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

قسم الشؤون الفكرية يطلق الدورة السابعة للدراسات الحوزوية الإلكترونية بمشاركة 17 دولة

المجمَع العلمي يختتم دورته التطويرية الخامسة لأساتذة التربية الإسلامية في النجف

وفد العتبتين المقدستين يحضر مجالس عزاء ضحايا حريق الكوت

العتبة العباسية المقدسة تشارك في استعادة مكتبة جامعة الموصل ورئاسة الجامعة واليونيسكو تشيدان بالشراكة معها

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

أخصائية تكشف خطورة عادة "شائعة" في غسل المناشف

دراسة: بيضة واحدة أسبوعيا قد تقي من الإصابة بـ

على عكس الشائع.. هذا هو العدد المثالي للخطوات اليومية !

شهر التوعية بالساركوما... أطباء يحذرون من "السرطان الصامت"

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

ذكر أم أنثى؟.. دراسة تنسف الاعتقاد الشائع حول جنس المولود

بحجم برج بيزا.. تحذير من كويكب يقترب من الأرض في هذا الموعد

أقصر يوم في تاريخ البشرية.. الموعد قريب ؟!!

مايكروسوفت تحذر شركات وأجهزة حكومية من هجوم "يوم الصفر"

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

An assessment framework: some background and a sales spiel

Why an assessment framework?

Assessing problematic graduate attributes: a case study

Influence by scholarship

Influence by operationalization

Influence as mentor

Curriculum influence

A conceptual framework for the A/ Deans learning and teaching role

The role of the Assistant Dean, learning & teaching

Institutionalizing a General Education Program Review Process: Outcomes Assessment Next steps

GE Program evaluation

Discussion Review process