Help students to help themselves: developing assessment literacy For students to reach their potential, they need to able to navigate the complex world of assessment through becoming assessment literate. Developing assessment literacy means more than becoming a strategic student, it provides a gateway to further learning. Put simply a student who understands the nature and purposes of assessment and assessment standards can be a more effective learner in their chosen subject. Higher education often fails to recognise this and assumes that students need no help in understanding and working within our assessment processes. This class advocates the need to develop student assessment literacy and looks at practical approaches to doing this.
Participants will be invited to consider key stages of the assessment cycle from task design to feedback and examine techniques which they could use to support the development of assessment literacy. Issues of staff time, resources and success factors will be discussed and materials to support staff and students introduced.
Who the Masterclass is aimed at? The Masterclass will offer practical techniques for use within modules, will look at the value of programme perspective and address the value of assessment literacy as a strategic imperative. Consequently it will appeal to:
- Teachers
- Programme leaders
- Leaders of learning and teaching
What delegates should gain out of attending? Participants will understand the nature of assessment literacy, what it is and why it is important. They will develop insight into how to develop assessment literacy and which techniques to use, how and when. Most importantly, it is expected that they will be inspired by taking a new perspective on supporting student learning.
Prof. Margaret Price
Margaret Price is Professor of Assessment and Learning and leads the ASKe Pedagogy Research Centre. www.brookes.ac.uk/aske
She is a researcher with strong roots in the practice of teaching and assessment and was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in June 2002 in recognition of her excellence in teaching and contribution to the development of learning, teaching and assessment in Higher Education.
In 2005, HEFCE awarded funding for the ASKe Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning following a bid that drew strongly on a body of work developed by Margaret and a small group of colleagues around the nature of assessment standards and student learning. This has led to a focus on Assessment Literacy, the subject of a book recently published written by Margaret and colleagues.
She is also known for her work on assessment feedback for students having developed and led research projects and initiatives to take fresh perspectives on how to make feedback more effective and valued. One output of this work is an edited collection produced, with colleagues, on reconceptualising feedback.
Margaret is involved in a wide range of research and development of practice projects at a national and international level. For example: she worked with The Higher Education Academy to develop and pilot ‘A Marked Improvement: Transforming assessment in higher education’, an initiative that is based on the ASKe Assessment Standards Manifesto; she has been a visiting scholar at University of Sydney and Hong Kong University; and she is an advisor on projects at institutions in Scandinavia and the UK. She seeks to encourage innovation and foster evidence-based assessment practice within the HE sector.
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