Our Authentic Assessment (AA) Champions take a proactive approach to designing and implementing authentic assessments. By sharing their knowledge and expertise, they work together to promote authentic assessment practices across various academic units.
The AA Champions also collaborate with staff to guarantee that the authentic assessment project's requirements are met, using their skills in modifying assessment items, developing authentic statements, and creating assessment frameworks. Through workshops and continued communication efforts, the AA Champions fulfill their mission of raising awareness about the benefits of authentic assessments.
Sandy Maranna, Senior Lecturer in Medical Sonography
Sandy is working with staff in the Unit to assist them in meeting all of the requirements of the authentic assessment project. ALH has almost finished modifying assessment items and Sandy is now assisting staff to write the authentic assessment statements for their courses. Sandy has also co-facilitated assessment statement writing workshops with the TIU and presented on AA in university-wide events such as the Teaching and Learning Breakfast session and the Assessment Design Lab.
Scott Copeland, Senior Lecturer - Teaching Academic
Scott's extensive experience at UniSA, where he has been a staff member since 1998, has allowed him to take on the role of Authentic Assessment Champion for UniSA Business and work closely with staff to engage them in the Authentic Assessment Project. Scott was an early adopter in the authentic assessment space working with the TIU to highlight how assessment tasks in his course Financial Accounting, were designed to provide students with authentic experiences as part of their learning.
Scott has worked closely with the TIU and other AA Champions to develop a process that enables staff to create Authentic Assessment Statements that explicitly outline the authentic components in an assessment task. As part of his role on the UniSA Business @elbow support team, Scott has worked with numerous staff to review their existing assessment tasks and identify authentic components or redevelop their tasks as appropriate. The @elbow team has also worked with staff to encourage them to share the work they have been doing at the UniSA Business Teaching showcase on July 21. Scott has already run several workshops with UniSA Business Program Directors and staff in the accounting discipline to assist them in the development of Authentic Assessment Statements and will be conducting a workshop on July 25 for coordinators in Economics, Finance, Property and Accounting to work on preparing assessment statements ready for inclusion into PCMS. The accounting discipline will also undertake the process of mapping their authentic assessment tasks across the whole program under the guidance of Scott, Program Directors and TIU staff.
Dr Allison Roderick, Program Director: Postgraduate Nursing Programs
Allison draws on expertise from collective experiences across a number of universities and health service roles, Dr Allison Roderick (Program Director Post Graduate Nursing and Midwifery, CHS) has provided broader perspectives to aspects of the UniSA Authentic Assessment Project. From co-facilitating workshops to leading actual changes in PG courses and programs, Allison’s wisdom and practical advice in ensuring assessments are aligned with students’ contemporary learning needs has assisted other academics to move forward in this area. CHS applauds Allison’s contributions in this space, in addition to other program directors and nursing and midwifery academics who have initiated changes to upfold the tenets of authentic assessment.
More specifically, to progress UniSA’s AA project, Allison has presented to CHS program directors on authentic assessments. She has also discussed AA in the teaching and learning quality group in CHs and is currently working with postgraduate nursing and midwifery staff to assist their understanding of AA. As Program director, she is also working with her Program coordinator to ensure that AA is reflected in the assessment of all 40 courses in the postgraduate nursing and midwifery programs. Allison is also working with the professorial lead to improve the teaching quality of the nursing and midwifery programs.
Dr Chris Brisbin, Program Director: Bachelor of Architectural Studies/ Master of Architecture
With Chris Brisbin’s guidance, UniSA Creative has been focusing on building understanding and investment in authentic assessment through a range of initiatives that aim to promote collaborative planning, discussion and debate, and reflection on effective assessment methods and their impact on student learning. These initiatives encourage colleagues to showcase their expertise, experience, and ideas for implementing authentic assessment across discipline boundaries, enabling the collaborative development of assessment frameworks and rubrics that align with UniSA’s authentic assessment pillars and make explicit the exemplary authentic assessment practices already in use across UniSA Creative.
While focusing primarily on designing authentic assessment activities and statements, these initiatives also provide colleagues with training on the principles, benefits, and strategies of authentic assessment and connect a students’ learning journey at UniSA with real-world applications in their future careers.
Dr Min Pham, Lecturer
Min is a member of the Assessment Design Lab (ADL) and from the onset, Min has been actively supporting the TIU in progressing UniSA’s AA project by attending workshops run to promote the AA definition and the writing of the assessment statements. Min has also provided critical feedback on the definition and on finetuning the message communicated to the various stakeholders in UniSA. Min has presented a workshop on AA for the wider UniSA community under the ADL flagship. In Education Futures, Min has led various activities to progress the AA project. He coordinates a group of 11 academics to work on a programmatic approach to AA in enabling programs and supports his colleagues in the writing of the assessment statements. Min continues to be a leader in this space by being involved in progressing the AA project.
Dr Fiona O’Neill, Program Director: Bachelor of Arts
Fiona is the Authentic Assessment Champion for UniSA Justice and Society. In addition to her work in the Authentic Assessment space, Fiona is the Program Director of the Bachelor of Arts Programs and a Lecturer in Applied Linguistics. Fiona has been busy in JUS promoting Authentic Assessment by running a workshop at our Teaching and Learning retreat in late 2022, speaking at JUS Town Hall, giving regular project updates at TLSG and attending Discipline meetings to answer questions and offer support as staff move forward with making changes to assessment in their courses. In a relatively short time, Fiona has successfully raised the profile of Authentic Assessment across JUS and is continuing this great work by offering a series of workshops for staff who are updating their course assessment.
Dr Thilini Jayawickrama, Lecturer
In STEM, Thilini is leading the adoption of Authentic Assessment in all our programs. In collaboration with TIU and Dean of Programs she is preparing a set of sessions with academics and program teams to promote create the assessment (or scenario) statements and align them with the definition provided by the project. Thilini has also had meetings with the Dean of Programs to identify a timeline in STEM to meet UniSA’s target of achieving authentic assessment status for its assessments. She has also worked with the executive team in her unit to create a SharePoint to locate all AA related resources and communication. Thilini will continue to progress the announcements about AA assessments in the unit TLSG meetings with some real examples of AAs shred in July. Presentations on AA will be undertaken in program meetings and program-wide workshops until the target is achieved.
Dr Kim Burley, Program Facilitator
A key part of Kim’s role within UO is connecting OCFs to work with their CCs to collaborate on making the on-campus assessment authentic in the online space and a body of activity has already taken place before she took on the mantle of Authentic Assessment Champion in early May. Kim is facilitating and championing conversations around Authentic Assessments and the CO statements by broadcasting workshops and tools available and also work with on-campus and TIU colleagues to deliver statement writing workshops. The first, with JUS OCFs and CCs will occur in late June with the aim of holding at least two more in 2023. Kim will keep this at the forefront of everyone’s minds although UO has been well-represented in this project thus far.
