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Dai Hounsell, University of Edinburgh |
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KEYNOTE ABSTRACT
Assessment and Evaluation for Real World Learning
Assessing-for-Learning in Multiple Worlds
Against a background of wide-ranging change and development in how university students are assessed, this keynote presentation reappraises contemporary assessment practices. Surveying these practices, it explores to what extent these practices seem to prepare students for life and learning in the multiple worlds to be found within and beyond the university The presentation draws on findings and insights from three recent projects: a review of the literature on innovative assessment across the subject range; a set of guides to achieving greater integration and coherence in assessment; and a study of contrasting patterns of assessment across a university's departments and faculties. Themes explored include the down- and upsides of diversity in assessment; the paradox of subject distinctiveness; and where the assessment-for-learning disparities between the academy and the worlds beyond it are at their most acute.
Dai Hounsell is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Edinburgh, which he joined in 1985 as founding Director of the University's Centre for Teaching, Learning and Assessment. In addition to coordinating a large-scale research project 'Enhancing Teaching-Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses', he has just completed two new projects: a set of guides to Integrative Assessment, commissioned as part of the Enhancement Themes programme in Scottish Universities, and an analytical review of the literature on innovative assessment across the disciplines in UK higher education, funded by the Higher Education Academy. He has also just embarked on the second phase of an ongoing project which is taking an evidence-based approach to reviewing and enhancing assessment across a single university. He was until recently a coordinating editor of the international journal Higher Education, and has published widely on student and staff experiences of learning and teaching, formative assessment and feedback to students in higher education, and evaluation of courses and teaching. He has also advised research groups in the UK, South Africa, Sweden, Norway and Australia.
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