The International Assessment in Higher Education Conference

In early October 2024 I received a surprise email from Professor Pete Boyd inviting me to lead a Master Class at the International Assessment in Higher Education Conference which was taking place in Manchester 19-20 June 2025. Pete asked if I might lead one of the pre-conference workshops, on theme 2 below. Within that broad theme he said "you can focus in on something and we are hoping it might be related to AI and assessment." 

The pre-conference workshops for 2025 will focus on five themes:

1.    Designing evaluation and research methods for assessment and feedback policy and practice.

2.    Practical ideas for enhancing the staff and student experience of assessment and feedback.

3.    Leading institutional change in assessment and feedback policy and practice.

4.    Working for social justice through assessment and feedback policy and practice.

5.    Supporting development of research informed practice in assessment and feedback within the higher education community.

He also said we want an AHE committee member to co-facilitate each workshop, so you would have a buddy to plan and work with. I want you to take a lead but we think by involving a committee member we can generate some collaborative magic. I of course said yes! 

I didn't have to wait long as Pete followed up the next day to say that I would be supported by the amazing duo Emerita Professor Sally Brown & Professor Kay Sambell. For me this was a match made in heaven. That evening the theme of the weekly LTHEchat was Let’s teach and learn about power! Exploring Powergogy and during this Kay Sambell in a tweet provided the inspiration for the focus of the Masterclass with a tweet sharing what her superpower would be. 

My superpower would be Assessment Alchemist!. Ability to turn mundane assessment tasks into powerful and transformational learning experiences!  

AHE Master Classes

To be headlined alongside this collection of amazing academics was an absolute privilege but also somewhat terrifying! 

The conference offers themed workshop style Masterclasses from leading experts in the field of assessment in Higher Education.

You only need to visit the full programme to get a feel for the level of quality of the contributions. Suffice to say months of work went into preparing the masterclass and I was so lucky to have the guidance of Sally and Kay along the way. We wanted the focus of the session to be informative but also creative. We settled on the title below

Assessment Alchemist 101: How to use GenAI to turn mundane assessment tasks into powerful and transformational learning experiences!

https://ahenetwork.org/masterclass-workshop-sue-beckingham/

Abstract

Just as an alchemist seeks to turn base metals into gold, an ‘assessment alchemist’ reimagines traditional assessment practices to create transformative and meaningful learning experiences. In the context of higher education, an assessment alchemist would be someone who is highly innovative, adaptive, and skilled at transforming traditional assessment methods into more dynamic, inclusive, and significant activities. This metaphorical “alchemist” would not just rely on conventional exams, essays, and rigid rubrics, but would blend various tools, approaches, and techniques to assess student learning in a more creative, and impactful way.

The alchemist is adaptive, experimenting with new tools, technologies, and methods such as generative AI (GenAI) to enrich learning and engagement. Integrating GenAI into assessment design can provide inspiration for both creativity and clarity with the potential to develop new ideas to enhance how students both understand and engage with assessment tasks.

This workshop will be a hands-on, collaborative experience that blends practical applications of GenAI with creative thinking about how to transform assessments and how these are communicated to students. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about multimodal generative AI tools and discuss how to apply them in ways that could be more impactful and meaningful.

By the end of the masterclass workshop participants will learn about how GenAI can help them to:

• Develop engaging and clearer assessment criteria.
• Consider alternative multimodal assessment tasks
• Develop creative ways to present assessment briefs beyond traditional written formats.
• Design activities to help students’ understanding of assessment requirements. 

Getting ready

#aheconference25 it’s Today! So looking forward to this conference where I and @kaysambell.bsky.social will be assisting @suebecks.bsky.social with her master class on AI wizardry

— Sally Brown (@profsallybrown.bsky.social) June 19, 2025 at 8:54 AM

Sally actually brought me her magnificent wizard cape and the three of us wore wizard hats during the Master Class.  

The session was interactive and was a combination of me sharing examples of using Generative AI and those attending discussing in pair show they might apply in their own context. 

• The Illustrated Brief
• Video Assessment Explainers
• Role-Play Brief Creation Using ChatGPT Personas
• Musical Micro Moments
• Audio Enhanced Criteria
• Moodboard Your marking Criteria

The resources used in the session are in the Padlet below. This contains:

• The Alchemists Grimoire of Assessment Transformation - a summary of each of the activities
• The Alchemists Cupboard of Curiosities - a selection of GenAI tools
• The presentation slides and the ficticious module, assessment brief and assessment criteria we used as examplars.   

Suffice to say this was the most wonderful experience and one I will never forget. I am so grateful to Pete Boyd for the invitation and the amazing support from Sally and Kay. Thanks also to the brilliant particpants who contributed to the discussion and the padlet activities.

