An evidence-based model to enhance programme-wide assessment using technology: TESTA to FASTECH
This session will provide evidence from a collaborative project between four universities about how students respond to whole programme assessment patterns. Using a triangulated method which includes a programme audit, Gibbs’ Assessment Experience Questionnaire, and focus groups with final year students, evidence demonstrates that programme assessment patterns:
(a) do not capture and distribute student effort;
(b) do not provide adequate quantity and quality of feedback which students act on to improve their work; and
(c) do not help students to develop a ‘nose’ for quality.
The overview of TESTA (Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment) evidence will include interactive elements based on case study findings from the original project. Building on these findings, the session will develop a model for addressing common programme-wide assessment and feedback challenges using the three key principles of fast, efficient and effective technologies.
In a newly funded JISC project called FASTECH, baseline data from TESTA programmes will be used at Bath Spa University and the University of Winchester in building up to 33 programme teams to identify and implement relevant and targeted technologies for particular programme-wide and discipline-related issues. These technologies need to be fast (easy to learn and apply); efficient (saving lecturers and students time); and effective (promoting learning from assessment and feedback).
The session will propose a process for identifying fast, efficient and effective technologies, drawing on participants’ knowledge, skills and experience.
Presenters
Tansy Jessop
Tansy Jessop is a Senior Fellow in Learning and Teaching at the University of Winchester. She leads the TESTA National Teaching Fellowship Project funded by the HEA, and is the lead researcher for FASTECH, a JISC project on technology enhanced assessment. Her PhD research was on teacher development in rural primary schools in South Africa. She has been a researcher for 15 years, working as a consultant for the British Council, UK Department for International Development, and Mandela Foundation, in India, Palestine and South Africa. Since 2005, she has worked in Higher Education, and has published on social research methods, the minority ethnic student experience, learning spaces and assessment (in press).
Paul Hyland
Professor Paul Hyland NTF is Head of Learning and Teaching at Bath Spa University, with responsibility for the design and attainment of learning and teaching strategies, staff development and pedagogical research. He is the Project Leader of FASTECH, a JISC funded project about enhancing assessment and feedback using technology. He has been a Head of School, leader of national/international research and development projects and activities such as CETL and FDTL, Director of History in the HEA’s Subject Centre, and is a founding member of ISSoTL. His pedagogical publications include ‘Learning from Feedback on Assessment’ (2000).
Yaz El-Hakim
Yaz El Hakim is Director of Learning and Teaching at University of Winchester, and a member of SEDA’s Executive Committee. As a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology he has working with coaches and athletes at all levels of the sporting world, from grass roots to commonwealth athletes. After his appointment as Director L&T in 2007 he has co-led TESTA (ongoing), and was the institutional lead for JISC’s Co-genT and Benefits Realisation projects. His research interests are in the ways that technology can be used to enhance learning, teaching and assessment and in
HE leadership and the change process; the field of study for his EdD at Southampton University.
Facilitator
Mark Russell
Mark Russell has been working in Higher Education for 16 years. He is an Engineer by background with disciplinary interests in the thermal and fluid sciences. This area of interest includes simulations and computer programming. In addition to his subject related interests and interests relating to engineering education, Mark has developed expertise relating to learning and assessment. Indeed, Mark's PhD was in the area of technology-enhanced educative assessment.
Mark won the Times Higher E-tutor of the year (2003), is a National Teaching Fellow (2005) and directed the JISC funded 'Effecting Sustainable Change in Assessment Practice and Experience (ESCAPE)' project. Mark will now direct the JISC funded 'Integrating Technologies for Enhanced Assessment Methods
(ITEAM)' project, a project that has an institutional remit and one that also seeks to develop students' awareness and self-regulation.
Mark Russell is Professor of Learning and Assessment in Higher Education at the University of Hertfordshire.
