1. Introduction
  2. Assignment briefs
  3. Marking criteria
  4. Peer and self assessment

Assessment introduction

Week 5 Topic Introduction

This section will try to stick to the very practical realities of assessment and feedback. By engaging with this week's topic you should be able to critically analyse the assignments, assignment briefs and marking criteria used in your own studies and in courses that you might be teaching on. The aims are:

You can use the guidance here to help produce and develop your own briefs and marking criteria.

Like all aspects of education, the ideas around assessment and marking are contested and are often subject to the latest vogue. In addition, the reality of your teaching practice means that even if we understand what is important it can be difficult to implement in practice.

In the vein of being reflective and constructively critical, we invite you in the discussions to engage with the brief and criteria on this course and to critique them. Producing ‘ideal’ briefs and criteria sounds easy in theory but can be difficult in practice.

We hope this week that you gain that practical knowledge to help you with your own teaching and also that you are sparked into wanting to find out more about the wider educational debate on assessment and feedback.

What this topic covers?

In order for students to understand what is expected of them in their assignments, we produce a number of key documents to help:

We also ask students to review any previous feedback they have received. See page two of Oxford Brookes' short student guide to preparing for assignments.

These documents alone are not always enough to fully help the students understand the task. One way to help students understand the task and the criteria is through peer and self assessment activities.

The three areas for this week's topic then are: assignment briefs, assessment criteria and peer & self assessment.