Shining the Spotlight on Scholarship SOS Project

 

In 2024 a group of academics from eight different universities who are passionate about scholarship including the scholarship of learning and teaching got together to create a website to bring together a useful resource that could be shared with other educators. 

https://scholarshipspotlight.uk/

The Shining the Spotlight (SOS) project funded by the ANTF CIP fund, provides an inclusive web platform designed to support the scholarly development of teaching-focused academic staff. To ensure inclusivity and diversity, we recruited 2 student interns: a web designer and an accessibility officer who helped shape the website’s accessible design and ensure it promoted varied definitions and applications of scholarship in HE settings.

At the 2025 Association of National Teaching Fellow Symposium in June 2025 we presented this work. In this session we walked through the website, highlighting each section and explaining the resources such as, case studies, and networking opportunities, all centred to foster collaboration and enhance scholarship. By showcasing these resources and the team’s efforts, we demonstrated how the site could act as a central hub for academic staff to develop their scholarship in a meaningful and inclusive way. 

The project members are: Earle Abrahamson, Sue Beckingham, Hannah Cobb, Rose Gann, Julie Hulme, Dawne Irving-Bell, Iain Wilson, Peter D’Sena, Emma Gillaspy, Susan Smith, (Martin Ozarek, Sukhada Nagpure, Paulina Milewska)

Principal Fellow PFHEA

 

I finally pinned down some time to reflect and finish writing my PFHEA application. So very happy to receive my official Advance HE certificate stating that I had achieved the status of Principal Fellow. 

I would like to thank my Sheffield Hallam University colleagues Dr Christine O'Leary and Paddy Turner for their inspiring writing retreats, all my peers who engaged in these and provided mutual support, and my three advocates who supported and endorsed my application. 

My feedback

The panel commended your impact on the learning of others and the student experience, through your extensive experience, commitment to best practices, and dedication to developing and enhancing educational experiences for learners. The panel also commended on your passion for building relationships with others (both online and face-to-face) and support provided through innovative approaches to learning and teaching. Your sustained impact through academic development networks was clearly inclusive and wide reaching across the sector, both nationally and internationally.

International Assessment in Higher Education Conference - Best Poster

In June 2023 I attended the Assessment in Higher Education Conference in Manchester and presented the above poster. I was delighted to be awarded Best Poster at the event. 

I posted this on Linked and received a comment from Ron Barnett, Emeritus Professor at University College Institute of Education

"Wow! There's more than a book here ..."

Beckingham, S. (2023) From monologue to dialogue: Scaffolding multi-perspective and co-constructed formative and summative feedback. Assesment in Higher Education (AHE) Conference. https://doi.org/10.25416/NTR.24315064.v1

Abstract

As educators we want to encourage our students to react to and enact upon feedback given. However for students to benefit from feedback they need to understand the components of feedback literacy (Carless and Boud, 2018), the value of feedforward (Sambell et al, 2012) and how to connect the dots between different types of feedback.

Supplementing one-way monologic feedback with interactive and dialogic feedback, provides students with opportunities to make sense of it. Furthermore it provides tutors with feedback on how students negotiate the meaning of not just the feedback but also the assessment guidance and marking criteria (Bloxham and West, 2007). Being able to ask questions and engage in conversations about their feedback, enable students to take ownership of their own development whilst feeling supported. However we know that students are not always proactive receivers of feedback (Winstone et al, 2017). Whilst the role of the tutor in this process is important, there’s a place for others to contribute. Yang and Carless’s (2013:287) feedback triangle makes a valuable connection between the content of feedback, the social end interpersonal negotiation of feedback, and the organisation and management of feedback. Yet unless the student is guided and supported to understand how to recognise the many different ways feedback can be given and develop trust in those giving feedback, they may find it hard to engage with any feedback and the value of ongoing social learning relationships. As McArthur and Huxham (2013) argue, the use of dialogic feedback should be introduced from the start and become an ongoing practice the students develop confidence in.

The aim of my poster will be to visualise the interconnected components that can impact on the effective use of feedback. Based on an evaluation of practice, a case study of a second-year elective module will be used to demonstrate how scaffolding a variety of feedback mechanisms can help build feedback literacy, provide clarity of what is expected from students and identify pinch points. During the module ongoing formative feedback is given to students not only by their Tutor, but also their peers and the Clients students work with on an applied project. This includes verbal and written dialogic formative feedback and the integration of peer led social media and collaborative technologies for interactive and reflective feedback. The outcomes of the students’ final piece of summative assessment are greatly enhanced.

