We Haven’t Solved the Essay. Now AI Can Make the Creative Work

For the past few years, much of the debate about generative AI in higher education has focused on written assessments. The essay emerged as a key concern because tools like ChatGPT can generate proficient written responses quickly and at scale, challenging many traditional assessment assumptions. We have invested significant time contemplating the implications. How can…

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 it actually contributed to the…

If Every Class Looks the Same, Are We Really Teaching?

During professional learning sessions with university educators, a familiar phrase keeps coming up: “We have to deliver the content.” It often surfaces when staff describe teaching a unit designed by someone else, especially when the slides, activities, resources and weekly sequence have already been prepared. For sessional educators and less experienced ongoing academics, it can…

Is the Unit Still the Building Block of Higher Education?

For generations, the unit has been the fundamental building block of higher education. It structures curriculum, determines credit, organises teaching, and provides the framework through which students progress towards a qualification. Whether a university teaches in semesters, trimesters, intensive modes, or blocks, the unit remains the common currency of learning. It underpins course design, staff…

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 contribute significantly to a vast…