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

متحف الكفيل يباشر صيانة منسوجات تراثية تابعة للعتبة العسكرية المقدسة

العتبة العباسية المقدسة تستذكر مظلومية الإمام الكاظم (عليه السلام) عبر مجلس عزاء

قسم العلاقات العامة يناقش مع منتدى شباب الإسكان إقامة مهرجان تكريم طالبات المدارس المرتديات العباءة في القادسية

سماحة السيد الصافي يدعو إلى توحيد الجهود في تحقيق التراث لضمان الرصانة والدقة وخدمة الساحة العلمية

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

6 فواكة تساعدك على الشعور بتحسّن عند المرض

حفاظا على صحة العين.. هذا أفضل وقت لتناول فيتامين أ

الاستخدام اليومي لسماعات الأذن.. أخطر مما تتصور !

هل توقيت نشاطك اليومي يؤثر على صحة دماغك؟.. العلماء يجيبون

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

ابتكار ألماني قد يغيّر مستقبل صناعة البلاستيك

تحديثات وأرباح عبر المشاهدات.. ما الذي تخطط له "لينكد إن"؟

"الكوكايين الوردي".. مخدر جديد يثير قلق السلطات الأميركية

دراسة: تغيّرات في أسلوب القيادة قد تكشف مبكرا عن الخرف !

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