Assessment tasks
Assessment tasks
Explore the common assessment typology used at Monash including how to select appropriate assessment types, assessment activities and assessment conditions.
Assessment tasks
Assessment is a fundamental element of student learning and allows you to evaluate student achievement of the learning outcomes for your unit (and/or the course). Before choosing assessment tasks it is important to first plan out your assessment regime. This will help you decide on the best assessment method.
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Assessment typology
Learn about the common assessment typology used at Monash
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Choosing assessment tasks
Consider six questions to help choose an appropriate assessment task
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Designing assessment tasks
Design clear assessment tasks to assess learning outcomes
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Design for academic integrity
Build authenticity into tasks, scaffold understanding and target assessment security
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Group assessment
Learn how to design group assessments, where students work collaboratively on tasks in authentic ways
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Peer assessment
Learn how to design peer assessments, where students evaluate and assess each other, often in conjunction with self-assessment and group assessment
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Final assessment
Design final assessments in line with best-practice principles
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Supplementary assessment
Enable supplementary assessments for eligible students
Supporting your students
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Given the variety of assessment tasks students will complete over the course of their university experience, ensuring they understand the requirements of the task and are well prepared for assessment is necessary. There are several steps you can take to ensure students are well supported before an assessment, and other supports at the university to help them understand the tasks they need to complete during the assessment.
How to support your students
- Be specific about the purpose(s) of assessment and why and what you are assessing for students. Ensure assessments and criteria are aligned with learning outcomes and communicate the relationship.
- Communicate what success looks like, using exemplars, rubrics, explanations and samples.
- Collate assessment information together in one central place and ensure all students know where it is. If individual conversations with students are required to clarify details, make sure this information is shared with the rest of the cohort.
- Allow students to ask questions and discuss the assessment task(s) in a productive and positive manner through guided conversations about rubrics, online forums or assessment drop ins.
- Develop assessment literacy in students. Help them to dissect rubrics, grade samples, peer review or discuss performance levels to develop their evaluative judgement.
- Structure activities with the intention of engaging students in dialogues relating to performance, standards and concepts of quality. “Understanding criteria and the academic discourse in which they may be embedded is challenging and may require training (Hanrahan & Isaacs, 2001), but this kind of understanding is fundamental to collaborative forms of assessment" (Liu & Carless, 2016 p287).
- Offer students choice, if possible, in which tasks they might select to demonstrate learning outcomes.
- Invite students to engage in assessment through partnership opportunities.
- Reflect on assessment tasks and instructions leading up to and during the marking process and collect information on how to improve for next time.
What resources and services are available to students
Here are a number of resources that you can share with your students to help them better prepare for their assessments.
LearnHQ
Learn HQ is a one stop shop for student language and learning support, provided by Student Academic Success. It not only includes a bank of language and learning resources, it is a portal for the students to book one-on-one consultations with language and learning advisers and sign up for language and academic skills development workshops.
Student Academic Success: Individual consultation
Share this link with students so that they can book in with a learning adviser for personal help with academic language and learning skills, as well as general study and assessment support.
Counselling for students
Share this link for counselling services so that students can obtain additional support around a number of issues from managing motivation, coping with stress and/or anxiety, prioritisation and managing perfectionism. This is a free service for Monash students.
Extensions and special consideration
Share this link to let students know how to apply for extensions and special consideration that may allow them to obtain a longer extension or sit a deferred exam.
Related resources
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Related technology
There are a number of technologies you can use for assessing student work. The following guide provides information about key technologies that are part of the Monash suite and how they can support graded assessment.
Using Moodle for assessments
Moodle has a number of activity types that can be used for assessment with a Moodle grading component that can be linked to Gradebook.
Moodle activities and resources
This guide can help you identify which Moodle activities you can use for major assessments.
Assignments
The Assignment activity can be set up in various ways for students to upload assessments in various file formats.
Turnitin
You can also set an assignment up with Turnitin integrated within the activity.
Use Forums as an assessment
Moodle Forums can be used as a type of assessment; for example, students can make a range of forum posts, respond to questions, or contribute to discussion, which are then assessed in some way.
Moodle Quiz
Use this resource to find out how to set up a quiz assessment in Moodle.
Using the eAssessment platform
eAssessment
The eAssessment platform can be used for assessments that require invigilation, such as end of semester scheduled timed activities.
Relevant policies and procedures
Monash has specific policies and procedures related to academic integrity. Take the time to review these to inform your teaching practice.
Assessment and academic integrity policy
Describes the principles of assessment at Monash University to maintain academic standards of student achievement, support students in their academic development and uphold standards of academic integrity.
Assessment regime procedure
Explains requirements of developing and implementing an assessment regime for a unit, rules around scheduling, extensions, hurdles, alternative and supplementary assessments, and communicating assessment requirements.
Explains the final grades that are used at Monash in a range of assessment contexts, calculations of WAM, GPA and CGPA, and rules around the use of the withdrawn incomplete (WI) grade.
Marking and feedback procedure
Outlines processes and principles for marking, blind marking, second marking, double marking, provision of feedback, quality assurance, finalising results, responsibilities, and re-marking requests.
Scheduled Final Assessments procedure
Explains the requirements for timed major assessment tasks that are scheduled after the end of the teaching period including closed-book tasks, open-book tasks, and open-access tasks, as well as eAssessments.
Assessment and academic integrity procedure
This policy describes the principles of assessment at Monash University to maintain academic standards of student achievement, support students in their academic development and uphold standards of academic integrity.
Education Performance Standards Framework
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The Education Performance Standards identify the expectations of education practice at Monash – See the Education Performance Standards for more details.
Impact on student learning | Impact on educational knowledge | Impact on educational environment | |||||
Effective teaching and learning | Responsive program design | Student- centred orientation | Professional learning engagement | Pedagogical content knowledge | Education research performance | Education innovation | Education leadership |
✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | (✓) | |||
You could address these Practice Elements by providing evidence of how you:
- Select and design appropriate types and methods of assessment in your units.
- Create assessment tasks that align with learning outcomes and which measure the learning, knowledge, skills that students must achieve in the unit.
- Develop innovative and/or authentic assessment tasks that support student learning.