2019 UECA Assessment Symposium – Abstract Accepted!

Recently, I submitted an abstract to present at the 2019 University English Centers Australia (UECA) Assessment Symposium – and it has been accepted!

I am an action-orientated, hands-on, tread-the-boards participatory kind of educator. I used to think that assessments were a chore, ineffective, didn’t reflect the full student learning experience and was something that was most important to administrators. Now I have a very different view of educational assessment.

I applied to present at this symposium for the opportunities it will provide in: extending my classroom expertise into other areas of teaching and pedagogy I am not as familiar with; encouraging me to engage a direct approach to monitoring, tracking and evaluating changes I make in my teaching praxis; to see what current themes are occupying educational service providers; to gain more experience with the administration side of educational processes and policies.

For this presentation, I am using the Bicycle Create Change internship program as a case study for my key message. Find out more about the Bicycles Create Change Internship here.

Previously, four of us involved in the Bicycles Create Change internship program presented some of the key lessons, findings and insights at the 2018 English Australia (QLD) PD Fest and then again at the 2018 National English Australia conference.

The purpose of the UECA session is to specifically look at some of the unique assessment pieces we worked with. These are aspects of the program that we have not yet been shared.

This session will explore some of the co-collaborative assessment success and misfires that we went through and unpack why these important and productive processes.

Ultimately my central argument will be to consider using some inventiveness in assessments, so they are more creative, challenging and authentically related to ‘the real world’.

I hope to stir the pot just a little and advocate for more innovative assessments (and greater awareness for bikes!)

This presentation is also an exercise in sharing the insights derived from the Bicycles Create Change internship program to a wider range of teachers, educational institutions, stakeholders and interested parties.

It is also part of my aspirational long-term sociological goal of embedding bicycles into every aspect of everyday life. I would love to see a world where bicycles are a normative feature of our daily routines – and not just for transportation, fitness or sport.

So, I like to surreptitiously entangle bicycles into every facet of life I can – and especially into education, teaching and learning. This UECA session is a great case in point. It is safe to say that the participants of this conference won’t be expecting to be hearing about bikes at a formal assessment conference – and therein lies the genius!  

In regularly doing these kinds of subversive biketivism moves in many areas, over time, I hope I’m building a future where, someday, bikes will just be a normative, necessary and accepted part of everyone’s life. Here’s to hoping!

What is the UECA English Language Assessment Symposium 2019?

University English Centres Australia (UECA and The University of Queensland’s English Language Centre (UQ-ICTE) are presenting the 2019 Assessment Symposium.

The Assessment Symposium is supported by the English Australia Assessment SIG (Special Interest Group).

It aims to bring together English Language Teaching professionals in order to share best practice in English Language Assessment and provide quality opportunities for learning. Here are the conference streams:

What is the presentation format?

Each session is 40 minutes long.  Presenters do a 30-minute presentation/workshop and have 10 minutes for Q & A at the end.

The organisers also bravely stated that ‘all presentation topics relevant to English language assessment within university English language programs will be considered”.

So, with that in mind, I submitted my abstract.

My UECA Abstract

Stream: Assessment

Title of Presentation: Increasing student assessment satisfaction. Increasing student satisfaction and engagement with assessments: What emerges when students develop their own assessments.

Abstract: Most programs that teach Academic English to international students are heavily based on teacher-led assessments in order to meet organizational benchmarks and standards. In many University English Language Centers, student feedback on course content, materials, teaching, facilities and services is usually positive. However, student feedback about assessments remains a sticky point. The challenge for teachers and administrators is how to increase student satisfaction of assessments in relevant, measurable, practical and meaningful ways. This aim of this session is to reframe current ways of thinking and doing assessments and encourage greater consideration for innovative negotiated assessments.

Using the case study of an independent, experimental, collaborative, 8-week pilot internship program designed by Nina Ginsberg and four international students, this session shares unique student-developed processes that emerged during the course of the internship. The internship was an exploration of how international students could consolidate, progress and apply their English, academic, professional and personal skills in authentic and creative ways. This internship recently won the 2018 English Australia Bright Ideas Award (QLD).

This session will focus on a series of unique and challenging academic and employment-related assessments devised and undertaken by the students themselves. Three student-created assessments in particular that will be unpacked in more detail are: Pivots, Most Significant Change and Working your way backwards. It is hoped that the assessments discussed in this session will provide inspiration for developing more engaging curricula and thus increase student satisfaction.

Bio: Nina Ginsberg is a Griffith University teacher and Language Instructor at GELI. She has worked with international students for over 15 years and is known for her engaging and innovative teaching and learning style. Nina has worked on all levels of General English, Academic English and Direct Pathway programs and uses quality teaching and learning approaches, tools and practices to help progress student capacity, participation and enjoyment.  Recently, Nina’s Bicycles Create Change Internship presentation won English Australia’s 2018 Bright Ideas Award (QLD). Her current PhD research uses New Materialist approaches to explore how bicycles might (re)configure rural African girls’ access to secondary education.

Prelim schedule

Post note: I’m including the details of my abstract submission here because while doing a PhD you often have to submit abstracts to various events, but we often don’t get any help, guides or examples of how to do this. Only after the event schedule has been confirmed do you get to see the abstracts – and some events don’t release them to the public or online. So unless you actually go to these events, often you don’t get to see details about the session. It used to frustrate the hell out of me. Some thoughtful event managers upload a full program that includes session abstracts – and these are goldmines. So on this blog, I always include my abstract submission because it just might be of interest for someone else.