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&TTansy.Jessop@winchester.ac.uk• Dr Stuart Sims, Research and Teaching Fellow

(Student Engagement)Stuart.Sims@winchester.ac.uk• Jan Gibson, Quality Officer (Validations and Reviews)Jan.Gibson@winchester.ac.uk• Dr Angus Paddison, Director of Academic Quality and

DevelopmentAngus.Paddison@winchester.ac.uk