Introduction

• give feedback to students(2.1)
  Good feedback is essential for learning. Giving feedback can take a lot of time. This "first word" will help you to give useful feedback in a way which makes the best use of your time.

• grade or mark student work(2.2)
  Grades and marks tell students how successfully they are working and also determine the kind of award they receive. This"first word" will help you to give grades and marks in which you and your students can have reasonable confidence.

• design assessment tasks for students (2.3)
  What kinds of work should you ask students to do for assessment? The answer will depend on the subject, the level, and also the learning outcomes to be assessed. This "first word" will help you to devise appropriate student assignments.

• design and use assessment criteria (2.4)
  When you assess a piece of student work, you're saying, among other things, how good the work is. What do you mean by good? What are the criteria for a good piece of work? This "first word" will help you to write and use assessment criteria.

• use-self and peer assessment (2.5)
  Students need to be able to form their own judgements about work. This "first word" will help you to devise and use methods to enable students to judge their own and each other's work.

• assess group work (2.6)
  Employers value graduates who can work together effectively. Group work figures large in many courses. This "first word" will help you to make fair assessments of student group work.

• prepare students for assessment (2.7)
  One of your roles as a lecturer is to help students prepare for assessment. Obviously, there are limits to how far this help should go. This "first word" will help you to find appropriate ways to help prepare students for assessment.

Second words

Sue Habeshaw, Graham Gibbs and Trevor Habeshaw; 53 Interesting ways to assess your students 1993 Bristol: TES ISBN 0-947885-12
A fine range of very practical suggestions and ideas.

Graham Gibbs with Alan Jenkins and Gina Wisker, (1992) Assessing More Students Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff Development. ISBN 1-873576-14-5
Strategies and tactics for keeping the assessment work-load manageable while still assessing well.

Derek Rowntree, (1977) Assessing Students -- How Shall We Know Them? London: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-318063-6
Still a fine, thoughtful, concerned and very useful analysis of the problems of assessment and of approaches to improving assessment.

Peter Knight (ed 1995) Assessment for Learning in Higher Education London: Kogan Page 1995 ed. ISBN 0-7494-1533-0
A thought-provoking collection of chapters on many aspects of assessment.

David Newble and Robert Cannon, (1995) Chapter 6 Assessing the students, in A Handbook for Teachers in Universities and Colleges London: Kogan Page ISBN 0-7494-1669-6
A vigorous and practical guide to assessment.

Sally Brown and Chris Rust, Strategies for diversifying assessment OCSLD
Perhaps the best short guide on strategic approaches to assessment.

The ASSHE Inventory - Changing assessment practices in Scottish higher education; ed. Dai Hounsell, Mary McColloch and Mary Scott; University of Edinburgh and Napier University Edinburgh with UCoSDA, 1996; ISBN 0 9533956 3 0
A large collection of 1-page accounts of innovations in assessment, with contact details for further information.

Paul Ramsden, Chapter 10, Assessing for Understanding, in Learning to Teach in Higher Education Routledge, 1993; ISBN 0-415-06415-5
Well grounded in theory and illustrated with case studies, this chapter, like the rest of the book, offers principled, practical and thought-provoking analysis and guidance to the new - and less new - teacher.