Assessment Considerations

Learning through life is socially situated and dynamically embedded in everyday tasks and real-life contexts, in contrast with the abstract character of classroom learning in higher education.

To prepare students for lifelong learning, scholars have argued that assessments should be attuned to the dynamic and rapidly changing contexts of the 21st century workplace.

It should also incorporate active student involvement, including through peer assessment and self-assessment; and it should embrace the idea of feedback as “feedforward”, where feedback is not merely a review and grading of completed assessments, but incorporates insights and guidance that learners can take forward into future tasks and situations”
(Kolade et al., 2024, p. 2

With changes to the application of knowledge and learning objectives, comes a necessary shift in assessment practices. As skill development becomes the primary driver of learning and achievement, content and knowledge retention may not be applicable for assessment practices.

Educators have an opportunity to rethink our assessment practices that help prepare our students for ‘real life learning’ and tasks that will be embedded in their daily lives.

Providing students with real-world, practice scenarios, gives them feedback that can instantly provided to guide learners into their future tasks and situations.

The following model of assessment was proposed in the paper, “Is AI changing learning and assessment as we know it? Evidence from a ChatGPT experiment and a conceptual framework” by authors Oluwaseun Kolade a,*, Adebowale Owoseni b, Abiodun Egbetokun c”.

Suggestions are made below on applications to use, to progress assessment to a more engaging and meaningful experience for educator and student.