Assessment and Feedback: A Co-Design Adventure
Authors: Nic Labrosse, Madeleine Heideman, Danai Kasselaki, Rosaria Lena & David Millar
The COVID-19 pandemic forced a rapid shift in education delivery and, along with it, new ways of thinking about assessment and feedback. We found ourselves presented with both challenges and exciting new opportunities to create more authentic and inclusive learning experiences. This SOTL Advent Calendar entry focuses on a Student-Staff Partnership (SSP) project in the School of Physics and Astronomy, and its mission to explore the potential of co-designing assessment and feedback within quantitative disciplines.
One of the core drivers behind our project was the recognition that traditional, high-stakes assessment methods, often relying heavily on final written exams, might not be the most inclusive or effective way to gauge or promote student understanding. We saw the potential for greater diversity in assessment methods, particularly in honours and masters level courses. This led us to embark on a journey of co-creation, bringing together staff and students to share their complementary expertise and knowledge, relying on open dialogue and evidence-based decision-making.
When co-designing the project, we’ve ensured we stayed aligned as closely as possible to the Learning Through Assessment framework. A key aspect for us is to introduce meaningful and inclusive assessment activities by reducing our reliance on single, end-of-course written examinations. The new assessment activities that we are designing can be used to provide formative feedback to students, allowing them to iteratively improve their understanding before summative assessments. In addition, these assessment activities can be implemented across different courses and levels, supporting programmatic assessment (where assessments are designed and organized across a programme rather than in isolation). Last but not least, we are committed to inclusivity and aim to create assessment and feedback opportunities that benefit all students.
It is worth noting that the LTA framework highlights the importance of collaboration and co-creation between staff and students in designing and implementing assessment and feedback practices. This approach ensures that assessments are aligned with student needs and expectations and that feedback is meaningful and actionable. Finally, we aim to ensure that marking criteria are clear, assessment arrangements are fair, and timely and constructive feedback is provided to students. This further supports students and staff developing assessment and feedback literacy, ultimately enhancing teaching and learning.
A truly collaborative approach underpinned our project. The first phase involved eight students who had experience as class representatives and were passionate about learning and teaching. The staff team brought expertise in assessment design, inclusivity, and broader learning and teaching practices. The team functioned effectively with fortnightly meetings, and ensured accountability through weekly check-ins. This dynamic, partnered approach ensured that the student voice was heard and all perspectives were considered.
In its first phase, our project focused on eight representative courses at honours and masters levels where continuous assessment could be integrated. The diverse student body in these courses meant that the project had to prioritize inclusivity in its approach. Recognizing that diverse students could be disproportionately affected by assessment design flaws, we aimed to create assessments that were meaningful and inclusive for all. This commitment was reflected in our methodology, gathering data through surveys and interviews, taking care to avoid bias and to give participants a comprehensive understanding of the implications of continuous assessment before asking for their opinions.
Building on the foundations laid in the initial phase of the project, the second phase sought to implement and evaluate the co-created assessment activities. This second phase, focusing on two specific (and rather technical) courses at honours level, aims to develop detailed assessment activities and resources for direct implementation by lecturers.
The co-design process in this phase involved:
- Applying to the College’s Ethics Committee for approval to survey staff and students.
- Drawing upon the findings from the previous project, as well as resources like the University’s Learning Through Assessment framework and JISC’s Principles of good assessment and feedback.
- Co-creating assessment activities, marking criteria, and feedback formats.
- Developing specific activities, including online quizzes and a JupyterHub interactive notebook.
- Implementing the new assessment activities formatively and conducting evaluations through surveys and a student focus group.
This is where we’re at – so watch out for future updates with results from the evaluations that we are currently running!
Implementing staff/student co-creation in assessment: An academic developer’s perspective
Authors: Danielle Durham & Christopher Bateman
We have lift off! Creative strategies for launching staff-student partnerships in SoTL
Authors: Linnea Soler, Smita Odedra, Josh Hylands & Francesca Scott
Background
Each year, we explore new ways to onboard our final-year BSc Hons chemistry project students to a ChemEd (DBER) / SoTL project with the aim of enhancing understanding of the topic and to bring in their personal voice thereby helping our co-creation aspect of their research project. Our students undertake these projects as part of a credit-bearing course running over the academic year from end of September to early March.
