Assessment of challenging curriculum content has been a quandary for educators for decades (Andersen & Bialystok, 2022; Richardson, 2010); and challenges them not only to think what needs to be assessed but how best to do so. Data from a survey from UCL Centre for Holocaust Education (Hale et al., 2023) suggests that educators believe discussions have potential to effectively assess learning.There is, to date, very little research of how discussions might be used as assessment. We will argue that they could provide valid evidence: (a) to judge students’ understanding of a subject during discussion tasks, (b) as a means to appraise key competencies such as critical thinking, and (c) as a way to curtail the use of AI to generate model answers. In this seminar, we present some of the data (survey responses) that exemplify rationales for using discussion as a means of assessment, some samples of curriculum content that 'need' assessing and questions for the audience.

54

3/1/2024

Since the 1970s, vocational qualifications in England have increasingly been specified in terms of comprehensive lists of learning outcomes. Furthermore, for qualifications of this sort - which includes NVQs, BTECs, and so on - students have been required to achieve all specified learning outcomes in order to be awarded the qualification. We call this the 'mastery' requirement, indicating that students are required to master the vocational curriculum. Mastery is often assumed to be important for occupational qualifications, where a certificate is intended to certify 'full competence'. However, the roots of the mastery requirement in vocational qualifications were actually as much educational as occupational, linked to North American scholarship on mastery learning. This seminar considers the move away from the outcomes-based approach to qualification design, and mastery is no longer an expectation for an increasing number of vocational qualifications.

21

9/21/2023