Vision: Our vision for this Learning Circle is to foster an inclusive environment where assessments are explored and evaluated in meaningful partnership with students, staff and external stakeholders. From this work, we hope to lead the envisioning of assessment as a process that effectively promotes learning and embeds wellbeing for all, at the same time as valuing students’ uniqueness and aspirations and responding to wider societal responsibilities.

Mission. Our mission is to:

• Gather existing data on Faculty and School/Department practices around use of diverse and inclusive assessments, including Warwick staff and student experiences.
• Capture student and staff views on inclusive, diverse, authentic, and compassionate assessments.

• Develop shared understanding of principles and practice of inclusive, diverse, authentic, and compassionate assessments. 
• Provide effective advice and guidance to affect institutional changes to the curriculum and assessment design strategies at module, year, and programme level. 

Outputs:

In addition to a range of documents and resources developed by what was a sub-group 'AI in Education'Link opens in a new window this Learning Circle has produced blogs. Please visit the links below for more information:

Blog one: Interested in diverse assessments? Join our learning circle for an exciting grant-funded project on the future of assessments (Leda Mirbahai & Isabel Fischer)

Blog two: Creative Projects and the ‘state of play’ in diverse assessments (Lewis Beer)

Blog three: A student perspective on assessment diversity and strategy (Molly Fowler)

Blog four: One year on: Progress update on our Diverse Assessments Learning Circle (Isabel Fischer & Leda Mirbahai)

Blog five: Learning and suggestions based on implementing diverse assessments in the foundation year at Warwick (Lucy Ryland)

Blog six: How inclusive is your assessment (Leda Mirbahai)

Blog seven: Democratising the feedback process (Linda Enow)

Blog eight: AI for Good: Evaluating and Shaping Opportunities of AI in Education (Isabel Fischer, Leda Mirbahai & David Buxton)

Blog nine: On ‘Opportunities of AI in Higher Education’ by DALL.E and ChatGPT (Isabel Fischer)

Blog 10: Pedagogic paradigm 4.0: bringing students, educators and AI together (Isabel Fischer)

Blog 11: Ethically deploying AI in education: An update from the University of Warwick’s open community of practice (Isabel Fischer, Leda Mirbahai, Lewis Beer, David Buxton, Sam Grierson, Lee Griffin, and Neha Gupta)

Blog 12: Building knowledge on the pedagogy of using generative AI in the classroom and in assessment (Matt Lucas and Isabel Fischer)

Blog 13: Assessments: capturing lived experience and shaping the future. Reflection on project outputs (Molly Fowler)

Blog 14: Using AI for Formative Feedback: Current Challenges, Reflections, and Future Investigation (Matthew Voice)
Blog 15: Past reflections, future outlook: Update from the Warwick Learning Circle on diverse and inclusive assessment practices (Kerry Dobbins, Isabel Fischer, Sam Grierson and Leda Mirbahai)

Workshops:

Workshop 1: How inclusive is your assessment strategy?

Hosted by Lewis Beer, Sam Grierson and Leda Mirbahai (17th May 2023)

Assessments are a fundamental part of the student experience. Considering the diversity of our student population, we believe that a ‘one size fits all’ approach to assessment design and delivery is not an inclusive assessment strategy. In this workshop, we explored the diversification of our assessment approaches, the importance of using a programme-level assessment strategy as well as the criteria and tools that can be used to evaluate the inclusivity of our assessment approaches. During the workshop, we attempted to identify areas for improvement in our daily practice and shared some of our concerns and solutions.

• Link to the slides
• Link to the output of some of our discussions around attributes of inclusive assessment and review of the 'Inclusive Assessment Toolkit'

Workshop 2: Showcasing use of innovative assessment approaches

Hosted by Sam Grierson and Leda Mirbahai (14th June 2023)

In this workshop, we heard from guest speakers on how they have implemented examples of innovative assessments into their practice. Below you can find the links to the presentations as well as contact details of the speakers.

• Graphical Thinking: Outlines, mind and concept maps: Dominik Lukes, University of Oxford, Dominik.Lukes@ctl.ox.ac.uk
• Case-based learning for assessment: Dawn Collins, Warwick Medical School, Dawn.Collins@warwick.ac.uk

Here you can also find the assessment brief, marking rubric and template for case creation.

• Academic film-making assessment: Lucy Ryland, Warwick Foundation Studies, Lucy.Ryland@warwick.ac.uk

Here you can also find the assessment brief, marking rubric and template for film project

• From mind maps to sensemaking: setting up innovative assessments with scholarly research output in mind: Isabel Fischer, Warwick Business School, Isabel.Fischer@wbs.ac.uk

Workshop 3: Design your own assessment: How to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into diverse assessments (5th July 2023)

Hosted by Sam Grierson (Warwick Foundation Studies), Leda Mirbahai (Warwick Medical School) and Molly Fowler (Student), Faith Grierson (Student)

This workshop explored how AI can be effectively embedded into assessment design from staff and student perspectives. During this workshop, we heard from Molly (WMS Student) on her views of essential factors that need to be considered for embedding AI into assessments as well as practical examples of how to achieve this. The workshop provided a hands-on opportunity for the participants to re-think their assessment designs and transformed their assessments.

• Designing your own assessment (Slides)
• Student opinion piece on Academic Integrity and AI Ethics: Yiran Xu
• Novel assessment design using artificial intelligence: Molly Fowler

WIHEA Funded Project 'Assessments: Capturing lived experiences and shaping the future

Dr Leda Mirbahai (Warwick Medical School) and Dr Isabel Fischer (Warwick Business School), founding members of the WIHEA Diverse Assessment Learning Circle (2021-Nov 2023), received WIHEA funding to undertake a project to explore the views and experience of students and staff of diverse assessments and to involve students in shaping the future of assessments. This work was supported by two Student officers, Molly Fowler, and Pula Prakash. In this scoping exercise, staff experience of some of the diverse and innovative assessment approaches used in different disciplines was captured addressing some of the critical questions around, 1) perception of diverse assessments from staff perspective, 2) practical tips for successful application of the assessment method and marking, 3) communicating assessed skills and requirements, 4) overcoming challenges. In addition, using semi-structured focus groups student’s experiences of undertaking some of the diverse assessments already in use at UoW were also captured. The student focus groups helped to address some of the key questions around, 1) perception of diverse assessments from a student perspective, 2) benefits and challenges of undertaking diverse assessments, 3) skills gained and required, and 4) approaches for promoting learning through assessment.

The work undertaken has provided valuable insight into both student and staff experience of diversification of assessments and has provided valuable insight into issues such as fairness. This poster, created by Molly, summarises the key findings of the project. In addition, you can read Molly’s blog on her reflection on the project outputs as well as Leda’s blog on inclusive assessments.The funding also enabled the hosting the first one-day international WIHEA Diverse Assessment Conference, 30th November 2022.