Photo: Sehoya Cotner
In May, bioCEED went to Trondheim to participate in Læringsfestivalen 2022. Specifically, Lars Martin and Jørund presented on creative meaningful student partnerships, and Sehoya delivered, along with our UPED colleague and Friend of bioCEED Yael Harlap, a keynote address on “Ensuring quality assessment practices under the two-evaluator law.» In our address, we introduced the recent decision, mandating two sensors for all graded assessments in Norwegian higher education. We note how this led to some passionate discussions about how we assess, why we assess, and what this law will mean to our teaching and our students’ learning. In our interactive discussion, we shared some ideas for thinking creatively about how to assess our students meaningfully moving forward. Examples include switching to Pass/Fail-only options during part of the curriculum, using condensed-portfolio grading, or allowing students to opt in to different grading schemes (they do a certain set of tasks for an A, another set for a B, and so on). Audience input indicated that this is, in fact, a topic that many of our colleagues feel strongly about, and we hope the new law creates opportunities to think critically about assessment—rather than abandoning 20 years of progress in student-centered instruction.
Photo: Sehoya Cotner
Photo: Sehoya Cotner