Supporting programmes in the design stage of validation and revalidation, Academic Quality & Development at the University of Winchester.

1. Supporting programmes
in the Design Stage of
Validation and
Revalidation
Thursday 21 May 2015
Academic Quality and Development

2. Plan for our time together
1. Introductions
2. Designing for innovation in Learning,
Teaching, and Assessment
3. The process of Validation and
Revalidation
4. Curriculum planning with staff and
students
5. Questions and discussion

3. The plan
1. Design –the creative stage, where programmes can step
back and reflect on what they want to offer/how they have
delivered their programme. Everything can be up for grabs at
this stage, and this is the chance to work with students in
transforming the student experience. The time for TESTA.
You may also wish to consider the value of other consultants.
2. Development – this is when matters get slightly more
concrete. Documents are produced for Faculty and QMO
scrutiny. The creative, design stage of the process is
expressed in paper form.
3. Approval – this is clustered around the Event and
subsequent Senate ADC approval of the Re/Validation
Document.

4. Assessment and feedback: a story
of lost connections…

5. Why joining the dots matters for
student learning
• I always find myself going to the library and going ‘These are
the books related to this essay’ and that’s it.
• It’s difficult because your assignments are so detached from
the next one you do for that subject. They don’t relate to each
other.
• Because it’s at the end of the module, it doesn’t feed into our
future work.
• I read it and think “Well, that’s fine but I’ve already handed it in
now and got the mark. It’s too late”.

6. Principles
1. Assessment drives what students pay
attention to, and defines the actual
curriculum (Ramsden 1992).
2. Feedback is the single most influential
factor in student learning (Hattie 2009).
3. Programme is vital: “Assessment
innovations at the individual module level
often fail to address assessment problems
at the programme-level” (Gibbs 2013)

7. www.testa.ac.uk

8. Approaches to Learning (Marton and
Saljo (1976)
• Meaning
• Concepts
• Active learning
• Evidence
• Argument
• Connections
• Relationship new and
previous knowledge
• Real-world learning
Surface
• Formulaic
• Focused on memorising
content
• Receiving info passively
• Inability to distinguish
principles from examples
• Treating modules as
silos
• Not seeing connections
Deep

9. TESTA Research Methodology
ASSESSMENT
EXPERIENCE
QUESTIONNAIRE
ASSESSMENT
EXPERIENCE
QUESTIONNAIRE
FOCUS GROUPSFOCUS GROUPS
PROGRAMME AUDIT
Programme
Team
Meeting
Case Study

10. Common issues from TESTA
1. High summative, low formative
2. Satellite marking standards
3. Fragmented assessment, fragmented
learning
4. Compartmentalisation
5. Feedback doesn’t feed-forward

11. Unintended consequences of the
modular system
• Proliferation of
summative tasks
• Assessment arms
race
• Episodic and
piecemeal feedback
• It’s a programme
design issue…

12. Solutions 101: Feedback as a dialogue
1. Conversation starter: What feedback would
you like on your work?
2. Joining the dots between feedback: the
cyclical cover sheet
3. Peer feedback and self-reflection ‘inner
dialogue’

13. Solutions 102: Ideas for internalising
understanding of criteria
1. Induction into academic processes: show,
evaluate and discuss examples
2. Criteria crunching – rewrite in your own
words.
3. Co-production of criteria
4. Marking exercises with criteria and dialogue
5. Calibration workshops with whole teams

14. Solutions 103:Ideas for assessment
for learning
1. Multi-stage – formative to summative
2. Integrated assessments – exams, projects
and big beasts which cross modules
3. Authentic assessment tasks which involve
collaboration, reflection and production of
‘real world’ outputs and artefacts (journal
articles, podcasts, videos, presentations,
posters etc)

15. Programme Focused Assessment
• See www.pass.brad.ac.uk
PFA
• seeks to assess programme learning outcomes rather than
solely modular learning outcomes;
• shifts summative assessment away from the modular level to
the programme level;
• seeks to combat the ‘modularisation’ of learning and
assessment by encouraging integrated means of assessment
for learning.

16. Programme Focused Assessment
Benefits of PFA:
•If summative assessment is confined to
separate modules there is a risk of ‘over-
assessment’.
•Modularisation can lead to the fragmentation
of student learning and staff teaching.
•Modularisation inhibits ‘slow’ or ‘deep’
learning. Students are encouraged to think
‘across’ modules.

17. The process of validation and
revalidation
• The paper process is there to support
designing for excellence and
innovation;
• Role of FADC and Panel scrutiny;
• The Event itself: role of the
presentation and all the team;
• Role of Senate ADC;
• Outcomes following the Event.

18. The process of validation and
revalidation
• See:
https://intranet.winchester.ac.uk/informati
on-bank/quality-
office/Documents/Forms/all.aspx?
View={C2FC2804-174B-435B-9712-
D512580DCD32}&FilterField1=TaxKey
word&FilterValue1=Programme
%20Approval&InitialTabId=Ribbon
%2EDocument&VisibilityContext=WSS
TabPersistence

19. Any questions?
• Dr Tansy Jessop, Head of L&T
Tansy.Jessop@winchester.ac.uk
• Dr Stuart Sims, Research and Teaching Fellow
(Student Engagement)
Stuart.Sims@winchester.ac.uk
• Jan Gibson, Quality Officer (Validations and
Reviews)
Jan.Gibson@winchester.ac.uk
• Dr Angus Paddison, Director of Academic Quality
and Development
Angus.Paddison@winchester.ac.uk