Student involvement, assessment and the production of a university experience

Dr Richard Hall

t: @hallymk1 e: rhall1@dmu.ac.uk

Context: how is assessment-in-HE framed?

Disruption: what is the role of assessment in a world that is being increasingly disrupted?

Student-as-producer: what are the roles of students in overcoming disruption?

assessment for learning

knowing rather than knowledge

some context

DBIS on academic governance and assessment

2.2.48 There were also concerns about the perceived de-coupling of teaching and assessment through the awarding of DAPs to non-teaching bodies. Many respondents felt that this would weaken the crucial link between teaching and research, to the detriment of the student experience. However, others welcomed the proposal to award DAPs to non-teaching bodies, which they felt would increase choice for colleges requiring validation and remove a long-standing anomaly from the system.

DBIS. 2012. Government response to ‘Students at the heart of the system’. http://bit.ly/N2RXyM

Criterion B2 of the technical consultation.

The applicant organisation will be required to provide evidence that:

the regulatory framework governing its higher education provision (covering, for example, student admissions, progress, assessment, appeals and complaints) is appropriate to its current status and is implemented fully and consistently; and

it has in prospect a regulatory framework appropriate for the granting of its own higher education awards.

DBIS. 2012. Government response to ‘A new regulatory framework for the HE sector’. http://bit.ly/r40D3s

DBIS on academic governance and assessment

http://bit.ly/rNNfyH

http://bit.ly/KTHqPT

JISC. 2012. Crossing the Threshold. http://bit.ly/Nyg81J

http://bit.ly/LFkozw

http://bit.ly/MdMPES

1. Variations in practice

2. Audit/monitoring/scale versus variation

3. Impact of the academic calendar on sequencing, feed-back and forward

4. Space and time for development and innovation

5. Work-based learning and assessment

6. <me> the role of for-profits <me>

“opportunities for students to engage with assessment design and the process of making academic judgements appears to be limited at present”

JISC. 2012. A View of the Assessment and Feedback Landscape. http://bit.ly/LkxraX

http://bit.ly/LFkozw

1. Sector-wide structures/governance of LTA

2. The management of complexity in recording achievement and analysing/commodifying the assessment process

3. Scale and resource efficiencies vs academic cultures

4. The role of students in the assessment process

5. Mechanics vs relationships: knowledge vs knowing

disruption

TUC (2009): http://bit.ly/iivVTO

http://bit.ly/owE2zW

1. There is a strong correlation between energy use and GDP.

2. Global energy demand is on the rise yet oil supply is forecast to decline in the next few years.

3. There is no precedent for oil discoveries to make up for the shortfall, nor is there a precedent for efficiencies to relieve demand on this scale.

4. Energy supply looks likely to constrain growth.

5. Global emissions currently exceed the IPCC 'marker' scenario range. The Climate Change Act 2008 has made the -80%/2050 target law, yet this requires a national mobilisation akin to war-time.

6. Probably impossible but could radically change the direction of HE in terms of skills required and spending available.

7. We need to talk about this.

in the most developed and the emerging economies unsustainable consumption must be urgently reduced. This will entail scaling back or radical transformation of damaging material consumption and emissions and the adoption of sustainable technologies.

At present, consumption is closely linked to economic models based on growth. Decoupling economic activity from material and environmental throughputs is needed urgently.

Changes to the current socio-economic model and institutions are needed to allow both people and the planet to flourish by collaboration as well as competition during this and subsequent centuries. This requires farsighted political leadership concentrating on long term goals.

Royal Society. 2012. People and Planet. http://bit.ly/IF77EJ

“At the heart of it all is a new sociological type: the graduate with no future”.

Paul Mason. 2010. why it is kicking off everywhere

“student debt, in its prevalence and amounts, constitutes a pedagogy, unlike the humanistic lesson that the university traditionally proclaims, of privatization and the market.”

Jeffrey J. Williams, “Tactics against Debt”: http://bit.ly/fQvP8N

Student-as-producer

The Student as Producer project re-engineers the relationship between research and teaching. This involves a reappraisal of the relationship between academics and students, with students becoming part of the academic project of universities rather than consumers of knowledge.

“The educator is no longer a delivery vehicle and the institution becomes a landscape for the production and construction of a mass intellect in commons.”

Neary and Winn. 2009. The student as producer: http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/1675/

collaborative relations – teaching and research networks;

refashioning in fundamental ways the nature of the university;

redesign the organizing principle, (i.e. private property and wage labour), through which academic knowledge is currently being produced;

open, collaborative initiatives.

Neary and Winn (2009). The student as producer: http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/1675/

an ending of sorts

1. Sector-wide structures/governance of LTA

2. The management of complexity in recording achievement and analysing/commodifying the assessment process

3. Scale and resource efficiencies vs academic cultures

4. The role of students in the assessment process

What might be the role of integrative, formative assessment for learning?

How might we design assessments with students that are designed for knowing?

for learning or knowing

• Complexity and increasing uncertainty in the world demands resilience

• Integrated and social, rather than a subject-driven

• Engaging with uncertainty through projects that involve diverse voices in civil action

• Discourses of power – co-governance; co-production?

• Authentic partnerships, mentoring and enquiry, in method, context, interpretation and action

• How does our assessment experience inform resilience and our work at scale?

Futures: knowing in public

Principle 1: educational futures work should aim to challenge assumptions rather than present definitive predictions.

Principle 2: the future is not determined by its technologies.

Principle 3: thinking about the future always involves values and politics.

Principle 4: education has a range of responsibilities that need to be reflected in any inquiry into or visions of its future.

Facer and Sandford. 2010. The next 25 years? http://bit.ly/LtOWFl

Are there other ways of assessing knowing [as opposed to the knowledge economy]?

What authority does HE/do universities have in a disrupted world?

What does a pedagogy of production mean for fomative practices?

How can student voices help in the struggle to re-invent the world?

GlobalHigherEd. 2010. A question (about universities, global challenges, and an organizational-ethical dilemma). http://bit.ly/b8uGpz

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