Dear Sue and colleagues
We tried this three years ago at Roehampton when the academic year was reorganised which meant there was very little formal teaching after Easter. The initiative was led by careers rather than academic colleagues and L&T folk and wasn't a success. I'll share what was learnt  from the evaluation just in case it's helpful, even though I am sure your plans will be more robust in the first place:
- the 'pot pourri' of opportunities for skills/employability development and a/some big social event(s) run by students (including the May Ball) weren't sufficiently attractive to persuade students to stay on campus for the whole two weeks. Having asked for sessions on CV planning and to meet employers, the turn-out was poor.
- the events manager post is critical. It's a real challenge to  co-ordinate cross curricula events and 'sell them' to students and academic colleagues and manage the range of tasks involved from booking rooms to organising speakers etc. A lot of effort did not result in wide student engagement.
- some kind of assessment and closer links to students' academic courses would have made the initiative more popular
- many students saw this period as an opportunity to increase their hours in part time work or to save money by returning home or to broaden their experiences by heading abroad or getting involved in theatre projects or volunteering. As John Peters suggests, perhaps such experience could be 'recognised' in some way.
- it was a challenge to coordinate events for this initiative alongside the use of the campus in the summer by private language schools and academic conferences

However the good news is that the initiative raised the issue of 'the third term' space in academic departments and since then academics have worked with LTEU to consider alternative curriculum models and enhancement activities at a local level. The most successful have been:
- short fat modules taught intensively over 2 weeks in May as part of the normal menu of module choices (works best in Dance and Drama). Some staff are happy with this as it means they have less teaching at other times of the year.
- student research conferences organised by students with PGR students and run as a an academic conference sharing dissertation research and PGR research with alumni as key notes
- student run week long 'festivals' in Dance, Drama and English Literature
- involvement in local festivals in the community
- student led exhibitions (involving fund raising activities and then the exhibition itself) e.g. in Photography

The working group involved in the evaluation  (which now has academic staff and L&T people fully involved) has now recommended that the activities above are further encouraged across the University, in place of a centrally co-ordinated 2 week intensive event.

Hope this helps and all best wishes
Julie


-----Original Message-----
From: Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Burkill, Sue
Sent: 03 January 2012 15:35
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: A tricky assessment challenge

Dear Colleagues

At Exeter we are planning to run a two week intensive end of year (May) event for our first year students in 2013. This has been 'decided' and the event will be 'mandatory'. So now we need to make it pedagogically sound, really attractive and worth staying for.

There will be a 'pot pourri' of opportunities for skills/employability development and a/some big social event(s) run by the Student Guild. However, the backbone will be an intensive cross curricula and integrative learning event - it may be based on one theme or a range of diverse themes provided by teams of staff. It will be launched with  big name speakers. Students will have taster sessions in January and will make choices. We imagine about fifty academics and lots of PGR students will be involved in the event each year (workload models are under discussion) and students will work in groups of about 25 to address a problem/issue which will unravel over the two weeks. There will be an events manager to co-ordinate all this (probably the sort of person who co-ordinates a major two week sporting event like Wimbledon!). There will also be a curriculum and assessment co-ordinator to support the process.

The key issue (for me) is whether to assess or not. Without assessment I can see the students will all escape to Glastonbury, summer jobs etc.

There is nothing I can find on the web (US, Australasia or UK based) after an extensive search about providing an assignment based on intensive learning activities after examinations in the summer for which the grades count towards second year credits (too late for first year exam boards).

So these are the questions:

1.      Has anyone ever tried, written about or heard of assessment which runs at the end of year 1 and counts for credit in year 2? If so please can I have a link or name?

2.      Are there any reasons why we should not use an assignment which starts in one year and goes into the next? What would the QAA say? Are there level based criteria implications?  (our Dean for Taught Programmes seems very uneasy but I cannot see why it should be impossible can you?)

3. Bearing in mind that staff are keen to avoid 'extra' marking etc what might be a 'work light' assessment approach? (Therefore, portfolios are not really an option, but what might work?)

This will all contribute towards a case study for the PASS project which Exeter is contributing to. If you are interested in the idea of programme level assessment have a look at the project website at
http://www.pass.brad.ac.uk/

Best wishes for a Happy New Year.
Sue

Sue Burkill
Head of Education Enhancement
University of Exeter

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