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 - 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 - Innovation & Future of Higher Education - Reflections & Provocations - Student Learning & Engagement
Seeing the Thinking: What Creative Arts Assessment Practices Can Offer Other Disciplines
Generative AI has forced higher education into a renewed conversation about assessment, which has been long overdue. Universities and educators are now asking familiar assessment questions with urgency: What exactly are we assessing? How do we recognise evidence of student thinking? And what does authentic learning look like when polished outputs can […]
Assessment & Feedback - Innovation & Future of Higher Education - Reflections & Provocations - Student Learning & Engagement
Why Higher Education Must Separate Assessing from Grading
In higher education, we often talk about assessment, but what is usually meant is grading. The two have become so closely linked that we forget they serve very different purposes. When they blend together, it is learning that suffers. If we see assessment as the process of understanding where a […]