The Centre for Teaching and Learning at UBC-Okanagan has been setting up online Communities of Practices (CoP) to encourage instructors to get together and share ideas. A new community of practice on digital assessment is set to start on Jan. 18 and everyone is welcome to attend and participate.
Feel free to attend in-person or by Zoom and join in on the Teams Channel Discussion. The description is below.
CoP: Leveraging Digital Assessment Techniques for Enhanced Learning
Introduction
Introduction
Welcome to one of our new Community of Practice (CoP) groups for the upcoming academic term. We are excited to offer this valuable and needed opportunity to support your teaching excellence, and of course, your students.
In today’s digital era, the incorporation of emerging teaching and assessment technologies brings substantial benefits to both students and instructors. This CoP initiative aims to facilitate the sharing of innovative strategies and resources in this realm. By joining, instructors will have the opportunity to contribute to discussions led by invited speakers sharing their own experiences with implementing digital assessment and teaching technologies, including lessons learned. This new faculty learning community seeks to examine literature-informed best practices in digital assessment techniques, thereby promoting teaching excellence and student success. We welcome all instructors to encourage cross-institutional collaboration and support for those interested in exploring digital assessments.
Each meeting date, we will focus on different digital assessment technique or tool that has potential to enhance learning as well as improve course resource accessibility and ease of use, reduce feedback time for students, and provide instructors with flexibility in the creation, delivery, monitoring, and marking of course assessments. In addition, we will apply principles of learner-centred course and assessment design to evaluate the various assessment tools and their implementation. Specifically, we aim to uncover ways in which digital assessments can improve overall student experiences (autonomy, self-efficacy, connections with peers) and contribute to well-being (flexibility, clarity, usability) as well as provide instructors with flexibility in the creation, delivery, monitoring, and marking of course assessments.
Objectives
- Foster a collaborative environment where faculty members can share, learn, and support each other with emerging digital assessment strategies and technologies.
- Discuss the different ways that digital assessment tools have been used in the creation, implementation and marking of formative and summative assignments and exams, including examining how digital assessment tools are being used to measure student learning gains.
- Encourage cross-collaboration and knowledge exchange on evidence-based digital assessment practices across disciplines and institutions.
Faculty Coordinators/Facilitators
- Zoë Soon, Associate Professor of Teaching, Biology, IKB Faculty of Science ZoeAnne.Soon@ubc.ca
- Peyman Yousefi, Assistant Professor of Teaching, Civil, Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science, peyman.yousefi@ubc.ca
- Sally Willis-Stewart, Associate Professor of Teaching, Health and Exercise Sciences, Faculty of Health and Social Development, sally.willis-stewart@ubc.ca
CTL Coordinator
Barbara Komlos has set up a Teams Channel for this CoP which we will use for connecting and supporting instructors with digital assessments. Be sure to take advantage of this teams channel for informal discussions. Contact Barbara to be added to the channel: barbara.komlos@ubc.ca
Meeting Dates and Format
We are planning to organise hybrid sessions, allowing for in-person attendance in SCI 331 as well as virtual participation via Zoom. These sessions are scheduled to be 80 minutes in length and occur every 6 weeks (starting Jan. 2024). Our aim is to feature 1 or 2 guest speakers in each session, who will share their insights on their topic’s current scholarly literature and experiences, followed by a segment for questions and discussion.
Meeting Times will begin in January 2024 in CCS 331 and will be in person and by Zoom as well. Contact Barbara or Zoë for the Zoom invitation.
Current Schedule
Thurs. Jan. 18, 12:00-1:20pm – Zoë Soon (OER Assessments), Jake Bobowski (Jupyter and Autograding)
Thurs. Feb. 15, 12:00-1:20pm – Peyman Yousefi (Assignment Monitoring) and Ernest Goh (WeBWork)
Thurs. Mar. 14, 2:00-3:20pm – Firas Moosvi (Digital Assessments) and Richard Plunkett (AI assignments)
Fri. Apr. 12, 12:00-1:20pm –Mohammad Tiznobaik and Brendan D’Souza (AI)