The MTU Library Assignment Toolkit includes a suite of modules that guides students through the assignment completion process and provides a grounding in academic integrity by using best practice guidance at every stage. The modules include the following: - Getting to Know Your Library - Critical Thinking Skills - Misinformation - Effective Searching - Reading Academic Material and Planning for Assignments - Understanding Plagiarism - Assignment Writing - Referencing This tool will be of significant help to new students, but also a great refresher for those with some academic experience behind them. It is also a significant asset to academic staff as a rich, interactive resource that can support their students with their studies. The Assignment Toolkit is hosted on Canvas and requires you to enrol on the course. Course Modules can be taken in sequence or students can choose to start with a particular module.

"How can we design assessment tasks, so they inspire our students to learn? How can we use assessment to enthuse our learners, and keep them engaged? What are the processes which underpin effective feedback and what are some of the barriers and challenges we face in helping students’ uptake of feedback? How can we approach feedback so that it is meaningful and useful to students, but manageable for ourselves? How far and in what ways do we involve students in the process of evaluative judgment, so they learn to see how they are going while they are working on tasks? These are some of the questions and issues that were explored and discussed in this interactive seminar on engaging students in assessment and feedback processes. Participants who attended this: Explored key principles underpinning the design of Assessment for Learning (AfL) in Higher Education (Sambell et al, 2013), which include assessment for and as learning; Discussed the benefits, challenges and strategies colleagues in different disciplines use to engage learners as productively as possible in assessment and feedback processes; Gained access to practical AfL resources, shared ideas with each other and considered pragmatic tactics to develop students’ assessment and feedback literacy."

"Assessment is probably the most important thing we can do to help our students learn. Traditionally, our assessment practices tend to be summative, for the purposes of progression and completion, rather than formative, for the purposes of improving instruction and student learning. If assessment is to be an integral part of student learning, formative assessment must be at the heart of the process. Formative assessment refers to a wide variety of methods that educators can use to conduct in-process evaluations of student comprehension, learning needs, and academic progress during a lesson, module, or programme. Formative assessments help educators identify concepts that students are struggling to understand, skills they are having difficulty acquiring, or learning standards they have not yet achieved so that adjustments can be made to lessons, instructional techniques, and academic support. If we wish to use assessment as a tool to enhance student learning the provision of formative feedback is crucial. We need to help students understand not only where they have gone wrong, but also what they need to do to improve and when they have done well, we need to help them understand what is good about their work and how they can build on it and develop further. This workshop was aimed at all academic staff, whether new to the whole notion of formative assessment and feedback, or those who wanted to improve their feedback practice to students, or those looking for innovative ideas on how to enhance their current practices. It provided participants with an opportunity to think about the benefits of formative assessment and providing formative feedback to learners and an opportunity to examine some case studies of how this can be done in practice."

"If we want to improve students’ engagement with learning, a key focus of enhancement can be refreshing our approaches to assessment. Sometimes we need to take a fresh look at our current practice to ensure assessment is for rather than just of learning. In addition, we as educators in higher education understand the importance of giving good feedback to students, both to maximize achievement and to support retention. Research in the field suggests that good feedback has a significant impact on student achievement, enabling students to become adept at judging the quality of their own work during its production. In this workshop, the following aspects of assessment were considered: Fit for purpose assessment: designing assessments to promote student learning Assessing more students: ways of using productive assessment with large numbers Assessing first-year students well to promote retention Streamlining assessment: giving feedback effectively and efficiently"

"The power of assessment and feedback within the learning process has been recognised for many years and yet the paradigms that currently frame assessment leave students in a passive role and still largely focus on accreditation. This situation needs to be challenged through the development of assessment literacy of both staff and students which, in turn will make new approaches to assessment and feedback possible. This seminar discussed the nature of assessment literacy, why it is important, how it has the potential to reshape our thinking about assessment and feedback and how it supports the development of student learning. Participants were invited to take part in activities designed to allow them to share their expertise, review their practices and take away new ideas. The aim of the seminar was to: Explain the concept of assessment literacy Describe the contribution assessment literacy can make to supporting student learning Identify key initiatives that support the development of assessment literacy"

