Supporting programmes in the Design Stage of Validation and Revalidation Thursday 21 May 2015 Academic Quality and Development
Supporting programmes in the Design Stage of Validation and Revalidation
Thursday 21 May 2015
Academic Quality and Development
Plan for our time together
1. Introductions2. Designing for innovation in Learning,
Teaching, and Assessment 3. The process of Validation and
Revalidation 4. Curriculum planning with staff and
students5. Questions and discussion
The plan
1. Design –the creative stage, where programmes can step back and reflect on what they want to offer/how they have delivered their programme. Everything can be up for grabs at this stage, and this is the chance to work with students in transforming the student experience. The time for TESTA. You may also wish to consider the value of other consultants.
2. Development – this is when matters get slightly more concrete. Documents are produced for Faculty and QMO scrutiny. The creative, design stage of the process is expressed in paper form.
3. Approval – this is clustered around the Event and subsequent Senate ADC approval of the Re/Validation Document.
Assessment and feedback: a story of lost connections…
Why joining the dots matters for student learning• I always find myself going to the library and going ‘These are the
books related to this essay’ and that’s it.
• It’s difficult because your assignments are so detached from the next one you do for that subject. They don’t relate to each other.
• Because it’s at the end of the module, it doesn’t feed into our future work.
• I read it and think “Well, that’s fine but I’ve already handed it in now and got the mark. It’s too late”.
Principles
1. Assessment drives what students pay attention to, and defines the actual curriculum (Ramsden 1992).
2. Feedback is the single most influential factor in student learning (Hattie 2009).
3. Programme is vital: “Assessment innovations at the individual module level often fail to address assessment problems at the programme-level” (Gibbs 2013)
www.testa.ac.uk
Approaches to Learning (Marton and Saljo (1976)
• Meaning• Concepts• Active learning• Evidence• Argument• Connections• Relationship new and
previous knowledge• Real-world learning
Surface• Formulaic• Focused on memorising
content• Receiving info passively• Inability to distinguish
principles from examples• Treating modules as
silos• Not seeing connections
Deep
TESTA Research Methodology
ASSESSMENT EXPERIENCEQUESTIONNAIRE
FOCUS GROUPS
PROGRAMME AUDIT
Programme Team
Meeting
Case Study
Common issues from TESTA
1. High summative, low formative2. Satellite marking standards 3. Fragmented assessment, fragmented
learning4. Compartmentalisation5. Feedback doesn’t feed-forward
Unintended consequences of the modular system• Proliferation of
summative tasks• Assessment arms
race• Episodic and
piecemeal feedback• It’s a programme
design issue…
Solutions 101: Feedback as a dialogue
1. Conversation starter: What feedback would you like on your work?
2. Joining the dots between feedback: the cyclical cover sheet
3. Peer feedback and self-reflection ‘inner dialogue’
Solutions 102: Ideas for internalising understanding of criteria
1. Induction into academic processes: show, evaluate and discuss examples
2. Criteria crunching – rewrite in your own words.
3. Co-production of criteria4. Marking exercises with criteria and dialogue5. Calibration workshops with whole teams
Solutions 103:Ideas for assessment for learning1. Multi-stage – formative to summative2. Integrated assessments – exams, projects
and big beasts which cross modules3. Authentic assessment tasks which involve
collaboration, reflection and production of ‘real world’ outputs and artefacts (journal articles, podcasts, videos, presentations, posters etc)
Programme Focused Assessment
• See www.pass.brad.ac.ukPFA• seeks to assess programme learning outcomes rather than
solely modular learning outcomes; • shifts summative assessment away from the modular level to
the programme level; • seeks to combat the ‘modularisation’ of learning and
assessment by encouraging integrated means of assessment for learning.
Programme Focused Assessment
Benefits of PFA:•If summative assessment is confined to separate modules there is a risk of ‘over-assessment’. •Modularisation can lead to the fragmentation of student learning and staff teaching. •Modularisation inhibits ‘slow’ or ‘deep’ learning. Students are encouraged to think ‘across’ modules.
The process of validation and revalidation
• The paper process is there to support designing for excellence and innovation;
• Role of FADC and Panel scrutiny;• The Event itself: role of the presentation
and all the team;• Role of Senate ADC; • Outcomes following the Event.
The process of validation and revalidation • See:https://intranet.winchester.ac.uk/information-
bank/quality-office/Documents/Forms/all.aspx?View={C2FC2804-174B-435B-9712-D512580DCD32}&FilterField1=TaxKeyword&FilterValue1=Programme%20Approval&InitialTabId=Ribbon%2EDocument&VisibilityContext=WSSTabPersistence
Any questions?
• Dr Tansy Jessop, Head of L&[email protected]• Dr Stuart Sims, Research and Teaching Fellow
(Student Engagement)[email protected]• Jan Gibson, Quality Officer (Validations and Reviews)[email protected]• Dr Angus Paddison, Director of Academic Quality and