module specification

This module is immersive and experiential allowing you to experience in embodied, cognitive and emotional ways a range of assessment and feedback processes. Your reflective learning log allows you to reflect deeply on these processes as a student - and thus to improve your own practices as a tutor. Your continued reflections in your PSF Logbook allow you to reflect on MAF as a practitioner - and simultaneously to think about assessment and feedback in your own practice throughout the module. Analysis of your own reflections will provide you with meaningful data to inform your group and individual projects or essays - and your praxis.

MAF adopts a ‘flipped classroom’ method of teaching, whereby subject matter traditionally delivered through lectures is provided as preparatory and follow-up work, and in-class time is devoted to collaborative and participatory learning activities, enabling an active engagement with one’s own learning practice to form the heart of learning on the module.Thus it is essential that you commit to attend this module - it is a collaborative and dialogic experience.

ED7143 Facilitating Student Learning (or APL).

Available for Study Abroad? NO

Workshop 1: The assessment landscape in higher education  
• Introduction to the module and assessments
• The dual lenses of the reflective practitioner (LO1, LO5)
• Context, purpose and principles of assessment in higher education (LO1)
• Educational values and assessment (LO1)
• Disciplinary differences and role of professional bodies (LO1)
• Exploration of potential topics for first assessment

Workshop 2:  Paradigms of assessment
• Emotional dimensions of assessment: assessing and being assessed (LO1)
• Assessment instruments and methods: what, why, how (LO2)
• Self, peer and tutor assessment (LO2, LO4)
• Students as co-designers of assessment (LO2, LO3, LO4)
• Formation of groups: Draft LA due 27 March

Workshop 3:  Assessment of, for and as learning
• Feedback: principles and practices (LO4)
• Inclusive assessment (LO1, LO2)
• Designing out plagiarism (LO2)
• Alternative assessments (LO2)
• Group Presentation planning: drafting Learning Agreements and peer review

Workshop 4:  Assessment criteria and marking processes
• Assessment criteria and ensuring quality (LO3)
• Criteria, learning outcomes and marking schemes (LO3)
• Fairness, validity and reliability (LO2, LO3)
• Moderation and role of the external examiner (LO2, LO3)
• Group Presentation planning: developing pro forma

Workshop 5:  Going digital: hands-on
• Working with online resources/tools (LO2)
• Group Presentation planning: digital artefact design

Workshop 6: Assessment 1: Group Presentations
Workshop 7:  Review and next steps 
• 360-degree marks/feedback for Group Presentations (LO4)
• Reflection on own learning (LO5)
• Implications for future practice (LO5)

• Preparation for Individual Projects or Essays

Learning Agreement for Individual Project or Essay 
(by email - for formative feedback)

Assessment 2: Individual Project or Essay - plus PSF Logbook and reflection on experience of the Group Project

As a project-based module, it involves considerable independent work on the chosen project - supported by tutor advice, learning resources and peer feedback - following the initial workshops which introduce the main concepts, frameworks and methods for designing and evaluating curricula (learning programmes).

Particpants produce a proposal for a curriculum design or evaluation project in their  subject area or specialist field, which, ideally, will enjoy the interest and support of their line managers and colleagues, and on which they receive tutor feedback.  Then they work on their projects and ‘publish’ a draft project report on the module VLE (WebLearn) for peer review. Thereafter participants reflect on peer commentaries, review progress in a centrally-organized workshop and complete their projects. The final project reports are posted on the VLE for assessment by the module tutors.

Besides being used for assessment submission and feedback, the VLE also provides extensive guidance on the assessment process, and links to numerous online resources – which are also demonstrated in class.

Both the peer reviews (exchanged online) and self-evaluation component of the final report provide opportunities for reflective learning, as do class discussions and exchanges among colleagues from different areas.

LO1: Critically engage with the purposes and principles of assessment and feedback in higher education and apply them in institutional and subject contexts and within quality systems.

LO2: Appreciate the relative merits of a variety of assessment methods, identify and select methods to suit particular circumstances, and evaluate their effectiveness within given modules, programmes and/or a subject area.  

LO3: Identify and evaluate methods for establishing and implementing assessment criteria, including critical consideration of students’ and tutors’ roles in the process.

LO4: Identify and critically evaluate methods for undertaking the feedback process, including critical consideration of students’ and tutors’ roles.

LO5: Critically reflect on outcomes arising from considerations of assessment and feedback and analyse implications for future thinking and practice.

Talis Reading List
https://rl.talis.com/3/londonmet/lists/352F5177-F2BB-6919-EFB8-3C6701B990E1.html

The following texts are core reading for the module: 

Bloxham, S. and Boyd, P. (2007) Developing Effective Assessment in Higher Education: a practical guide, Maidenhead: Open University Press
[Available as an e-book through the Library Catalogue.]

University Assessment Framework (2010; updated 2012; in process of being further revised Sept 2019) London Metropolitan University 
[Available on module VLE site.]

Further reading is provided during the module to enable participants to follow up on particular areas of interest, including for the Individual Essay or Project (assessment component 2). 

Selected additional reading

Ajjawi, R., Tai, J., Boud, D., & Jorre de St Jorre, T. (Eds.). (2022). Assessment for Inclusion in
Higher Education: Promoting Equity and Social Justice in Assessment (1st ed.). Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003293101

Boud, D. & Falachikov, N. (Eds) (2007) Rethinking Assessment in Higher Education. Oxon: Routledge. 

Boud, D. and Molloy, E. (Eds) (2012) Feedback in Higher and Professional Education: Understanding it and doing it well. London: Routledge.

Bryan, C. and Clegg, K. (2006) Innovative assessment in higher education. London: Routledge.

Earl, L. M. (2003) Assessment as Learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Evans, C (n.d.) EAT Assessment Framework: Equity - Agency - Transparency

Higher Education Academy (no date) Students as Partners in transforming feedback and assessment, University of Strathclyde: Students as Partners in the Curriculum (SAP) Change Programme case study. 

Higher Education Academy (2012) A Marked Improvement. Transforming assessment in higher education. York: The Higher Education Academy. 
 
Kreber, C., Anderson, C., McArthur, J. and Entwistle, N. (2016) Advances and Innovations in University Assessment and Feedback. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Manchester University (n.d.): Qualitative Methods

Nicole, D. J. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006) Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), pp. 199-218. 

Pokorny, H. (2021) Assessment for learning. In Enhancing teaching practice in higher education (2nd edition), Pokorny, H. and Warren, D. (eds.) London: Sage.

Race, P. (2017) Fifteen ideas for making assessment and feedback more effective, efficient and manageable for us, and for students. Educational Developments. 18(2), pp. 21-24.
   Available at: https://www.seda.ac.uk/resources/files/publications_214_Educational%20Developments%2018.2.pdf [accessed 01.05.24]

Sambell, K., McDowell, L. and Montgomery, C. (2012) Assessment for Learning in Higher Education. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Serrano, M. M., O’Brien, M., Roberts, K. and Whyte, D. (2018) Critical pedagogy and assessment in higher education: the ideal of ‘authenticity’ in learning. Active Learning in Higher Education. 19(1), pp. 9-21.

UK Quality Code, Advice and Guidance: Assessment (2024).
  Available at: https://www.qaa.ac.uk/quality-code/advice-and-guidance/assessment [accessed 01.05.24]