Making assessment more inclusive for students with Specific Learning - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Making assessment more inclusive for students with Specific Learning Differences/Difficulties (SpLDs):

Moving from pockets of excellence to mainstream practice.

• Sara Rankin – Professor of Leukocyte and Stem Cell Biology,

Faculty of Medicine

• David Mooney – Dyslexia/SpLD co-ordinator, Disability Advisory

Service

• Kate Ippolito – Principal Teaching Fellow, Educational

Development Unit

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Workshop Learning Outcomes

By the end of this workshop you will be better able to:

• 1. Identify barriers to assessment currently faced by

students with SpLDs

• 2. Increase your repertoire of strategies to support learners

with SpLDs

• 3. Embed good practice, inclusive examples in their own

educational contexts

• 4. Motivate and support academic colleagues to develop

more inclusive assessment practices

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Excellence Fund for Learning and Teaching Innovation Project - context

• Equality Act 2010 – Disabilities are protected

characteristics

• Making curricula more inclusive - one of four key

pillars of Imperial College's Learning and Teaching Strategy

• Reducing and diversifying our assessment methods -

key objective in university-wide UG curriculum review project (Phase 1 completed April 2019)

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Excellence Fund for Learning and Teaching Innovation Project – departure points

• More medical students identify with SpLDs - year 4 - intercalated

BSc

• Students with SpLDs (diagnosed/undiagnosed) do not always

engage with Disability Advisory Service.

• Half of SpLD students (5% of total student population -

estimate) receive only exam arrangements or nothing at all ie: no support

• Students need a blend:

– well-designed, inclusive programmes, including assessment – programme-embedded Inclusive Technologies – embedded study skills and 1:1 study skills

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Differences – Difficulties - Disabilities

Learning Difference Learning Difficulty Learning Disability

Non inclusive Environment Severe impact Inclusive Environment Mild impact

Dyslexia ADHD Autism Dyspraxia

Activity

• In small groups please identify and discuss

common barriers to assessment for students with SpLDs. (5 mins)

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Student perspectives: Challenges

• Too much and unspecified pre-reading for assignments, “dense

texts, hard to unpick”

• Jumping between topics and lack of flow to lectures impacts on

visual revision strategies

• Inclusive technologies –

– requires time and shift in mind set to use them efficiently – perceived lack of remote, flexible access? – outdated beliefs about quality of technologies

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Student perspectives: Challenges

• Late or lack of clarity on assessment expectations e.g. style of

essay, nature of exam questions discursive not factual

• “Important assessments continually, I felt that pressure

continually”

• Group work that is summatively assessed
• Lack of transparency or dialogue about how other students

approached in-course assessment, how long they spent etc.

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Student perspectives: Preferences

• Signposting potential challenges of yr 4 for students with

SpLDs (role model)

• Chance to talk one-to-one with tutors or DAS about their

needs and study strategies

• All assignment tasks at the beginning of the year so they can

start early

• Alternatives to written assessment e.g. posters, pod casts and

scaffolded, paired oral presentations

• Panopto lecture capture

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Student perspectives: Preferences

• Creative, visual assessment to enhance repertoire

“So I’ve always colour-coordinated notes and everything. And when I revise, I normally do mind maps. But this year, really, I’ve had a lot of skills in my course. For example, learning about different practices. And we had a collage workshop, which is great. And I think that’s really

• pened my eyes to how it could be used in this context, and it really

suits my goals.”

• Exams over in-course assessment
• An indication of an SpLD to examiner
• Dialogic feedback

“we could go and sit down with someone who had marked our essay

and sort of talk everything through…and ask anything additional we wanted.”

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Activity

In your small group please:

• Discuss the assessment examples

– Inclusive viva exam – Assessment to promote and reward creativity – Using QuickMark in Turnitin for inclusive feedback

• Critically evaluate its suitability for various contexts
• Share alternatives and refinements

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Activity

• In your small groups, please identify the challenges and

successes you’ve had when engaging colleagues and attempting to mainstream inclusive assessment.

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Moving from pockets of excellence to mainstream practise

Challenges and strategies

Challenge : To secure different stakeholder buy-in and collaboration – learning technologists, teaching fellows, senior academics and managers Educational Development Unit (EDU) ‘Introduction to making teaching more inclusive’ – 1 day workshop Perspectives in Education – Geoff Layer – Vice Principal University of

• Wolverhampton. ‘Adopting a more inclusive and extensive approach to

supporting students’ UG Medicine – meetings with programme directors and pathway leads to encourage inclusive practice for students with SpLDs at curriculum redesign stage Cross-university staff development workshops – building capacity to develop inclusive practice at pedagogical transformation stage Development and signposting of EDU inclusive teaching toolkit – https://www.imperial.ac.uk/staff/educational-development/teaching- toolkit/inclusive-learning-and-teaching/ Learning Technologists meetings – Blackboard ALLY – good practice audits

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Challenges and strategies

Challenge : To embed Inclusive Technologies in the College’s structures and to increase usage Inclusive Technologies Service enhancement plan – 16 networked commercial and open source tools Accessibility awareness day - collaboration with Microsoft 365 Service Level Agreement for training – Diversity and Ability Ltd Inclusive technologies - key staff workshops Inclusive Technologies student workshops all students (including students with SpLDs) – plan to embed in departments Inclusive technologies 1:1 training (students with SpLDs) 1-2 half days Social Media and College Communications - promotion

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Challenges and strategies

Challenge : To increase assessment choices and inclusion Modelling of assessment variation across curriculum Discussions around offering assessment choice (equity/ parity) Moving from exam arrangements to inclusive practise (extra time/ computers/ readers/ separate rooms) Exam replacements Tablet MCQs – accessibility issues Group work options Modelling of inclusive assessment practices on MEd in University Learning and Teaching and internal educational conferences and seminars

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