Leading Strategic Change in Assessment
Professor Lydia Arnold, Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning, Teaching and Digital) at Harper Adams University
In this workshop, participants will act as university leaders who make strategic choices regarding assessment change. Together, we will discuss how to make change happen! Much of the assessment literature is practitioner-led or rooted in educational development, but there is also a need for us to look at how we, as individuals, lead assessment change across our institutions.
This workshop will launch by sharing first-hand experiences of an assessment change project. It will share triumphs and tribulations from personal experience and findings from a formal project evaluation. Then it will be over to you! We will ask everyone in the room to make their plans for university change, particularly focusing on:
- What assessment principles would you prioritise when enacting a change programme?
- How will you implement these principles in course development at scale?
- Who needs to be involved in supporting assessment transformation to make sure that the change works in practice?
This session will allow us to focus on the hard choices and leadership approaches needed when transforming assessment. We will exchange insights about what to prioritise in assessment design and about the methods we might use to bring about change, debating what matters most. Through the group activities, we will draw attention to some of a university’s less-visible teams and functions that must be considered for change to be effective and sustainable. We will conclude by sharing our lessons learned to help us be effective agents of change.
Biography
Professor Lydia Arnold is Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning, Teaching and Digital) at Harper Adams University, where she leads curriculum development, professional development related to teaching, digital pedagogies, and the scholarship of learning and teaching. She is course leader for a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Supporting Learning, and scheme lead for her institutional Professional Standards Framework Scheme. She writes and speaks on various topics, including assessment, SoTL, AI in education, and action research. Lydia has a varied discipline background (which includes Mathematics, Geography and Education!). She is a Principal Fellow of AdvanceHE, National Teaching Fellow, and holds a Certified Membership of the Association for Learning Technology. She is active on social media and shares ideas through her long-established blog. All of her web presence links can be found at: https://linktr.ee/lydiaarnold
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