Where & When

Location: Virtual

Date: 4th November (13:00) - 5th November 2021 (13:00)

Delivered by: Advance HE

Book here (this is a paid event): https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/programmes-events/calendar/assessment-and-feedback-symposium-2021-putting-student-heart-assessment

Details

The 2021 Advance HE Assessment and Feedback Symposium: Putting the Student at the Heart of Assessment and Feedback: Equality, Diversity and Partnership will focus on the important and intersecting issues of equality, diversity and partnership. It will provide an opportunity to discuss ideas and strategies for putting the student ‘at the heart’ of assessment and feedback processes, including: assessing to prioritise student learning; emphasising dialogic approaches; enabling students to have agency and involvement in their assessment and feedback; and assessing for all students – supporting equality, diversity and inclusion. We invite participants to consider how assessment and feedback practices can be enhanced and made more inclusive in a way that focuses on the student, whilst also acknowledging the more established purposes that such processes must fulfil.

The event will include two keynote papers, participant-led workshops and presentations, and a special session on the new Advance HE assessment and feedback publication (see below).

Keynote and special sessions

We are delighted to welcome Dr Joanna Tai as our keynote. Joanna is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE), Deakin University, and has been an outstanding contributor to the field. She will address the central theme of the Symposium in her paper: What does it mean to put the student at the heart of assessment and feedback?

In addition, Dawn Jones and Lynn Ellison (Wolverhampton Law School) will provide a compelling new paper: Is Feedback Fit for Purpose? Why it is critical that there is synergy between staff intention and student understanding. This paper will explore the dissonance identified, in terms of staff intention and student understanding, of the language used in feedback and why synergy is necessary if the aims of feedback are to be achieved. The authors will go on to discuss how the results of their research have been used to put students at the forefront of feedback with the aim of improving performance for all students.

There will also be a special session about the major new Advance HE compendium Assessment and Feedback in a Post-Pandemic Era: A Time for Learning and Inclusion, which was published in July 2021, incorporates the work of some 45 authors, and can be downloaded by members from the Advance HE website.

Download your copy of the compendium here

Symposium aims

The aims of this symposium are to: provide an open and supportive environment within which to share and discuss contemporary practice and initiatives in assessment and feedback; provide evidence-informed examples and ideas for university staff and students to overcome the challenges of assessment and feedback in higher education.

Key themes addressed by the symposium

Student-staff partnership in relation to all aspects of assessment and feedback.
Student led initiatives in assessment and feedback.
Foregrounding student needs and learning in assessment.
Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) as a central element of assessment and feedback practices, including in the current ‘pandemic landscape’.

Who should attend?

This symposium will be of relevance to anyone working or interested in the area, including students, lecturers, course leaders, policy makers and professional services staff. We particularly welcome student participation by way of presenting or facilitating (for example, through a joint student-staff paper or workshop) or by simply attending and joining in the discussions.

Who is delivering the symposium?

The symposium will be chaired by Dr Patrick Baughan, Senior Adviser (Learning and Teaching) at Advance HE. We are pleased to confirm that, for the third year running, we will be joined by Dr Erica Morris, Senior Associate and HE Consultant, as co-chair of the event.