AEM, Equality vs Equity, Assessment

Student attainment is an important area of focus for the University. As part of my role at LCF, I have since my start in autumn 2019 been taking part in several AEM (Academic Enhancement Model) meetings focused around this topic. The below slide illustrates one key fact – we all come from different backgrounds and abilities, therefore in order to be fair we must treat everyone differently. In other words, some students need more support and time than others depending on the obstacles that stand or have previously stood in their way. Therefore, to treat everyone the same would be to treat them unfairly.

The latest AEM meeting I attended was on the topic of Inclusive Assessment. In preparation, we were emailed a short film to watch, titled The Room of Silence – a short documentary about race, identity and marginalisation at the Rhode Island School of Design. The film is interesting in how it highlights how students from different backgrounds and ethnicities were sharing their experiences through their Art, and how they were met with such a big lack of understanding and support from their (white) tutors. The students shared that tutors tended to focus on the detail and ‘colour choices’ rather than the concepts (race, gender, sexuality) and how this affected their motivation and attainment. It seems to me that the tutors felt uncomfortable with the topics and put their own comfort before the students education, withholding feedback that the student needs to receive in order to continue to improve and develop.

During our discussion, Emily Salines shared: “There is a deliberate collective effort to include positive acknowledgement of plurality and non-western knowledges. When work is unfamiliar to assessors, efforts to apply the criteria may stall because the work seems to assume prior knowledge and/or is rooted in the students’ strongly held commitments. One dynamic to look out for is a shift in focus, in a disproportionate way, to the technical, away from the conceptual.”

My colleague also shared THIS VIDEO about Art Crits – what they are and how they work. A very important point is raised on how International students will find it much harder to express themselves as English is not their first language, and that it’s important to be patient and give time. A Chinese student also shared how in her culture you do not question your tutor or ask questions. This takes time to get used to.

On the topic of SOCIAL JUSTICE, we discussed Equality / Equity – and how it can be confused with fairness. It doesn’t make sense to make one exam fair by making it the same for everyone, when nothing in life has been fair up until this point. This is illustrated well in the cover image on this post. Equality can refer to equal amount of something. But as you can see from the image, equal size boxes to stand on does not equate fairness. Equity however refers to dividing up the resources to give everyone a level playing field, in this image example literally removing barriers, to create fairness.

We then moved on to discussing FEEDBACK. How do students listen and respond to feedback. First of all, it is important that they read it and understand it. For some, it is often written in quite an academic way which for many students can be difficult to unpick. It can therefore be good to offer tutorials after assessment feedback has been published to support students who need it. I shared that it’s important to explain WHY. Responding to this, someone said that “the ‘why’ is the most common question in the room.

About UAL ASSESSMENT CRITERIA – I recently came across THIS VIDEO. I found it helpful both in explaining to students how they are assessed but even for me to refer to when I’m marking work. Since this session, I reached out to members of our AEM team about organising a session together to help students unpick the assessment criteria in relation to their unit handbook and feedback on a recent unit. We are now set to trial a session after Easter.

I have also already started using the assessment Criteria words (Enquiry, Process, Knowledge, Communication, Realisation) within normal lessons. For example, printing all research images and annotating what you are taking inspiration from will support communication. In explaining this, I am also communicating WHY they are being asked to print their images.