Where & When

Location: Online (Zoom)

Date: 21/10/2020

Time: 13:00-17:00

Delivered by: Higher Education Futures Institute, University of Birmingham

Details

The sudden and seismic shift in the education landscape, and the way staff have worked rapidly to respond to these changes is testament to the deep pool of expertise and enthusiasm we have at the University. However, challenges remain and combined with the increasing awareness that things can be done differently we have an opportunity to make sustainable change to our assessment and feedback practice that will benefit both us and our students, now and in the future.

The key pivot to designing authentic and inclusive education that is efficient and fit for purpose is appropriate assessment. It is becoming increasing apparent that because of the strictures of delivering education digitally under covid and an exponential increase on access to knowledge that time limited, unseen papers under controlled conditions are largely inappropriate. We need to explore alternative, authentic ways of assessing students and we need an increased transparency of the purpose and meaning of assessment criteria and how those translate into feedback. Staff must be clear about what they are doing and students must understand the rationale.

Assessment Support Week (ASW), introduced as part of the new academic teaching year, will take place in the week beginning the 14^th December. Here we will facilitate campus-wide discussion and support on both the generic skills needed to cope with the pressures of summative examination and the specific advice and insight into the major classes of assessment that students will experience. Out of necessity and design the range of types of assessments has diversified and the resources of ASW will therefore reflect this.

This symposium will provide focus around the diversification of our suite of assessments, providing a forum for discussion that can inform both the development of more resilient assessments and a transparency of their fundamental nature to staff and students.

Programme

Symposium Twitter Hashtag: #NewApproaches

Time	Title and Presenters	Watch the Recordings:

1:00pm - 2:00pm Parallel Sessions	Welcome and Introduction & A: Moving forward with integrity – Teresa Thomas	Watch here
We will consider the current challenges faced by staff with respect to good academic integrity in assessments, particularly given movement to online assessment. We will discuss how to determine the vulnerability of an assessment to different types of plagiarism and strategies to help design these out of assessment.
	Welcome and Introduction & B: Developing alternatives to the proctored exam – Andrew Quinn/Sarah King
This session will seek to get to the heart of why we assess and what we are seeking to achieve through the assessment we design. In discussing these questions we will explore whether the traditional proctored exam is fit for purpose or whether, through effective design in different disciplinary contexts, we can meet the challenges of bimodal delivery whilst assessing our students in valid, rigorous, inclusive and authentic ways.
Theme 2: Future-proofing your assessment.
2:15pm - 3:00pm Parallel Sessions	A: Revelling in the slow death of exams: a move to authentic assessment - Lee Gregory	Watch here
This session explores the design, implementation and consequences of authentic assessment and reflects on how to pursue this practice in a bi-modal context.
	B: Would you choose MCQs?– Beverley Merricks and Julian Lonbay	Watch here
In this session we will consider the pros and cons of the MCQ format for assessment, explore if the format could motivate and engage your students and, if this format does work well in Birmingham’s digital environment.
Theme 3: Compassionate assessment
3:15pm - 4:00pm Parallel Sessions	A: ‘How we do things around here’: Key values for an inclusive culture for staff and students – Surindar Dhesi
We will discuss the key values of empathy, open communication, transparent decisions and trust towards an inclusive culture which supports wellbeing. These values were identified following consultations with staff and students in LES around the move online and we will explore them in the context of developing assessment and feedback which works for staff and students alike.
	B: Creating inclusive and compassionate assessment - Lesley Batty	Watch here
In this session we will explore 3 key themes in relation to inclusive assessment: assessment loadings and deadlines, high pressure assessment methods, and assessment ownership/choice.
*Theme 4:* The student voice
4:15pm - 5:00pm	Student Panel	Watch here
In this session you will hear directly from students about their experiences of online assessment last semester as they describe what went well and what was less successful. This facilitated discussion with our student panel will consider how best to support students with new forms of assessment and has the potential to inform your assessment design.
5:00pm	End