With acknowledgement of the OLT Project team members who taught me some of these techniques: Pamela Allen; Joy Wallace; Jennifer Clark; Adrian Jones; Lynette Sheridan Burns; Bronwyn Cole

What do you want your students to know and be able to do? What difficulties might they experience in learning what you want them to know? How can you use assessment to help them learn, challenge them and support them?

Is first year assessment different to assessment in other years? Introduction to the discipline Social dimension Different from school Introduction to university Students may be unsure Don’t know how to manage their time

What do you want your students to know and be able to do? What difficulties might they experience in learning what you want them to know? How can you use assessment to help them learn, challenge them and support them?

Threshold concepts in your discipline/subject Significant concept/s that students need to learn to understand the discipline or way of thinking in the discipline Potential to transform students’ thinking Possibly troublesome to students Needed to understand in order to cope with other aspects of the discipline or subject (integrative) Meyer & Land, 2005

Think of a threshold concept in your discipline or subject area (one that you would want students to learn in first year) Significant, transformative, troublesome, integrative

What do you want your students to know and be able to do? What difficulties might they experience in learning what you want them to know? How can you use assessment to help them learn, challenge them and support them?

Why do students find that concept troublesome? Is it is inherently difficult? Is it that the students just don’t get it? Do students just need to think more? Is it is difficult to explain? Is it something that you take for granted? Is it something that is tacit knowledge?

One person act as the expert Others interview Break down into steps or parts As an expert – how do you do it?

How can you explicitly model how to do the task to students?

What do you want your students to know and be able to do? What difficulties might they experience in learning what you want them to know? How can you use assessment to help them learn, challenge them and support them?

“Assessment is a central feature of teaching and the curriculum. It powerfully frames how students learn and what students achieve. It is one of the most significant influences on students’ experience of higher education and all that they gain from it. The reason for an explicit focus on improving assessment practice is the huge impact it has on the quality of learning”. (Boud and Associates, 2010)

How can we use assessment to help them practise the task and ensure that they have learnt it? We will come to that later First a bit of theoretical background We will come to that later First a bit of theoretical background

Academic Experience Engagement Social Experience Empowerment / Self regulation (Nicol, 2009, p.19)

A A Academic Experience Engagement Social Experience Empowerment / Self regulation (Nicol, 2009, p.19)

First year assessment - Academic Engagement Help clarify what good performance is Encourage time and effort on challenging tasks Ensure ALL assessment (including summative assessment) helps students to learn Deliver quality feedback that students will understand (and that will motivate them) Put in place opportunities to act on that feedback How should we use the early assessment task in first year to achieve some of this? Based on Nicoll, 2009, Shield, 2015

A A Academic Experience Engagement Social Experience Empowerment / Self regulation (Nicol, 2009, p.19)

First year assessment - Social engagement Encourage interaction between students in preparing for assessment (does this have to be group assessment?) Encourage discussion of assessment and learning between teacher and student (two- way interaction) Support the establishment of learning communities among students Based on Nicoll, 2009

How can we use assessment to help them practise the threshold concept and ensure that they have learnt it? Academic Experience Engagement Social Experience Empowerment / Self regulation (Nicol, 2009, p.19)

So now you probably have designed an assessment task that has a lot of “scaffolding” How can we empower our students?

Academic Experience Engagement Social Experience Empowerment / Self regulation (Nicol, 2009, p.19)

First year assessment – academic empowerment Encourage positive motivational beliefs and self esteem (Shield, 2015) Facilitate reflection and self-assessment in learning Help them learn to judge their own work Feed forward – use feedback from one assessment task for the next Ask students to reflect on feedback and how they have used it Give choice in assessment Involve learners in decisions about assessment practices Based on Nicoll, 2009 Shields, S. (2015). ‘My work is bleeding’: exploring students’ emotional responses to first-year assignment feedback

1. What is a bottleneck to learning in class? 2. How does an expert do these things? 3. How can these tasks be explicitly modelled? 4. How will students practise these skills and get feedback? 5. What will motivate the students? 6. How well are students mastering the learning tasks? Decoding the Disciplines Methodology Middendorf & Pace, 2004 Decoding the Disciplines Methodology Middendorf & Pace, 2004 References

Bearman, M., Dawson, P., Boud, D., Hall, M., Bennett, S., Molloy, E. & Joughin, G. (2014). Guide to the assessment design decisions framework. Retrieved from Assessment-Design-Decisions-Framework.pdf Assessment-Design-Decisions-Framework.pdf Boud and Associates (2010). Assessment 2020: Seven propositions for assessment reform in higher education. Sydney: Asturalian Learning and Teaching Council. Retrieved from Land, R, Rattray, J. & Vivian, P. (2014). Learning in the limnal space: a semiotic approach to threshold concepts. Higher Education, 67, Meyer, J.H.F. & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher Education, 49, Middendorf, J. and D. Pace (2004) ‘Decoding the disciplines: Helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking’, New Directions for Teaching and Learning Nicol, D. (2009). Transforming assessment and feedback: enhancing integration and empowerment in the first year. Scottish Enhancement Themes, Quality Assurance Agency: Mansfield, Scotland. Shields, S. (2015). ‘My work is bleeding’: exploring students’ emotional responses to first-year assignment feedback. Teaching in Higher Education, 20(6),