Sally Brown

Phil and I were delighted yesterday to be awarded Honourary Degrees by Plymouth University, during a lovely celebratory graduation ceremony. We would like to thank Plymouth University, and particularly Pauline Kneale for bestowing this honour upon us.

Last Friday I worked with colleagues at Sunderland University, Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences, on the last of three workshop on Curriculum Enhancement, prior to their revalidation of programmes. Today and tomorrow, Phil and I are working with colleagues at Brighton University on enhancement workshops. The slides for all three of my workshops are here, and Phil’s two workshops are on his website (www.phil-race.co.uk). Enhancing the curriculum 3 (668 downloads) , Assessment to Enhance Learning (1118 downloads) , Enhancing the student experience (641 downloads) .

Working with various HEIs recently on institution-wide strategies I have developed some prompts to use to develop  approaches on assessment and e-learning. Please let me know if you find them useful. Developing an assessment strategy (577 downloads) , Developing an e-learning strategy (555 downloads)
The photo that accompanies today’s post has a long story attached to it. Colleagues who know me and the story behind it will understand why receiving this certificate unexpectedly in the post today, which is an ‘Outstanding Paper’ Award by Emerald for my paper in Quality Assurance in Education, made me laugh out loud as well as feeling tremendously grateful and honoured.

On 3rd-5th September I worked with staff at Letterkenny Institute of Technology in Country Donegal, helping colleagues think through recommendations from recent institution-wide Programme Reviews and on Friday 7th September I worked with staff in the Sports Faculty at Sunderland University who are currently preparing for revalidation of some programmes. In both institutions we talked about assessment literacy and I mentioned an old exercise, The Egg Game that I have used over the years to promote discussion of assessment issues with staff and students, particularly developing assessment literacy in the latter. The attached reworked handout provides details on how to run the Egg Game. Please feel free to use this open educational resource and if you do, let me know how it went for you. The Egg Game (865 downloads)

Today is the final conference for the Assimilate NTFS project on Masters level assessment and we are looking forward to welcoming 120 people to  our event in Leeds. This is the compendium that we have produced illustrating good practice through case studies and national overviews. Assimilate Compendium (815 downloads)

It’s been a lovely week: on Tuesday I was awarded my PhD by Published works at Leeds metropolitan University (see photo by my son Matt Brown, incidentally, did I mention he got a First!)

We went straight on from there to present about our masters level Assessment project Assimilate at Bradford University-led  PASS conference. PASS is another NTFS project which has been exploring programme level assessment, and the event was an excellent networking and learning  opportunity. The slides I used about Assimilate are here. PASS slides (622 downloads)

Had a great day with colleagues  from sport and exercise at Sunderland University today. Here are the slides Sunderland Curriculum Refreshment (592 downloads)

Today I headlined at Cranfield where I spoke on’ Using assessment to enhance Postgraduate learning’. Here are the slides I used. Cranfield Masters level assessment (654 downloads) .  The conference had a lovely buzz and there were some interesting presentations on offer for delegates, notably one I popped into on ‘Online assessment’ by Venkat Saastry which involved remote working on live tasks set by colleagues in Shrivenham.

I delivered a new workshop today at Darlington College on developing and drafting funding bids to maximise the potential for success. The workshop went very well and I am grateful to colleagues who participated in making it an enjoyable and productive morning. The slides I used are here, Effective Bidding (1576 downloads) and I wish you every success in your next funding bids.

Today at Strawberry Hill talking about assessment. I had a great day at St Mary’s University College in London giving a keynote at their brilliantly organised conference on assessment. Many thanks to Lesley and Stephen for making me so welcome. The slides I used are here. St Mary's University College (1124 downloads)