Higher education is infatuated with numbers. Educators assign students a mark for an assessment, combine those marks into a final unit grade, and then institutions combine grades from multiple units into a Grade Point Average (GPA). The result is a wonderfully convenient numerical value. Years of learning ultimately represented by […]
Assessment & Feedback - Innovation & Future of Higher Education - Student Learning & Engagement
If Assessment Ends at the Grade, What Was It For?
In higher education, students often complete an assessment, submit it, receive a grade, and then move on. Academics evaluate and mark the work, offer feedback, and focus on the next task. The assessment has effectively fulfilled its purpose: generating evidence, informing judgments, and contributing to the final results. But has […]
Assessment & Feedback - Innovation & Future of Higher Education - Student Learning & Engagement
Rethinking Public Outcomes in Higher Education
Beyond the Dropbox: Why Student Work Deserves an Audience What Happens After Assessment? Each semester, students generate a remarkable volume of work. They craft business proposals, carry out research projects, design lesson plans, develop solutions, analyse data, build prototypes, implement community initiatives, and produce creative outputs. In higher education, students […]
Assessment & Feedback - Reflections & Provocations
The Assessment Illusion: Why Precision in Grading is a Myth
Higher education frequently treats grades as exact indicators of learning. For example, one student might get 74%, while another earns 75%. Similarly, one might be awarded a Credit and the other a Distinction. Transcripts, GPA calculations, scholarship rankings, and postgraduate admissions all operate under the assumption that these distinctions are […]
Assessment & Feedback - Reflections & Provocations - Student Learning & Engagement - Teaching Practice
What If Failure Isn’t Failure? Rethinking Learning in Higher Education
Watch anyone engaged in genuine learning, whether it’s a child wobbling on their bike, a filmmaker wrestling with an edit, or a student drafting an essay, and one thing becomes clear: learning is messy. It’s tangled, unpredictable, and full of false starts. The progress of learning never moves in a straight […]