Interdisciplinary Assessment in Higher Education: Humanising and Student-Devised Assessment

Summary 

Interdisciplinarity is...

“intentional integration of different forms of thought and doing”

To gather further information and ideas on assessment in interdisciplinary work, we spoke to Heather Meyer, Director of Studies at IATL. Heather offers some insights regarding innovative assessment in interdisciplinary work at the university level. She discusses using a Student-Devised Assessment (SDA) format for her IATL module on Forms of Identity, as a humanising approach to assessment in higher education. In SDAs, students are asked to design and implement their own final assessment on a topic of their choice, accompanied by a written or spoken piece that demonstrates the connection of their project not only to the module content, but to interdisciplinarity itself. Students decide on the project format: it could be a “piece of artwork, an essay, a presentation.” SDAs align with a humanising approach to higher education where learners are given agency in their own learning experience. Finally, Heather shares a few ideas on simple ways to further integrate interdisciplinary learning and humanising approaches in the classroom at Warwick such as through a “flipped classroom” and interdisciplinary homework groups.

Students Say...

While at first some students need to adjust to unlearning previous models of assessment, Heather notes that in general students have given her “positive feedback” as they say that they “love the freedom.” As well, students can challenge themselves to do something where they “break from the cycle” of what they already know how to do within their disciplines.

Dr. Heather Meyer

Director of Studies, IATL

Among other responsibilities, Heather oversees the PGT and UG Interdisciplinary Modules. She also teaches a UG IATL module, Forms of Identity, where students look at “different forms of identity from different disciplinary perspectives.” Students reflect on and investigate individual, national, biological, gender, racial and ethnic identities through creative and student-led methods.

See Heather’s full bio.