Stuart Hepplestone is running a number of sessions at next week’s University Assessment Week (30 April – 3 May 2012). The sessions that Stuart will be facilitating are designed to be a mix of both practical hands-on and provide opportunities for discussion with colleagues about their experiences and generate ideas for the application of technology to support assessment and feedback, especially around using technical approaches to encourage student engagement with feedback.

See the full programme and details of how to book. The sessions that Stuart will be leading (or joint facilitating) are:

Using e-learning technologies to facilitate effective feedback practices
Tuesday 1 May, 13:00-14:00, Harmer 2230
Drawing upon widely established principles, as well as the University’s own principles and protocols for Feedback on Assessment, this session aims to identify the appropriate use of e-learning technologies to support assessment and feedback. The ideas generated in the session will be taken forward to inform course planning.

Visualising Assessment in Curriculum Design and Review
Wednesday 2 May, 13:00-14:00, Harmer 2230
This workshop will consider the design of good practice assessment and the benefits of using visualisation tools. It will also ask whether the visualisation of assessment can help to engage students more formatively in assessment. An electronic tool capable of displaying assessment patterns will be introduced and compared with a more tactile approach to support collaborative design. The session will be useful for those with responsibility for designing and reviewing courses keen to find ways to facilitate design conversations.

Giving feedback on exams
Thursday 3 May, 10:00-11:00, Harmer 2230
“Would you like to receive feedback on your exams?” 90% of students said “Yes!” Currently only 12% receive written comments and 9% verbal feedback. This session creates an opportunity to explore how we can develop good practice in this area.

Changes to Assignment submission in Blackboard
Thursday 3 May, 13:00-14:00, Howard 5222
This summer the Blackboard online submission tool will change from SHU Assignments to the default Assignment tool in Blackboard to exploit current and future enhancements to Blackboard’s online submission, grading and feedback features. In this session you will find out about the transition, the key changes, and how the Assignment tool’s functionality can be used to enhance the submission, grading and feedback of assignments for both you and your students.

Innovating together – or not: addressing barriers to implementing good practice
Thursday 3 May, 16:00-17:00, Harmer 2230
A session for faculty LTA leaders to discuss and compare strategic approaches to ongoing development in the areas of assessment and feedback and how barriers to innovation can be removed. Colleagues engaging in marking electronically and providing online feedback reported at a recent Roundtable development session that their attempts to meet student needs, whilst appreciated by students, were stifled by a lack of buy-in from the teaching team or because University admin systems were not flexible enough to accommodate change to processes. This session will discuss barriers to innovative good practice and how the University can prepare the way to ensure success.

You might also be interested in:
Experiences of electronic assessment and feedback
Thursday 3 May, 12:00-13:00, Harmer 2230
This session (led by Alison Purvis, HWB) will take a practical look at managing electronic assessment and feedback. Alison will share her experiences of modules that have entirely electronic assessment and feedback

If you are unable to attend, but are interested in any of the sessions listed above, please contact Stuart Hepplestone, as he will be happy to negotiate running these for your subject or course team.