Warwick Education Conference 2024 Highlights
Reimagining assessment
The Warwick Education Conference 2024 took place:
Thursday 2nd May 2024
Ramphal Building
Assessment plays a vital role in higher education and is an integral element of the learning process. Recent seismic shifts in the assessment landscape mean that there has never been a more pertinent time to question its purpose as well as its place in responding to educational and societal priorities.
In 2007, a challenge was set to reframe assessment as if learning was importantLink opens in a new window. Over 15 years later, the argument that we need to ‘rethink what is being done in assessment in higher education’ is more important than ever. Questions about what assessment exists to do, who and what it serves, what type(s) of learning it promotes, remain fundamental for educational communities to address. Alongside these is the most important question of how assessment can work to enable and empower all students to achieve to the best of their abilities.
The Warwick Education Conference 2023/24 provides an opportunity for us as a community (students and staff) to add our voices and experiences to conversations occurring across the sector more widely (see Resources below). Questions we might want to explore as we come together to collectively reimagine assessment include:
- How might assessment promote equity and social justice in higher education?
- How can assessment for learning and as learning be emphasised within the curriculum?
- What is the place of assessment in the world of AI? How might generative AI be used to change assessment for the better?
- How might assessment be a vehicle for promoting sustainable development?
- How might the values of academic integrity be designed into assessment?
- How can creative and innovative assessment respond to current needs and priorities?
A special guest speaker event took place on 10th July 2024 to continue conversations on the theme of reimagining assessment:
Following the disruptions: addressing continuing issues for assessment, Prof David Boud, Deakin University Australia -find out more and access the slides from the session.
Keynote Speakers
Professor Tansy Jessop
Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education and Students at University of Bristol.
"Fostering student agency and engagement in assessment and feedback: taking a programme approach"
Tansy Jessop is PVC Education and Students at the University of Bristol, where she has led curriculum enhancement across the institution to re-imagine the design of programmes and assessment. Across the sector and working with many programmes in different universities, she has led the ‘Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment’ (TESTA) research and change project for 15 years. Her recent book ‘Student Agency and Engagement: Transforming Assessment and Feedback in Higher Education’ draws on findings from TESTA to show the value of taking a programme approach, offering fresh perspectives of students’ experience of assessment and feedback through theories of alienation and engagement.
View Tansy's keynote session (44 mins).
Dr Paul Campbell
Director of the Leicester Institute for Inclusivity in Higher Education at University of Leicester.
"Racially inclusive practice in assessment"
Dr Paul Ian Campbell is the Inaugural Director of the Leicester Institute for Inclusivity in Higher Education, a University Distinguished Teaching Fellow, National Teaching Fellow, and Associate Professor specialising in the sociology of race and inclusion. He developed key sector-leading initiatives including the Racially Inclusive Curricula Toolkit, Racially Inclusive Practice in Assessment Guidance, and Leicester’s Race Inclusion Action Plan Framework, which contributed to measurable reductions in the race award gap. He is co-convenor of the Evaluating Teaching in Higher Education Collective, an Academic Advisor for TASO, and a recognised leader in supporting UK universities to implement and evaluate racially inclusive curriculum and assessment practices.
View Paul's keynote session (38 mins)
Full Programme & Sessions
The Warwick Education Conference 2024 Information Booklet - Click hereLink opens in a new window
In this Booklet you will find details to:
- Programme of events
- Keynote Speaker and their abstracts
- Session Abstracts
- Nano Presentations
Warwick Education Conference 2026 - Nano-Presentations
Reimagining Assessment Nano-Presentations
These are short (up to 10 mins) recorded presentations that aim to share practices and inspire others. Watch, engage with the conference theme and feel inspired at a time and place that suits you!
Small Teaching Nano-Presentation
Small teaching was the theme of the Warwick Education Conference 2023. These short (10 mins) nano-presentations share the small teaching changes colleagues' have implemented to inspire others to make their own small change.
Students' creative pieces inspired by Reimagining Assessment theme
Ahead of the conference, students were invited to submit any creative pieces inspired by their experience with assessments. The pieces submitted share fascinating insights into their approaches to assessment, assessment methods they have enjoyed and their personal experiences within the assessment process.
Resources to explore the conference theme
Below are some resources connected to the conference theme that you might find interesting and helpful to explore:
- Assessment for Inclusion in Higher Education: Promoting Equity and Social Justice in Assessment Link opens in a new window(open access book).
- An evaluation of the racially inclusive practice in assessment guidance intervention on students' and staffs' experiences of assessment in HE: a multi-university case study (Project report - QAA funded).
- Assessment for Learning in Higher Education Link opens in a new window(book - institutional access to download and read online).
- Making the business of assessment clear to all Link opens in a new window(QAA podcast).
- ChatGPT: what should assessment look like now? Link opens in a new window(QAA webinar on youtube).
- Sustainable assessment revisited Link opens in a new window(journal article revisiting Boud’s 2007 argument – institutional access).
- Assessment for Learning on Sustainable Development Link opens in a new window(paper – institutional access).