An Assistant Dean, Learning and Teaching's Role in Quality Assuring Assessment

In Australia, with the advent of the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) and 2005 Nelson reforms, the urgency that drives pedagogical policy development includes the obvious imperatives to satisfy quality audits, to manage accountability and risk, and to promote consistency and educational improvement.

However, in many time- and resource-poor faculties, the responsibility for operationalizing institutional learning, teaching and assessment agendas usually falls on a small number of committed individuals interposed between top-level university management structures on the one hand and, on the other, the often-crowded classroom and overburdened teacher. Depending on variables such as faculty culture, resourcing and faculty perception of priorities, this pivotal group may include officers such as Heads of School, Program Coordinators and Year/ Major Coordinators, but will always include the variously titled Deans or Associate/Assistant Deans (Learning & Teaching or Academic). The context and characteristics of these positions have received little analysis (cf. Lines, 2004), but what is clear is that it is these curriculum leaders who "act as the conduit, both ways, between the staff and the corporate plan" (Lines, 2004, p.44) and who therefore shoulder much of the responsibility for assuring quality assessment practices and their shackled stable-mate, the learning and teaching design, of which they are integrally a part.

In progressing and assuring the efficacy of desirable, authentic assessment, especially in the area of graduate attribute development and acquisition, the role of the Assistant Dean is to create the appropriate environment (strategic, policy-embedded and cultural) to assure that the nexus between institutional strategy and classroom implementation is facilitated. Implicit in this is the necessity both to ensure constructive alignment (Biggs, 2003) and program coherence as between program and individual subject objectives at the macro level and, in the subjects themselves, alignment as between subject objectives, learning and teaching approaches and the assessment tasks prescribed.

The challenges and possibilities of the Assistant Dean role will be discussed, particularly in terms of the necessity for this role to lead and manage change as a "complex learning and unlearning process for all concerned" (Scott, 2004). A simple conceptual framework for the role will be presented, illustrated with examples from my Faculty's policies and initiatives. The final part of the paper presents a Faculty case study on assessing graduate attributes in particularly problematic aspects, as an exemplar to illustrate the principle of quality assured assessment practices, facilitated under the auspices of this role.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

ملتقى الكوثر الثالث يشهد عرض مشهد حواري بعنوان شريك العمر أم شريك الفكر؟

إقامة مسابقة (مرفأ النور) العلمية للمشاركات في فعاليات ملتقى الكوثر بنسخته الثالثة

ضمن ملتقى الكوثر الثالث.. ورشة تسلط الضوء على بناء الوعي القرآني لدى النساء

شعبة فاطمة بنت أسد (عليها السلام): ملتقى الكوثر منصةً لتحقيق وعي أسري مستند للقرآن الكريم

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

نظام غذائي شائع قد يؤدي إلى ارتفاع الكوليسترول الضار

تحذيرات هامة من عواقب تناول "أيبوبروفين" مع أدوية شائعة

علامات مبكرة للإيبولا يمكن الخلط بينها وبين الإنفلونزا

خبراء: الفيروسات مثل هانتا وإيبولا أصبحت أكثر شيوعا وفتكاً

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

الليلة.. هلال القمر يلتقي كوكبي الزهرة والمشتري

إيلون ماسك يخسر دعواه القضائية أمام أوبن إيه.آي

مهمة فضائية "أوروبية صينية" لكشف أسرار الرياح الشمسية

انتهاء رحلة "السفينة الموبوءة".. وهذا مصير من بقي على متنها

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Parents with Learning Disabilities CONCLUSION

PROVISION OF SUPPORT

CARING FOR CHILDREN

EUGENICS AND ETHICAL ISSUES

PARENTING

DISCRIMINATION AND DIVERSITY

THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Parents with Learning Disabilities

Legislation and Learning Disabilities CONCLUSION

LEGAL SAFEGUARDS

MENTAL CAPACITY ACT 2005

THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT 1998