LOCATION: Outside G101, First Floor, Campus Centre

Collect your badge from the registration desk and grab a refreshment.

Visit the programme to view session timings.

The Welcome/Help Desk will be staffed throughout the day to handle any queries.

Please take your seats for 09:20am, ready for housekeeping (Academy's Director) and Welcome (VC).

Room: G101 Lecture Theatre, Campus Centre

Time: 09:30 - 09:40

Vice Chancellor, Professor Rebecca Bunting

Professor Bunting will open the Bedfordshire Learning and Teaching Excellence Conference 2024.

Room: G101 Lecture Theatre, Campus Centre

Assessment Transformation Programme launch

Time: 09:40 - 10:00

Dr Steve Briggs, Director of Learning and Teaching Excellence will launch our new Assessment Transformation programme.

Room: G101 Lecture Theatre, Campus Centre

Prof Sam Elkington, Teesside University

Sam is Professor of Learning and Teaching at Teesside University where he leads on the University’s learning and teaching enhancement portfolio. Sam is a PFHEA and National Teaching Fellow (NTF, 2021). He has worked in Higher Education for over 15 years and has extensive experience working across teaching, research, academic leadership and policy domains. Sam has also worked for Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy) where he was the national lead for Assessment and Feedback and Flexible Learning in Higher Education. Sam is an executive committee member and Pedagogic Research Lead for the Association of National Teaching Fellows.

Sam’s most recent book (with Professor Alastair Irons) explores contemporary themes in formative assessment and feedback in higher education: Irons and Elkington (2021). Enhancing learning through formative assessment and feedback. London: Routledge. His forthcoming book (Elkington and Irons, 2025) explores the prospects for “Formative Assessment and Feedback in Post-Digital Environments” drawing together 25 international disciplinary case studies in higher education.

X / Twitter: @sd_elkington | Email: s.elkington@tees.ac.uk

Abstract

Our shared experiences of recent events have revealed that authentically future-facing assessment designs need to be inclusive and adaptable, ideally offering an element of flexibility and agency to students which helps them to continuously connect what they are learning – ideas to thinking, principles to problems, theory to practice, learning to life. The increasing ‘hybridisation’ of HE provision is a critical aspect of the emerging requirements of flexible learning environments, blurring the boundaries between distinct contexts of learning and their activities (Goodyear, 2020). This raises critical questions about how best to position university assessment to be relevant and authentic to student learning both now and in the future. The proliferation of digital learning tools and technologies has hastened the movement toward seeking greater flexibility, inclusivity, and authenticity in assessment along with the recognition that traditional models of assessment do not, and cannot, fully reflect what learning and development in increasingly uncertain professional settings is really like. Crucially, students are already using the affordances of the varied digital ecologies they are part of to discover and construct knowledge that is meaningful to their individual learning needs, circumstances, and aspirations. Add to this the growing accessibility of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools such as ChatGPT, and we begin to see how designing assessments to support future authentic learning experiences will necessarily involve negotiating an increasingly complex set of practices, technologies, and resources.

GenAI applications, like any other technologies, have the potential to significantly enhance the learning process. Whilst commentators have been quick to point out how such developments run the risk of undermining the academic integrity of our pedagogic approaches, this will only be the case if we proceed to take insufficient account of the disciplinary and situated nature of knowledge and practice reflecting the entangled relationships between people and technologies (Bearman and Ajjawi, 2023; Fawns, 2019). We need a new kind of assessment system – one which is open rather than closed, and not biased only toward stable performative measures of student success, but is instead based on relevance, recognises diversity and values difference(s). In this talk, Sam presents the case for and potential of embedding flexibility, inclusivity, and authenticity as fundamental and active principles in a transformed outlook for university assessment. Sam draws upon the latest research and sector best practices to demonstrate how such assessment arrangements can be created to allow for a valid representation of student achievement with respect to the diversity inherent within our student cohorts amidst unprecedented challenges and disruption. Sam brings together a range of practice strategies for how educators can effectively and with confidence move assessment forward into such environments in ways that prepare students for a multitude of future possibilities.

Room: G101, Luton Campus Centre

Grab a tea, or coffee before heading off to keynotes in G101.

Please bring your own reusable cup or mug if possible.

Room: G101 Lecture Theatre, Campus Centre

Compassionate Assessment
Dr Neil Currant (Senior Lecturer - Teaching, Learning and Digital Education)

Integrating Graduate Competencies into Assessment
Dr Andrew Mitchell (Associate Dean (Quality & International), Deans Office - EES)

Authentic Assessments in Practice: Collaborating with Businesses to embed live projects in the Curriculum
Dr Alexander Kofinas (Head of Department Strategy and Management, Graduate School of Business)

Balancing Minds: Integrating Mental Health and Wellbeing into our Assessment Process 

• Andrea Thompson (Senior Lecturer and Course Coordinator - Operating Department Practice)
• Dr Roma Thomas (Principal Lecturer in Applied Social Sciences & School Enhancement Lead)
• Kelly Clifford (Senior Lecturer in Adult Nursing)

Take the opportunity to re-energise during the lunch hour - food and refreshments can be found in the Cafe Neo space (outside of G101), Luton Campus Centre.

Posters will be on display during the lunch hour.

Poster Theme: Innovative Assessment

Room: G101 Lecture Theatre, Campus Centre

Professor Julie Hulme

Julie is a Professor in Psychology Education at Nottingham Trent University. She is a Chartered Psychologist, Principal Fellow of the HEA, and a National Teaching Fellow, and applies psychological theory and research methods to better understand and enhance learning and teaching in higher education. Julie describes herself as a 'positive disruptor'; she challenges inequity in higher education, champions inclusion, and is always willing to question the status quo. Julie is committed to developing understanding and support for other academics on diverse career paths and is a strong advocate for education-focused staff career progression.

Abstract

The number and proportion of academics employed on education-focused career pathways have grown considerably in recent years (HESA, 2023), but the nature of their role and their contributions to universities above and beyond teaching and educational leadership can be misunderstood and sometimes undervalued. In this talk, Julie will share her scholarship journey and her national work in supporting education-focused professorial promotions. She'll lead us through exploring the nature of scholarship, the diverse ways in which scholarship can be 'done' and disseminated, and discussing what it means to develop a meaningful academic career and expertise to the professorial level while on an education-focused career pathway. She'll also get us thinking about how all of this can be done while still having a life beyond the job!

Room: G101 Lecture Theatre, Campus Centre

Advance HE fellowship celebration

Professor Julie Brunton, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education and Student Experience) will deliver awards and celebrate colleagues.

Room: G101 Lecture Theatre, Campus Centre

Conference Close

Dr Steve Briggs, Director of Learning and Teaching Excellence will draw the conference to a close with some final thoughts and reflections on the day.