The aim of the Project
The aim of this project was to develop an effective method for the co-design of assessment, and to apply this to a series of disparate units.聽The co-creation of unit assessments based on the principles of 鈥榖ackward design鈥� was the title of an exploratory workshop, extending over a weekend in which students and staff from across three culturally distinct faculties designed a series of summative assessments for each other鈥檚 units.聽Students have a unique and valuable part to play in design for teaching and learning in general, and in assessment design in particular.聽It is, after all, students who must process, respond to, and undertake the assessments that staff determine. Students, if given the opportunity, will express insights about particular assessments, but such feedback is often too piecemeal, and too late, to make any immediate impact on the teaching and learning.
What happened
The workshop was held in early May 2017. 鈥淟ively discussion, some fresh thinking, and some creative ideas鈥� is how the session was summed-up by Richard Wallis, one of the joint-PIs, in . Staff and students were drawn from three of the University鈥檚 faculties: Science & Technology,听Health & Social Sciences, and聽Media & Communication.聽The workshop was led by Ashley Woodfall, who began the session by explaining the 鈥榖ackwards鈥� approach being taken (): 鈥榳e want you to look at the aims of a unit, then to consider what a student is expected to know, to do, and to understand, before moving forward to look at the assessment鈥� he explains.聽Students worked in small groups, and examined a number of unit specifications drawn from programmes across the three represented faculties.聽In each case, they began with the unit鈥檚 ILOs, and were not shown the exisiting assessment tasks.聽This process is illustrated by two brief case studies, one from an HSS programme, and the other from a SciTech programme (; and ).
Lessons to be learned
Our approach to curriculum/assessment design and delivery warrants critical and creative examination. By sharing details of this project (and having engaged a group of Media Production students to film the event), we hope to contribute to the search for more coherent and strategic approaches to student involvement within assessment design. Whilst the goals of our units are mostly non-negotiable and pre-determined (with ILOs normally enshrined in our validated programme specifications) our assessments are (generally) entirely flexible.聽 That is what makes this aspect of our teaching and learning ripe for experimentation.聽There were many lessons that we, as staff, took away from the workshop ().聽We discovered, for example, how little our student collaborators (all highly motivated, and engaged) had previously understood the systematic approach taken to curriculum design generally. Something as straightforward (to us) as understanding the necessary correlation between ILOs and Assessment Critieria, came as a revelation to many ().聽It was also clear that there was no single approach to an exercise of this kind that could be universally applied to all programmes.聽There is no one size that would fit all.聽Rather, what became clear is that, when invited, students can play a key role in this aspect of curriculum design.聽And when we make the time and space to engage them in this way, it can be a powerful and positive experience for everyone.
The staff team for this project was: Fiona Cusack;听; ;听 (joint PI); and (joint PI). 聽