1. Assessment in Higher Education: Supporting students’ first experiences Rita Headington University of Greenwich

2. Context University of Greenwich, London, UK Degree in Primary Education with qualified teacher status 30 credit course on ‘Education and Professional Studies’ 120 first year students

3. The first assignment Into the unknown...alone! –What do I do? –How do I do it? –How will my work be judged? We give students –Assignment guidance –Systems and structures –Assessment criteria –Limited tutor contact And expect them to make sense of it all!

4. But! Prior experiences of assessment –Smaller groups –Closer relationship with tutor –Tutor initiates action –Able to submit multiple drafts –Feedback on the work in hand –Resubmission to improve grades –Flexible deadlines (Foster E, 2010)

5. Why a Joint Report? Social constructivist approach Joint learning → Joint assessment Course needed: –Well-paced content, skills and experiences –Regular formative feedback and feed- forward Students to research and write the report in pairs (Boud D and Falchikov N, 2007; Nicol D 2009) SCAFFOLDING ABLE OTHER BUILDING ON PRIOR LEARNING BUILDING ON PRIOR LEARNING PEER SUPPORT TUTOR SUPPORT BUILDING TRUST ENABLING INTERACTION MODELLING RESEARCH CULTURE

6. The students’ perspective Apprehension Learning together from online submissions Planning for the Joint Report Writing together Sharing the experience of writing, submission, receiving feedback and grades

7. Students’ evaluations The formative submissions were helpful in providing ongoing feedback from the tutor: Strongly disagree Strongly agree The summative submissions encouraged a deeper understanding of the course content: 2008-2009 (n=69) 1%20%60%17% 2009-2010 (n=86) 3.5%11.6%65.1%19.8% 2008-2009 (n=69) 1%9%59%28% 2009-2010 (n=86) 1.2%10.5%62.8%25.6%

8. Students’ evaluations 2009-2010 (n=86) DifficultOkayEasy Arranging to meet to work on the Joint Report was 25.6%40.7%33.7% Planning the assignment with another student was 20.0%45.9%34.1% Writing together was 20.9%45.3%33.7%

9. Tutors’ perspectives Identified potential ‘drop out’ at an early stage More formative feedback balanced by less summative marking Students’ work ‘more finished’ Magnified assignment quality Issue of non-engagement Possible solutions? –Groupings and expectations –Input from previous students –Quality + use of feedback and feed-forward