References 

Bloxham, S. and West, A. (2007) Learning to write in higher education: Students’ perceptions of an intervention in developing understanding of assessment criteria. Teaching in Higher Education, 12(1): 77–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562510601102180 

Carless D. and Boud D. (2018). The development of student feedback literacy: Enabling uptake of feedback. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 43, 1315–1325. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2018.1463354 

McArthur, J. and Huxham, M. (2013) Feedback unbound: from master to usher. In S, Meery, M. Price, D. Carless and M. Taras (eds), Reconceptualising Feedback In Higher Education: Developing Dialogue with Students. (pp. 92-102) Routledge. 

Sambell, K., McDowell, L. and Montgomery, C. (2012) Assessment for Learning in Higher Education. Routledge. 

Winstone, N.E., Nash, R. A., Rowntree, J. and Parker, M. (2017) ‘It'd be useful, but I wouldn't use it’: barriers to university students’ feedback seeking and recipience. Studies in Higher Education, 42(11), 2026-2041. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2015.1130032

Yang, M. and Carless, D. (2013) The feedback triangle and the enhancement of dialogic feedback processes. Teaching in Higher Education, 18:3, 285-297. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2012.719154

Guest interview on TalkingHE Podcast: Social Media for Learning in HE

 

TalkingHE is a podcast for higher education led by Santanu Vasant bringing you perspectives and insights into the sector. In each episode Santanu talks to people working in and with higher education, including academics, researchers, support staff, consultants and senior leaders to get expert analysis of the issues effecting them. You can follow the podcast on Twitter @TalkingHEPod 

In this episode I was invied by Santanu to talk about Social Media for Learning. 

Email salutations - how do people like to sign off their messages these days?

The blessing gesture which is the inspiration for the Vulcan salutation

My students are shortly going to be working with Clients from external organisations. In preparation for the initial meetings I like to go through a few professional protocols. These include: 

• Dressing smartly and wearing clean shoes/trainers
• Introducing themselves and handshakes
• Sending a thank you email after the meeting (with examples of what an email should not look like - casual, grammatical errors etc. and then how it could be presented more professionally)

As I was planning for the class, I added to the slides some suggestions for starting a professional email and how to end it. I suggested that Hi [add name] or Dear [add name], were both good to start an email. To finish the email I suggested Regards, Best regards or Kind regards as there are frequently used. 

From my own experience, I also see Best and Cheers used by people I tend to know; and sometimes where appropriate Thanks. I wondered if there were other alternatives, so decided to put out a quick poll on Twitter and set it to be open for 7 days. 

Which do you consider to be the most professional way to end a work related email? Please add alternative salutations in the comments.

— Sue Beckingham (@suebecks) January 24, 2020

I have to say I was surprised by both the number of responses to the poll and the comments/discussions that accompanied this. By the end of the week, 612 voted. According to the poll Kind regards was the most popular with 57.4% of the votes and Ward regards least popular with just 3.4%. 

There were numerous comments tweeted and it was fascinating to see how strongly some felt about particular salutations. One tweeted:

"I did research this a little and Best wishes seems the best option. I’ve never said “regards” to anyone in my life! And “best” sounds like a 19th century English eccentric saying goodbye to a bar full of people after an evening of sharing thespian anecdotes"

Another highlighted that they no longer used email and had moved to using Microsoft Teams. I asked how users typically signed off messages in that space. His reply was:

"It's constant ongoing dialogue so never really need to end it. If you send a lot of emails it's amazing how much time you waste with pleasantries. I sometimes just reply by liking a message as acknowledgement"

Alternatives included Cheers, Sincerely, Thanks/Thank you/Many thanks, Kindest and Sincerest Regards.

Maybe we should just use the Vulcan salutation emoji and "live long and prosper"

🖖

This was popularised long before email of course. The Vulcan "salute" is attributed to Leonard Nimoy, who was the half Vulcan character Mr. Spock on the original Star Trek television series.

https://emojipedia.org/vulcan-salute/

And if you are going use this you need to do it correctly! 

A raised hand, with the fingers separated between the ring finger and the middle finger.

http://archive.li/3bK5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_salute

Tweetchats, Personal Learning Networks and CPD.

Personal Learning Networks

Last summer Laurie Phipps got us thinking once again in response this time to the tweet from @EdTechPossum below. I started writing this post and then somehow the holidays followed by the autumn semester took over and it remained in draft. Now the start of a new year and just before I return to work, it was my intention to reflect on the past decade. Having re-discovered this draft I thought it was time to finish it.

