ASCILITE Live! Webinar on embedding industry practices in authentic assessment design

Embedding industry practices in authentic assessment design assists to optimise the teaching, research, practice nexus: Shared academic experiences.

Embedding industry practices in authentic assessment design has multiple benefits for students in higher education, including improved attitudes to learning, self-reflection and application to their own lived experience. Such student engagement activity extends to multiple stakeholders, enabling multiple means of translating theory into practice. It also assists universities to design assessments that encourage academic integrity.

Under this model, academic staff are also better able to balance their industry research partnerships with their teaching, creating greater alignment with performance goals. Industry and government are also beneficiaries where student projects form part of broader research initiatives designed to produce policy and practice guidelines as outcomes.

In this webinar, Dr Kevin Argus and Dr Jessica Helmi from the Graduate School of Business and Law at RMIT University share their experiences of embedding industry practices in authentic assessment design to optimise outcomes for students, industry, academics, and the university overall.

Key takeaways from this session include:

• How industry-embedded authentic assessment design contributes to academic integrity.
• The importance of value propositions for industry that align learning outcomes and practice outcomes.
• Examples of award winning and newly created multi-industry partnerships created to sustain engagement at the course/program level.
• Alumni feedback indicating industry-embedded authentic assessments are among their program highlights.
• Student feedback that credits authentic assessment with yielding workplace opportunities.

Presenters

Dr Kevin Argus is a Senior Lecturer, Graduate School of Business and Law at RMIT University.  Dr Argus teaches Marketing and Design Thinking within the Executive MBA and MBA programs. Kevin’s approach is guided by his adoption of the teaching, research, practice nexus (TPRN). Kevin’s aim in GSBL is to create impactful industry projects with learning, research and practice outcomes that align with our school and college core values of social impact, innovation and technology and industry engagement aligned with sustainability goals. Implementing sustainability projects requires a balance of research, teaching and practice (Schneider, et. al 2018). The TRPN has enabled achievement of KPI’s, via projects shared between teaching-engagement focused academics and research-engagement focused academics, creating a collaborative scholarly culture where value-creation has become a mutual pursuit, rather than siloed.

Dr Jessica Helmi is a Lecturer, Graduate School of Business and Law at RMIT University. Dr Helmi will share her example of embedding industry practice into assessment design via her lead in the co-creation of a new undergraduate Bachelor of Business Core course, BUSM2577 Integrated Perspective on Business Problems. Jess discusses how a collaboration of business partners has co-created mutual value across all stakeholders in this pursuit.

Jess, and her team work with four Industry Partners (a mixture of for-profit and not-for-profit organisations) who provide an innovative shared business challenge for students to work on. The shared challenge revolves around the theme of loneliness as a lived experience, which informs the three authentic assessments in the course.

You will need to register for this event here.