Higher Education Assessment Workshop Hosted at St Mary’s

The Philosophy and History teams at St Mary’s University, Twickenham recently hosted a workshop exploring student teaching and assessment methods after receiving a grant from the Higher Education Academy (HEA). ‘Assessment: Group Effort, or Individual Achievement?’ was held at St Mary’s on Tuesday 4th February following the HEA grant, which was awarded last November to Dr Stephen Rainey, Research Fellow in Philosophy, St Mary’s School of Arts and Humanities. Focussing on assessment methods where students work together, but are marked individually, the day offered a series of workshops which allowed delegates to present and discuss their ideas for collaborative teaching and assessment techniques, including the use of innovative media. The day was opened by Dr Chris Willmott (University of Leicester), who delivered a plenary session discussing the use of multimedia in bioethics education. There were also a series of interactive workshops including Conference as Assessment and Philosophical Dialogue as Assessment. Conference organiser Dr Rainey said, “Having students participate in the workshops helped give us some perspective on what we are doing right as far as assessing learning goes. The day was a great success.”