Enough with your Tweetchats already! pic.twitter.com/lwgEkfFbBR

— Ed Tech Possum (@EdTechPossum) July 31, 2019

Tweetchats

Lawrie reached out to his connections to ask them what they felt about Tweetchats through Twitter and two Jiscmail lists. For the record a tweetchat is a conversation that takes place on Twitter with a bespoke hashtag. Usually a series of 5-8 questions over the space of an hour are posted with the hashtag to stimulate a discussion around a chosen topic. Participants include the hashtag in their answers. If you search for the tweetchat hashtag you then get to see the conversations taking place. 

Also I posted to a mailing list and had people feel the need to respond and assert that they don't do Twitter...

— Lawrie (@Lawrie) August 6, 2019

True to his word Lawrie did write this up titled 'Inspired by a Possum' and makes it clear that this is just a quick capture and is limited by the sample size and the nature of the collection. It made for an interesting read for different reasons. One was perceptions of what people liked or disliked about tweetchats and the other was around what personal development is considered to be.

Likes and dislikes

Unsurprisingly the respondents included ideas, feedback and opportunity to learn in relation to what they liked about tweetchats. During a tweetchat it is usual for participants to discuss and question, as well as to share links to further related resources. I frequently participate in tweetchats and always come away learning something. 

In answer to what was the main dislike, the responses included people not feeling they had a way in, and people wanting a way of breaking the ice or being introduced. As an introvert I often feel all of these in face to face group conversations. Whereas online I have gained confidence I think through observing how others interact and realised that it's fine to just jump in and contribute to the chat despite not knowing the people taking part. Perhaps more importantly it is also ok to take time to think and then respond as and when you wish to as a dialogue can take place over time. The time lapse to respond may just be a few minutes or it may be longer. You get to choose. 

Taking part in online small group webinars which involves real time conversations however does take me out of comfort zone. In these situations I often have to challenge myself to contribute. Facilitators like Maha Bali in the Virtually Connected online conversations have helped to draw me and many others into conversations and it makes such a difference. I need to think about how we could replicate this in tweetchats, to help people new to the concept find a way in. Asking people to introduce themselves just before the chat starts could be one way. The difference with the tweetchats is that unless you participate even if this is just a like or retweet, no-one knows you are even listening. 

Personal development

One of Lawrie's questions related to the timing of some of the cited tweetchats as these take place in the evening. He asked: Do you take the time “back”? (e.g. if you participate outside of working hours do you try and take some time off in lieu of participation). He specifically wanted to question why a CPD activity took place out of working hours. This surprised me as I have always taken the stand that my own personal development is something I choose to do and that this is different to the CPD training I am required to undertake as requested within my workplace. For example courses like fire awareness and unconscious bias, or as members of the Department Leadership team we all had to take a series of eight management development workshops. These are undertaken during work time. I would expect time in lieu if I was asked to take a work related course in the evening or over the weekend. 

For me my personal development is not always essential for my role, but it is something that continues to help me to grow as an individual. I do strongly believe that my online connections who I may or may not have met in person have contributed to my learning and therefore advocate the term 'personal learning network'. Many of my connections are just that - people I personally choose to connect with, interact with, and learn with. I hope over time I have also been able to contribute to others development in some small way. These conversations and learning opportunities mostly take place through Twitter. Tweetchats are just one example that contribute to my CPD. I frequently use my commute to and from work to catch up on news and through the use of Tweetdeck and the free version of Hootsuite, I can filter tweets by groups or hashtags, allowing me to focus on many different conversations. I choose when and what I want to engage with. 

For a long time now it has become second nature to share things I have found interesting by tweeting a link or retweeting what others have shared. I don't feel I have to engage constantly with others and refer to positive silent engagement (as opposed to the term 'lurking' which for me still has negative connotations) where I can choose to simply 'listen in'. As I have said many times, as children we all learned through listening and observing. It is no different online. 

It saddens me deeply that there are people that use these online spaces to spread hatred and misinformation. I hope in time there will be ways to eradicate this. It should go without saying, but if there are tweets in your stream that offend or upset you, then you can choose to unfollow those responsible, block accounts that you don't want following you, or mute conversation threads. This aside, I do feel it is important however to listen to different viewpoints and make my own decisions. I don't always agree with what others might say and yet I don't feel I have to make that known. 

My network includes people from many different countries and it is fascinating to learn about different cultures and also through shared interests. From a personal development perspective I think we can learn so much from each other through the sharing of our ongoing lifelong learning journeys. As an educator I gain so much from those who reflect on the process of that learning. I need to become a better open reflector and look up to the likes of Maren Deepwell and Sheila MacNeill. So in 2020 I must endeavour to do this and share more of my own learning experiences. 


Image credit: ijmaki from Pixabay free for use