"While we as educators might hate to admit it, assessment does drive student learning and is probably the one most important thing we can do to help our students learn. Formative assessment can help us as educators identify concepts that students are struggling to understand, skills they are having difficulty acquiring, or learning standards they have not yet achieved so that we can make adjustments to lessons, instructional techniques, and academic support. If we wish to use assessment as a tool to enhance student learning the provision of formative feedback is crucial. We need to help students understand not only where they have gone wrong, but also what they need to do to improve and when they have done well, we need to help them understand what is good about their work and how they can build on it and develop further. This seminar focussed on how the Department of Mathematics and the Academic Learning Centre use Numbas, a free online platform aimed at numerate disciplines, to provide students with the opportunity to practice particular types of mathematical problems, receive instant feedback and advice on where they may have gone wrong, and to attempt other similar auto-generated questions. This seminar was aimed at academic staff who teach in a numerate discipline who would like to explore how they too can provide formative assessment opportunities to their students in an efficient and effective manner. Those who attended this session: Got an overview of some of the capabilities of Numbas Learned how Numbas can be used to enhance student learning Learned how a Numbas learning resource can be uploaded to Canvas."

While we as educators might hate to admit it, assessment does drive student learning and is probably the one most important thing we can do to help our students learn. Formative assessment can help us as educators identify concepts that students are struggling to understand, skills they are having difficulty acquiring, or learning standards they have not yet achieved so that we can make adjustments to lessons, instructional techniques, and academic support. If we wish to use assessment as a tool to enhance student learning the provision of formative feedback is crucial. We need to help students understand not only where they have gone wrong, but also what they need to do to improve and when they have done well, we need to help them understand what is good about their work and how they can build on it and develop further. This seminar focussed on how the Department of Mathematics and the Academic Learning Centre use Numbas, a free online platform aimed at numerate disciplines, to provide students with the opportunity to practice particular types of mathematical problems, receive instant feedback and advice on where they may have gone wrong, and to attempt other similar auto-generated questions. This seminar was aimed at academic staff who teach in a numerate discipline who would like to explore how they too can provide formative assessment opportunities to their students in an efficient and effective manner. Those who attended this session: Got an overview of some of the capabilities of Numbas Learned how Numbas can be used to enhance student learning Learned how a Numbas learning resource can be uploaded to Canvas.

Student engagement is a central concept in the literature on teaching and learning in higher education. Research has shown that students’ active engagement in their learning is central to their academic success and that students who engage deeply with learning are better equipped for life-long learning. However, encouraging student engagement can be challenging. So, what can be done - how can we encourage students to engage in their learning in what, for many of us, are quite challenging times? One way of achieving this is through assessment. Assessment is probably the most important thing we can do to engage students in their learning. Traditionally, assessment practices have tended to focus on progression and completion rather than focus on enhancing student learning. If we wish to use assessment as a tool to enhance student learning the provision of feedback is crucial. We need to help students understand not only where they have gone wrong, but also what they need to do to improve and when they have done well, we need to help them understand what is good about their work and how they can build on it and develop further. This seminar outlined how staff from different discipline areas have developed their assessment practices to integrate feedback as a central component of their practice. Three different case-studies were presented and discussed with the intention of providing participants with a range of practical options that they might choose from and integrate into their own practice. The seminar was aimed at all academic staff, whether new to the whole notion of assessment and feedback, or those who wanted to improve their feedback practice with students, or those looking for ideas on how to enhance their current practice.

Assessment approaches methods and practices vary worldwide and sometimes students studying in Ireland find our systems confusing/incomprehensible and puzzling. For example, not all nations express what is expected of students in terms of learning outcomes and the provision of transparent assessment criteria is not always undertaken. For this reason, some international students may struggle to understand how marks are derived and how they match up to the criteria we provide in programme documentation. This guide is designed to help assessors clarify key assessment issues for our students and provide some practical tips on how we can support theirunderstanding.

When we present students with unfamiliar assessment formats, it can be difficult for them to work out what is expected of them and more difficult on occasions for them to recognise what kind of work is good enough to match required standards. If we are able to show rather than just tell them what we are looking for, they are more likely to achieve higher standards. Exemplars are a well-established means of helping students get the hang of new-to-them assessment genres and can save a lot of anguish on both sides.

