TESTA workshop

1. Changing conceptions and
practice
Tansy Jessop
TESTA Workshop
University of Westminster
4 October 2018

2. Educational change – your thoughts
Enablers
• Write down any
enabling factors you
can think of on green
cards
Barriers
• Write down any
barriers you can think
of on red cards

3. Four propositions
1. Change is difficult. It often involves loss.
2. Change is about people: listen, respect & involve
them, and act together.
3. Change is about taking risks.
4. Sustainable change is about systems, but systems
are not forever

5. So why has TESTA worked?

6. It was heavy, tons of marking for
the tutor. It was such hard work.
It was criminal.
Media Course Leader
I’m really bad at reading
feedback. I’ll look at the mark
and then be like ‘well stuff it, I
can’t do anything about it’
Student, TESTA focus group
1. It responds to a felt need

7. The value was to look at what we do from a scientific
perspective and look at things objectively, and that is
really enabling us to re-think how we do things.
2. The evidence is compelling…
It has fed into the changes that are going on in the
curriculum…this helps me go to the team and say ‘Well,
look, we’ve got the evidence now to be able to go ahead
and do this’ rather than it being on a whim…

8. 3. It prizes collaboration & collegiality
I don’t think it’s just the
tools. The tools are
good and they work
really, really well, but
..[the change] comes
through a kind of
collegiality.
It’s been a collaborative
thing. It hasn’t just been
me saying to the team
“We’re going to do this”
It’s “This is what they’ve
found out folks. What
are we going to do
about it? How are we
going to develop it?

9. A team approach – all pulling in same direction

10. Everybody has brought
in more formative. The
idea was to consolidate
the summative
assessment and bring in
more formative.
Do we want to continue
offering twenty different
types of assessment or
do we bite the bullet and
say “We want the
students to be able to
master five of them”?
There has been more of a
spacing of assessments.
4. It has practical impacts…
There is a lot more feed
forward, which is what
came out of the TESTA.

11. …which are solution-oriented
Already today I have seen some of yesterday’s
feedback being put into action across the team
and we are feeling excited about the changes
we are making.
Clearly some things will take a little longer but
yesterday’s meeting has bought about clarity
and given us an insight over the direction we
now want to take the programme.
Email Correspondence, Programme Leader

12. 5. It is systemic
Connections
Interweaving
Fitting together
Joined up systems Increasing sophistication
Linkages
No duplication

13. 6. But it is not top-down

14. So what typically happens?
• Data collection
• Case study
• Live briefing
• Discussion
• Options and strategies to address problems
• Curriculum design actions
• Pedagogic actions
• Follow up

15. The tone of the case study
• Build a narrative thread
• Descriptive, non-evaluative tone
• Empathetic
• Surprises, puzzles, contradictions
• Balancing weak and strong features
• Admitting gaps, interpretation, errors
• Not prescriptive, but give a steer & create
options

16. Mistakes we have made
• Too much information
• Too much negative information
• Lack of soft stuff – food, drinks, chat, humour,
empathy, conducive spaces
• Inquorate team meetings
• Allowing colleagues to focus on modules

17. Things that have worked
• Post-it predictions beforehand
• Trust and confidentiality
• Admitting gaps, listening
• Respect for disciplines
• Team ownership
• One pages notes – “you said”
• Focus on the whole programme
• Follow-up contact and team
workshops

18. The TESTA effect
• Helps teams to talk about whole programme design
• Acting on evidence and principles
• Formative assessment
• Develops connections within/across modules
• Feedback as dialogue
• Greater knowledge and confidence among teachers
about assessment for learning
• And…improved NSS scores

20. References
Barlow, A. and Jessop, T. 2016. “You can’t write a load of rubbish”: Why blogging works as formative
assessment. Educational Developments. 17(3), 12-15. SEDA.
Boud, D. and Molloy, E. (2013) ‘Rethinking models of feedback for learning: The challenge of
design’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 38(6), pp. 698–712.
Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C. (2004) Conditions under which assessment supports students' learning. Learning
and Teaching in Higher Education. 1(1): 3-31.
Harland, T., McLean, A., Wass, R., Miller, E. and Sim, K. N. (2014) ‘An assessment arms race and its fallout:
High-stakes grading and the case for slow scholarship’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education.
Jessop, T. and Tomas, C. 2017. The implications of programme assessment on student learning. Assessment
and Evaluation in Higher Education.
Jessop, T. and Maleckar, B. 2016. The Influence of disciplinary assessment patterns on student learning: a
comparative study. Studies in Higher Education. Published Online 27 August 2014
Jessop, T. , El Hakim, Y. and Gibbs, G. (2014) The whole is greater than the sum of its parts: a large-scale
study of students’ learning in response to different assessment patterns. Assessment and Evaluation in
Higher Education. 39(1) 73-88.
Nicol, D. 2010. From monologue to dialogue: improving written feedback processes in mass higher
education, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35: 5, 501 – 517.
O'Donovan, B , Price, M. and Rust, C. (2008) 'Developing student understanding of assessment standards: a
nested hierarchy of approaches', Teaching in Higher Education, 13: 2, 205 -217.
Sadler, D. R. 1989. ‘Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems’, Instructional Science,
18(2), pp. 119–144.
Tomas, C and Jessop, T. 2018. Struggling and juggling: A comparison of student assessment loads across
research and teaching-intensive universities. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education. 18 April.
Wu, Q. and Jessop, T. 2018. Formative assessment: missing in action in both research-intensive and teaching-
focused universities. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education. Published online 15 January.