Sally Brown

500 Tips on Assessment

1. Putting assessment into context 2. Exams of various sorts 3. Specific assessment formats 4. Feedback and assessment 5. Involving students in their own assessment 6. Assessing group learning

Bringing about positive change in the higher education student experience: a case study

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to outline the ways in which staff of a post‐1992 UK university set about enhancing the student experience, at a time when the institution had poor student evaluations as demonstrated by the UK National Student Survey and other indicators. Using a range of interventions led by the PVC (Academic), a concerted effort is made to improve classroom teaching, assessment and feedback, and the ways in which actions taken in response to student feedback were reported back to students.Design/methodology/approach – The article reviews some of the literature available on the NSS and on bringing about changes in universities, and demonstrates how such approaches were put in place.Findings – Over a period of 18 months, it was possible to report significant changes in practice, resulting in demonstrable improvements, both in NSS scores and staff morale.Research limitations/implications – The article uses a reportage approach, describing the steps taken as part of an evidence‐info...

A community of practice in action: SEDA as a learning community for educational developers in higher education

The Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA) was formed in 1993 combining a number of predecessor organisations, including the Standing Conference for Educational Development and the Staff Development Group of the Society for Research in Higher Education. It was later joined by the membership of the Association of Educational Training Technology, SEDA Scotland and Flexible Learning in Higher Education. SEDA was set up to support members of the emergent profession of educational development, originally in the UK and subsequently internationally. In this article, the case is made that SEDA became a highly successful community of practice of individuals working in higher education institutions. It is proposed that features of communities of practice as proposed within the literature in the field can be evidenced in SEDA’s activities and in comments collected from SEDA members whose views were sought for this article.

The Challenges of Modularization

SUMMARY Higher education institutions (HEIs) are responding to the movement towards credit accumulation and transfer with varying degrees of enthusiasm and energy, and linked to this is a parallel series of developments towards modularization and semesterization. Some HEIs have highly developed and well advanced programmes of credit‐based modularity (PCFC, 1992), whereas others are just beginning to implement what we believe to be one of the most important and radical changes to affect higher education in recent years. This article is grounded in the experience of two universities which are currently moving towards modular schemes: the University of Northumbria at Newcastle and the University of Glamorgan. It uses a range of case studies based on actual experiences of colleagues in our own universities and those we have encountered in our workshops nationally. At the University of Northumbria, the term unitization is used to indicate that named routes are retained, whereas the term modularization is prefe...

Managing change in universities: a Sisyphean task?

Implementing change in higher education is complex and challenging and its results are difficult to measure. This article will argue that university senior management can make change happen but it is rarely straightforward and never easy. It reviews the ways in which leaders aiming to enhance practice can implement enhancement activities, providing examples from the point of view of a senior manager working in a large United Kingdom metropolitan university that was experiencing a number of challenges requiring immediate action.

What Are the Perceived Differences between Assessing at Masters Level and Undergraduate Level Assessment? Some Findings from an NTFS-Funded Project.

Assessment at Masters Level is the subject of a three-year UK National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS) project, ‘Assimilate’, which seeks to explore innovatory approaches in this field. More than 40 interviews were undertaken for the project with teachers at Masters level in the UK and internationally. Although national and institutional systems differentiate clearly in their documentation how assessment at M-level should differ from that at undergraduate level, in practice there is not necessarily such clarity. This article draws on how teachers and programme leaders on Masters level courses who were interviewed for the project described the differences in practice. It concludes that there is considerable confusion and ambivalence about what distinguishes one level from another and scope for further clarification.

Themes, orientations, synergies and a shared agenda: the first 20 years of the SEDA series of books

Over 20 years, 25 books have been published to date in the SEDA series, and this review article aims to analyse the ways in which books within the series have contributed to thinking in higher education pedagogy over this time. We have approached the texts through three lenses, analysing them chronologically, thematically and by the orientation of the authors towards educational development. We demonstrate that the coverage of topics and the syntheses of ideas that the texts represent have holistically provided invaluable coverage of the key thinking in the field. Not only have the texts contributed to knowledge but also they have asserted the importance of the underpinning SEDA values which they represent in practice, helping to build the community of practice that is educational development.

The 20 books that influenced educational developers’ thinking in the last 20 years: opinion piece

In the two decades, since Staff and Educational Development Association was formed, educational development has become a mature and internationally recognised discipline, informed strongly by the scholarship of teaching. Writing about teaching, learning and assessment has helped to describe, distil, analyse and affect practice, and to change the way in which educational development as a profession has become regarded. Books have been of great importance in this transition, with educational developers in many parts of the world building a learning community through discussing the books on their shelves. This article provides a personal selection of 20 key books that have been highly influential, with the aim of promoting debate both on the choice of texts and the future of educational development books in the next 20 years.