The Partners and the Project

Southampton Solent University is the lead partner with Oxford Brookes and Bournemouth Universities in a three-year joint  FDTL5 (Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning).  The project started in October 2004 in the subject areas of Hospitality, Leisure, Sports and Tourism, with the aim to enhance the student learning experience by developing inclusive modes of assessment, which do not solely rely on written evidence.

Powerpoint presentation about the TLC project.

Why think about how we assess students?

There are now a high percentage of students in Higher Education who have some form of declared disability.  In addition there are currently concerns over plagiarism in relation to students' written work, an awareness that students learn in a variety of ways and a desire to prepare students for employment following university.  The project team have responded to this issues by developing a variety of reflective case studies adopting an inclusive approach to assessment.  The aim is to encourage lecturers to reflect on what and how they assess students.  This site provides resources in the form of reflective case studies to help lecturers make changes to the way they assess. 

"We’ve got to be creative, we’ve got to try and encourage ourselves not to just to adopt the standard approach, but to try and see something differently and to try and encourage the students to be as creative as well" (lecturer)

(H McCafferty et al 2005 ' Exploring lecturers views on assessment' )

The National Working Party for Dyslexia in Higher Education (1999) found that approximately half of all dyslexic students are diagnosed whilst in Higher Education.  Moreover about four per cent of all students in Higher Education have dyslexia.  Dyslexia is recognized as a learning disability (SENDA, 2001).  It is not related to intellectual ability and some say that dyslexia is a gift in disguise as dyslexics are often highly creative and excel at hands-on learning.

Focus of the project

There are two distinct but interlinked areas to the project.  The first is to develop and trial innovative non-or-partly written assessment methods.  The second is to empower and support lecturers to implement these by removing barriers created by such things as institutional policies, moderation, equity issues and time.

The project will draw on experiences of using creative assessments developed in other subject areas, such as music, art and design, as well as other projects that have developed a methodology for embedding change through staff development.  One of the project's objectives is to encourage staff to use creative assessments by producing exemplar materials and providing workshops for staff development activities at department level.

If you have good examples of creative assessment methods that you would like to share or you would like to know more about the project email, please get in touch.

Information on writing reflective case studies for TLC

Contact us page.