in Higher Education, the positive effects of supplemental instruction, the effectiveness of workshops as a method of staff development, ways of diversifying assessment, and improving student performance through engagement in the assessment process. Recently Chris has focused increasingly on assessment.  Chris is a Fellow of both SEDA (Staff and Educational Development Association) and the RSA, and a Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.

Downloads for Chris' keynote presentation:

ATNA09_Rust_Keynote.ppt (260KB MS Powerpoint)
ATNA09_Rust_Bibliography.doc (44KB MS Word)

Moving towards Assessment 2.0

The Internet is an interactive and participatory environment which is responsive to students’ actions; it provides access to content, resources and people from any part of the globe. Students are able to collaborate and interact in working spaces where they have control over how resources are used, what is shared with others and how their creations will be formatted and presented. If this is the learning environment in which students are immersed, how are we going to align our learning activities and assessment tasks, especially summative tasks, so that students can create responses using the same tools and resources with which they learn?

Teachers have traditionally had almost total control over the learning and assessment environment and current approaches to setting assessment tasks are substantially based on these more controlled environments. The ability of students to operate in more open, collaborative, interactive and distributed environments is challenging many of the traditional perceptions about what constitutes a university experience and what are appropriate assessment tasks.

This presentation will explore some of the options that are available to teachers as we move towards Assessment 2.0. Many teachers will be familiar with the term Web 2.0 which describes the social, interactive and collaborative spaces that are available on the Internet. Assessment 2.0 describes an environment in which the teacher sets tasks that allow students to use these more dynamic, immersive, interactive and responsive environments for exploring and creating relevant responses. Assessment 2.0 allows learning, social interaction and assessment to be blended in a way that provides a more authentic experience for both the student and the teacher.

Assessments will become more like sophisticated games incorporating role-playing and scenarios; they will replicate the real world, allowing students to explore and describe the consequences associated with their responses. We will examine some of the opportunities that are available today to begin this journey towards Assessment 2.0 and explore some of the design principles that will be required to align learning and assessment.

Crisp, G. (2007). The e-Assessment Handbook. Continuum Press.

Elliott, B. (2008). Assessment 2.0: Modernising assessment in the age of Web 2.0. SQA. Available at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/461041/Assessment-20

About Professor Crisp

Geoff completed his PhD in chemistry at the Australian National University and undertook postdoctoral work in Germany and the USA before taking up an appointment in chemistry at the University of Melbourne. He moved to the University of Adelaide in 1988 and continued as a discipline academic in chemistry until 2000. He developed his passion for seeking new ways to enhance student learning while teaching and researching in Chemistry; he was Associate Dean for Learning and Teaching in Sciences. Geoff became actively involved in the development of online learning as the Director of the Online Learning and Teaching Unit and made the permanent move to educational development and online learning when he was appointed to his current positions in 2002. Geoff received the University of Adelaide's Stephen Cole the Elder Prize (Excellence in Teaching); the Royal Australian Chemical Institute Stranks Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Chemical Education and an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Fellowship. He is now working on new e-assessment design strategies that offer students authentic, engaging and meaningful tasks. He is the author of The e-Assessment Handbook (2007).

Downloads for Geoffrey's keynote presentation:

ATNA09_Crisp_Keynote.ppt (12.4MB MS Powerpoint)
Transforming Assessment website

Authentic assessment of authentic tasks

Authentic tasks engage students in higher order thinking, problem solving, and the creation of polished products over extended periods of time. If such tasks are assessed, for example, by standardised multiple choice questions, a powerful message is sent to students that the kind of learning that is valued is lower order factual knowledge. If, as is claimed, we assess what we value and value what we assess, then it is important to ensure that assessment of complex tasks is integrated and authentic, and truly capable of assessing higher order learning and outcomes.

This keynote address will present a model for the design and development of authentic learning environments, where tasks and activities have fidelity to the conditions under which they would occur in the real world. The alignment between an authentic task and its assessment is frequently neglected. Failure to effect this alignment can lead to the negation of the impact of any authentic task used by teachers and educational developers—even with the best of intentions. Alignment between task and assessment effectively allows the teacher to apply realistic criteria to assess real products, and examples of several e-learning tasks and assessment will be given. Using such an approach, students become better prepared for their future experiences as effective professional practitioners.

About Dr Herrington

Dr Jan Herrington has had appointments at universities in New South Wales and Western Australia, and many years experience in the design and development of multimedia and web-based programs. The last 20 years of her professional life have been devoted to the promotion and support of the effective use of educational technologies in learning in schools and universities.

Jan's current research focuses on authentic learning and assessment, the design of effective Web-based learning environments for schools and higher education, mobile learning, and the use of authentic tasks as a central focus for Web-based delivery and assessment of courses. She has published over 130 refereed journal articles, conference papers and chapters, and several books including a recently co-edited book entitled Authentic Learning in Higher Education. She was a Fulbright Scholar in 2002 at the University of Georgia, USA, and has won many awards for her research including the Association for Educational Communication and Technology (AECT) Young Researcher of the Year Award, and several Outstanding Paper awards at international conferences, most recently at EdMedia 2008.

Downloads for Jan's keynote presentation:

ATNA09_Herrington_Keynote.pdf (6.7MB PDF)
http://web.me.com/janherrington/AuthenticAssessment/ for additional links and resources.