This document discusses using assessment for learning and assessment of learning in engineering education. It argues that assessment for learning helps develop students' intellectual abilities like applying knowledge and exercising judgment, which are at the core of engineering. While problem-based learning could achieve this, it may compromise teaching technical knowledge. The document proposes using substantial projects that integrate knowledge and allow students to apply it. It also discusses opportunities for assessment for learning within the curriculum to bring together assessments and utilize them to support the learning process.

1. For and Of: Optimising a middle
ground in assessment practice
Beverley Gibbs, Gary C Wood, Matt Carré & David Polson
Department of Mechanical Engineering

2. What’s the purpose of assessment?
● Assessment of learning – assessments that aim to evaluate what a student’s
knowledge, understanding and capabilities are at the end of a phase of learning
○ E.g. a formal exam, practical test, MCQ quiz
● Assessment for learning – assessments that aim to facilitate development of a
student’s knowledge, understanding and capabilities through the assessment process
○ E.g. mini-research activities, creating an artefact or content, designing an experiment or
activity
● The differentiator is not the format of assessment per se, but the context in which we
use them.

3. Intellectual ability and assessment
● Essence of engineering = intellectual abilities:
○ Deploying knowledge in analysis
○ Creating solutions and value
○ Exercising judgement
● The development of intellectual abilities – as opposed to knowledge recall – is at the
heart of HE
● We cannot teach intellectual abilities directly: we need to provide an environment
conducive to its development
● Assessment for learning can help us to do this, because it helps more
effectively structure and scaffold students’ independent work.

4. Isn’t this problem-based learning?
● Yes, we could do that and some engineering departments are moving in that
direction, but
○ For us, this would be a risk that we can’t deliver the same level of technical knowledge
within 4 years
○ Employers have told us that our students’ level of technical knowledge is a strength of the
Sheffield graduate
● That’s why we seek a middle ground through assessment: we want to give our
students the same technical knowledge they have now, but enable them to be able to
do more with it, more quickly, and more confidently
● We are moving towards substantial, integrative projects that allow students to acquire
knowledge and then do something with it.

5. The PLA opportunity
● Curricula across the University rely on Assessment of Learning because it occurs at
the end of modules
● Moving towards PLA – thinking beyond and across modules – is an opportunity to
○ bring assessments together
○ utilise assessment as part of the learning process, not just to check learning
○ provide opportunities for the integration of knowledge and skills through assessment
activities.

6. de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats
● Disrupts your default way of thinking
● Work through each hat in turn, to consider a problem or scenario fully
● Process control is the Chair, or a check at the end that you’ve spent enough time
wearing each of the other hats.
Information/
facts
Feelings/
emotions
Creativity Negatives Positives Process
Control

7. What opportunities does Assessment for
Learning offer within your curricula?
● Wearing the red hat:
What’s your gut reaction to the idea of using Assessment for
Learning within your curricula?
● Wearing the yellow hat:
What value/opportunities could Assessment for Learning offer
within your PLA curriculum?

8. Takeaways
In approaching PLA, key questions to ask are:
● What are you trying to develop in students, and why?
● How can you assess that?
● How can you bring these two things together in a reliable and valid way?
Thinking of assessment as being about the process of learning – not an endpoint of
learning – can be a useful approach to integrating it, and reducing the sense that it’s
a burden for students (and staff).