Students, especially those from diverse cultural backgrounds, often find the first assignment on a course really challenging, particularly if they are ‘first in family’ to go to university and may therefore have a limited understanding of what is likely to be expected of them. It therefore pays dividends if staff put resources and energy into helping students get to know the rules of the game. Students may be able to successfully manage the unfamiliarity of new learning contexts and classroom environments that are very different to what they have experienced before. However, they can’t avoid the need to be successful in assessment if they are to progress. It’s part of our job therefore to help students overcome any uneasiness, and the best way to do this is to demystify the process and give them stress-free opportunities to practice the competencies they eventually need to demonstrate to meet the learning outcomes

Many authors (including Nicol, 2010 and Carless, 2013) suggest that good feedback should always be a dialogue, not a monologue from tutors. Students can become very good at self-assessing their work, but usually don’t have the opportunity to fine-tune their self-assessment and need feedback to help them on their way. If we just ask: ‘try to work out what your mark or grade is?’ they’re likelyvto just guess, and then probably forget what they guessed. While some students might select a grade close to that which you gave them, studies show that ‘high achievers’ underestimate their abilities and the majority of under-achievers will overestimate their mark. Research shows (Clouder, Broughan, Jewell & Steventon, 2012) that this trend is retained across different nationalities but interestingly, students form different nationalities can also have different perspectives of their abilities. Therefore, we need to educate students about making assessment judgements against well-expressed criteria, just as we try to do when we assess their work.

When they are clearly focused, well-crafted essay topics allow students to demonstrate how well they can access and manage information in meaningful ways” (Morgan, Dunn, Parry, & O’Reilly, 2004, p. 111) but many argue that writing essays isn’t the best preparation for functioning effectively in the 21st century, when oral presentation and working well with others may be more important considerations. However, others argue that essays can allow students to show their creativity and skills at writing an argument or making a case. Whichever is the case, there are five main problems with the over-use of essays as an assessment device: • They take a great deal of time to mark, let alone the time it takes for students to prepare, draft and compose them. • When most assessment is in the form of essays, students’ skills at essay-writing are repeatedly tested, at the expense sometimes of their understanding of the subject. • Lots of research shows that we’re not at all good at marking essays fairly – different assessors often give the same essay very different marks. • Essay marks often tend to lie between 35% for a poor one and 75% for a very good one, whereas in many other disciplines the marks for an assignment like a lab report can range across the whole 0-100% span more evenly. • With coursework essays, there can be doubt about veracity – i.e. whodunit?! (Race, 2014) Of course, essay questions in exams largely get over the last of the above problems but assessing them often relies heavily on how effective students are at writing legibly and fast, which can have little to do with their grasp of the subject matter.

Written exams have developed into one of the most common forms of assessment all the way from second-level to third-level and beyond, but while they have benefits, they also have downsides. Many argue that they’re good regarding ‘veracity’ (we are reasonably sure that what is assessed is the work of the candidate), they are relatively economical to conduct and manage, and they are fair since each candidate has the same opportunities. It’s also true that many employers regard exam results as easy to use when selecting candidates for interview. Traditionalists argue that performing under the time constrained pressure of exams provides a good indicator of vital strengths of candidates. However, they remain a snapshot of what a andidate can do at a set time, over a limited defined timescale, at a particular place, and attempting specific defined questions and factors such as legibility and speed of handwriting are known to influence marks.

Nowadays it is widely recognised that giving developmental and formative feedback on student assignments is among the most important of the many ways in which we interact with learners, but doing so takes a great deal of academic time, effort and resource, particularly when cohort sizes increase more rapidly than staff-time deployment on assessment.

We are often keen to encourage students to submit assignments in advance of their final submissions, but we need to be able to do this efficiently and effectively, since few of us have the time to provide detailed comments on drafts provided by lots of our students. The ideas set out here are designed to illustrate how we can help our students to improve their work-in-progress without making unfeasible amounts of work for the hard-pressed markers

Assessors complain that they spend hours devising and delivering good feedback via comments on assessed work, in class, in studio critiques, on the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), in one-to-ones and in tutorials, only to find that students seem to either ignore the formative comments or complain they never get any feedback. If students ignore or trivialise our feedback, it cannot help them however detailed and supportive it is. Students’ failure to engage with feedback not only is unhelpful to them and frustrating for us, but also impacts negatively on Irish Survey of Student Engagement (ISSE) scores.

Students put great store by the comments we put on their work. They often come to higher education with high expectations about the nature and value of teacher comments, and look to them to provide them with authoritative guidance on their learning and performance. Where that provision is found wanting, unhelpful or unconstructive, students rapidly become disenchanted, disappointed and alienated.