In previous years, when we have had overlapping themes between our student projects, we have asked our students to collaborate to produce a resource such as a poster or a Powerpoint presentation where we ask them to explain concepts core to SoTL / ChemEd and related to their project. Not only does this facilitate learning but it also supports community building. Last year, our project students co-created a HTML5 interactive resource (Shared in the SoTL Advent ’23 entitled “Creative Pedagogies: a student-staff exploration of underpinning concepts” ). They reported that this approach was very effective, and they received positive feedback on their creation from the SoTL community.
This year we (the co-supervisors) decided to take a new approach to launching our project partnerships. This involved a series of structured creative and reflective exercises for our two students (Francesca and Josh). Each activity was undertaken independently – this was essential due to the distinctive nature of their two projects – and followed by shared discussions in our group meetings.
Induction into SoTL projects
After agreeing to general topics of their projects which we had already brainstormed, exercise one involved undertaking reflective practice on the topics. By asking them to share their personal experiences of the topics, we aimed to establish their positionality from an early stage and ground our research aims in authentic student insights. We gave each of the students bespoke prompter questions to guide their reflections, aligning these with our prior knowledge of the topics, our awareness of our local institutional context, and our SoTL expertise. After this initial task, the students shared their reflections with us, and we discussed how this could shape the project aims and possible methodologies.
Based on this, exercise two required the students to do some initial reading and then lay out the key stages of the project as a vision board, created as a poster based on their understanding of the research task. Remember, this was only 1.5 weeks into term! Creation of a poster at this early stage was intended to help students develop an understanding of the overall structure of the requirements of a research project and allowed us to give bespoke guidance to clarify the stages of research and assessment timelines. Furthermore, for the students, it provided an opportunity to practise making posters and to develop presentation skills in advance of their official (summative assessment) poster presentation in February.
For exercise three we asked the students to reflect on the exercises so far, as well as to share their expectations of doing a ChemEd project, and whether they had any uncertainties about undertaking this kind of research. This helped to solidify our grasp of the project aims and to establish what the students needed from us. We recognise that it takes a significant mindset shift for scholars coming from a positivist chemistry background to undertake research in ChemEd / SoTL, which is why we wanted to build in plenty of opportunities for open discussions that could support this transition.
By centering the student voice in the project design from the outset and by creating a framework for understanding our students’ expectations and needs throughout this initial set of exercises, we have been able to establish a firm foundation from which, together, we can effectively move forward on our project partnerships and launch our studies.
Our students’ perspectives
Josh Hylands (BSc in Chemistry) created his initial “vision-board” poster on his project “Transitioning into HE Chemistry: exploring challenges through a geographical lens” . He shares his comments on this new on-boarding process:
“I am a fan of this research approach. The way the small tasks build up into something a lot bigger is very motivating. As well as this it gives you the freedom to do your own reading and research. It sort of feels like you’re doing extra work but in a good way. Being given the feedback weekly is very helpful, it helps to see where everyone’s head is at collectively on the project and provides extra motivation and guidance with the project week. Overall, I would encourage anyone to participate this type of research in the future.”
Francesca Scott (BSc in Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry) created her “vision-board” poster on her newly defined project “Exploring How Lived Experiences of Lecturers Inform Future Practice of Teaching in Chemistry Higher Education. She shares her thoughts on this novel approach to her project:
“The structured approach I took, starting with reflective exercises and a vision-board poster, was an excellent way to begin my dissertation journey. It gave me the chance to draw from my own experiences as a student, which made the project feel more personal and relevant. By visualising my ideas and mapping out my thoughts, I was able to organise my research process clearly and effectively. The initial reading, combined with regular support from my supervisors, provided a strong foundation and clear direction. Overall, this method not only reduced the overwhelm of starting a large project but also increased my confidence and sense of ownership over my research.”
Summary
We very much enjoyed this approach, and it gave us an opportunity to get to know our students better, helping us to shape the research projects to fit with all of our personal interests and thereby facilitating student-staff collaboration. Furthermore, this approach resulted in a swifter and deeper understanding of the materials and of the complexities of the research projects, at a much earlier stage in the academic year. There seems to be a stronger sense of ownership and understanding of the wider relevance of each project. This creative approach certainly helped us to launch our projects much more quickly, and with better understanding, than before. We are very excited to see where these co-created research projects will take us!
Festive video
Lead editor: Shaun Bremner-Hart
Editors: Louise Sheridan, Colin Mack & Edward Beggan