Assessment Workstream
This workstream was led by Dr Miriam Firth - if you have any queries or would like to chat about the Assessment workstream, please do get in touch with her.
Flexibility within the curriculum is a key consideration within models of flexible learning, and the Assessment workstream focused on exploring this flexibility specifically within assessment. There were a number of projects and pilots within this workstream, which sought to identify opportunities for increased flexibility for formative (continuous) and summative (periodic) assessment for our flexible pathways. While the focus in this workstream was on flexible learning for flexible learning pathways, the outputs from this workstream are also of use for on campus programmes and assessments.
Governance
The Governance group for the Assessment workstream consisted of the following members:
- Workstream Lead / Comms and EDI Lead: Miriam Firth
- Project Leads: Frances Hooley (AI) and Miriam Firth (Optionality)
- Technology Workstream Lead: Caroline Bowsher
- Academic Leads:
- Assessment for the Future – Andrew Horn
- Institute for Teaching and Learning – Hannah Cobb
- Manchester Institute of Education – Taslima Ivy
- Curriculum Reform Group member – Andy Brass
- eLearning Leads: Helen Perkins and Dan Jaeger
- Education Development: Sian Yeowell
- Division of Student Experience: Janine Holdway
- Faculty Academic Leads:
- Biology, Medicine and Health – Helen Jopling
- Environment, Education and Development – Louisa Dawes
- Science and Engineering – Charles Walkden
- Humanities – Chris Godden
- Library: Jennie Blake
- UMSU: Emily Turvey
- Theme Project Manager: Hannah Brown
- Secretary: Samantha Ward
- Student representative: Theo Abbott (read our student partner blog about working on the Assessment workstream here!)
Collaboration with the Institute for Teaching and Learning and Assessment for the Future was crucial to our governance, and we regularly reported to these groups internally.
Governance meeting one-pagers:
Every month, our Student Partner for Assessment created a one-page document to update on the activity being completed to support Assessment for Flexible Pathways. You can find the past updates here:
Completed projects
- Optionality in Assessment: A Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) funded project in collaboration with York, Imperial and UCL to explore the feasibility and practicality of assessment optionality – a novel practice, which provides students with greater choice around how they are assessed.
- AI in Assessment: A one year research project to explore aspects of the use of AI in assessment and provide strategic advice to FLP and SLT and future directions of travel
- Report on assessment data at UoM: A report outlining data on existing assessment practices to baseline measure future assessment change against.
- What is distinctive about assessment for our Flexible Learners: Working with students currently on flexible courses to answer whether there is anything distinctive and to help shape future offerings.
Projects currently in progress
- Assessment Toolkit: A one-stop-shop for all staff and students' assessment support needs. View our roadmap for this project here.
- In addition to these, we are actively seeking internal pilot proposals to investigate and support Assessment for Flexible Pathways.
Our Governance group are also commissioning research papers to support Assessment for Flexible Pathways, to ensure our projects and pilots are founded upon existing knowledge and practice, in order to identify positive change or improvements which can be made in this area.
Once pilots and projects complete they will feed into a new Flexible Learning Assessment Toolkit, which will be available on our Institute of Teaching and Learning web pages.