Engaging the Student Writer in University Assessment: The Response

Alison Jaquet

Project

My Internship project ‘Engaging the student Writer in University Assessment: The Response’, developed out of my interest in assessment as a necessary but fraught aspect of teaching and learning. I was curious about the potential for innovation in assessment models and, in particular, the adaptation of the traditional essay form. My role as a new teacher in the discipline of English and Cultural Studies (ECS) at UWA, reinforced for me the primacy of the essay as a tool of assessment in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Science and across many other schools and faculties of the university.

My work evaluated a new adaptation of the essay form, the Response, which had been used as an assessment tool in ECS for the previous two years. The progressive culture of teaching and learning in ECS had produced an awareness of a need for a new form of assessment that expanded the aims and outcomes of the essay model. The Response aims to stimulate self-reflexivity and originality by encouraging students to incorporate more personal responses in their writing and to situate new knowledge in relation to existing frameworks.

My project demonstrated that the Response contained both benefits and challenges to teaching and learning, but was ultimately an extremely useful assessment model for the unit in which it had been introduced. The Response continues to be used as a first assessment for several upper-level units in the Discipline and its benefits in promoting essential skills are felt by both students and teachers.

Outcomes

Since presenting my project at the Teaching and Learning Forum in 2007, I have continued to teach on units that have implemented the Response. On these occasions, the unit coordinators have consulted my work in order to implement the Response more effectively. My article provided a framework for new approaches to incorporating this kind of assessment in the course structure and this has proved to be useful.

More broadly, the research has prompted me to approach assessment differently in my teaching practice. There are many variations on the essay that are used in ECS (and throughout the Faculty) and when discussing these assessments with students I am now more appreciative of the subtle differences between forms. I now frequently discuss with students the pedagogical rationale for setting certain assessments, to ensure that they can understand the design of various strategies. In my project and in my subsequent experience, I find that students respond extremely well to innovation in assessment when they are consulted as part of the process.

Additionally, many students who study at UWA take units in multiple schools and more than one faculty, so there already exists a requirement for them to adapt to different styles of assessment. While this can provide challenges for the student, it also suggests that versatility is an important generic skill that students need to develop. If teachers can provide a diversity of assessment strategies within a discipline or even in an individual unit, then we can develop the essential skills necessary for student learning. This requires from teachers a broader, long-term vision for the role of assessment while still meeting essential course outcomes. This is undoubtedly a challenge for university teachers, but with many benefits for their students.