Assessment is a cornerstone of learning and teaching; it is by way of their assessments that we know our students are learning. There are many ways of doing assessment, from the conventional academic-style essay or report, to the more authentic case study or project. Understanding what kinds of assessment strategy options are available and deciding what to use can be a creative opportunity, but also one that benefits from the inspiration of others.
A global campaign to reimagine assessment
One such source of inspiration is the Reimagined Assessment campaign. Originating out of Athabasca university (Canada) and championed by Dr Eliana Koury, the campaign invited academics around the world to share their reimagined assessments – those assessments that offer alternatives to the more conventional assessments such as exams, essays and reports.
Eliana has invited international colleagues to share their alternative assessments in the form of a two-minute video which she has collated and presented on YouTube. Here you will find a growing collection of different, interesting, and authentic ways of assessing student learning.
Some of the ‘reimagined’ assessments you’ll find in the current collection include:
- Collaborative/social annotation (Tab Betts, University of Sussex)
- Portfolios and reflections (Dr Charmaine Cunningham, University of Cape Town)
- Virtual escape rooms (Dr Peggy Holzweiss, Sam Houston State University)
- Contract grading (Jasmina Najjar, American University of Beirut)
- Renewable/ non-disposable assessment (Dr Celia Popovic, York University)
The project is accepting videos on a rolling basis with no deadline, and Eliana is inviting peers from the global academic community to make a submission.
If you have reimagined assessment at the classroom level, department, or institutional level, I would love to hear from you!
You can contact Dr Eliana El Khoury at eelkhoury@athabascau.ca.
If you’re just getting started on your own assessment journey, explore UTS resources on Assessment for learning and Using video for assessment. We’d love to hear how you go!
HI Michaela, I love your enthusiasm for this. I am not sure about Annotate, but I will do some research and find out and let you know, Ann
I love the inspiration found in the examples – I’d love to look more into the collaborative/social annotation approach but was wondering if there was a recommended platform that’s inclusive? We used to use Annotate I think it was called, but not sure what’s available at the moment.
Hey @Michaela, Annotate is no longer available at UTS – there really wasn’t enough uptake to justify continued use. Social annotation is indeed a really powerful way to support students’ reading, however, it requires a good deal of support from teachers to make it effective. Perusall https://www.perusall.com/ would be my pick for a secure and powerful system but this is not a supported tool at UTS. You can get a free account to try it out with your students if you like. Otherwise the approaches suggested by Tab Betts seem quite good.