Theme group: Assessment, evaluation and examination
Names course coordinators:
Renske Bouwer, r.bouwer@uu.nl
Marije Lesterhuis, marije.lesterhuis@uantwerpen.be
Course description:
Assessment is essential for teaching and learning within schools or universities, as well as in the workplace. It is a broad construct, with different meanings and aims depending on its function. For instance, if assessment is used to make decisions on knowledge, understanding or skills, it is defined as assessment of learning (or: summative assessment). Assessment can also be used to inform teaching and/or to promote learning, which are respectively called assessment for and as learning (or: formative assessment). In the last decades, the last two assessment functions have received increased attention in both research and practice.
In this course, students will position their own research within this broad field of assessment and they will get to know the most relevant concepts, research questions, and practical issues within each assessment domain. In interactive guest lectures on various themes, well-established assessment researchers will promote participants’ theoretical understanding of assessment. They will present their recent research findings and they will interactively discuss how these findings have led to innovations in today’s research and educational practice.
There will also be an excursion to the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht (HU) in which participants discuss current assessment issues in higher education with educational practitioners. Together, they will also discuss to what extent scientific insights are already implemented in today’s assessment practice and how both researchers and teachers may foster this.
Course objectives:
After this course the PhD students:
Meetings:
The course program consists of interactive meetings in which you will present your research, collaborate in subgroups on group assignments, follow interactive guest lectures and contribute to (sub)group discussions.
Day 1 – April 12, 2021
Day 2 – April 13, 2021
In this group excursion you will get the opportunity to discuss with educational practitioners of the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht how they use assessment for summative and formative purposes in their classroom practice. How do they make decisions for assessments and assessment programs? What are constraints or struggles in designing and/or implementing assessments in practice? Do they use research findings for the optimization of their assessment program? Answers on these and other relating questions will provide a unique insight in what kind of research impacts educational practice, and, vice versa, what practice-based research questions are currently open for further research. To foster discussion, you will present your research in subgroups based on the posters that are designed at Day 1 and they will present some practical cases.
Day 3 – May 20, 2021
Day 4 – May 21, 2021
Specification of the workload: (84 hours in total)
Location: : Vergadercentrum Vredenburg, Utrecht
Go to the course registration form