Putting assessment at the Heart of Learning : HEA Assessment and Feedback Event

Norah Jones and Alice Lau (Glamorgan)presented a really piece on their work about engaging faculties and putting assessment at the heart of learning

Some notes I scribbled down as I was listening …

Different approaches are possible Plan vs Experiment
Experimenting allows people to make mistakes. The mistakes give potential to improve. See mistakes as a positive potential.

Students’ viewed were considered really important too – it seems as though they have done some great work here. Not only do they do the more tradional stuff (focus groups and surveys etc) but they used Facebook too to elicit students views – Interesting the Facebook group was initiated by the SU – They seemed to have lots of engagement and collected data that did not come through form their other methods.

They spoke about them collecting and sharing good practice too. And this was collected from the Institution – which, for me, helps contextualise the setting. i.e. stops at source, this cant be done here retort.

They spoke too of the creation of assessment diaries – these show bunching of assessments etc. The team suggested this initiative, the study diaries, had improved their NSS results. I wondered if it might be some secondary effects too – i.e. the engagement with th students in creating the diaries and seeing th challenges that the students face – Trojan horse rearing its head again!

Norah mentioned that assessment is a process not just a method and that to help them on their way the Change Academy activity was really helpful for. There is lots of information captured on web site which we will look at.
They have a journal too – will look to see if there is an opportunity to get ESCAPE published through this journal.

Really great presentation and a great job at Glamorgan – thumbs up!