New Approach to Module Participation Assessment in English and Creative Writing

In the 2024/25 academic year, English and Creative Writing will be adopting a new approach to assessing module participation with the aim of increasing the inclusivity of our assessment practices.

Module participation is currently worth 10% of each first and second-year module taken in the department and is also used as a form of assessment in some third-year and MA modules. This will continue to be the case, but substantial changes to the criteria and marking for module participation have been made towards enabling and encouraging engagement for all students, including neurodivergent students, students with caring responsibilities, and working students. The principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) have guided the process of designing our new approach. This was designed in consultation with the entire Department and with the Staff-Student Liaison Committee.

The key aspect of the new criteria is that all students will, from 24-25, have built-in opportunities provided by seminar tutors to engage with their modules asynchronously (outside of seminar time) as well as synchronously (in seminar). Attendance is compulsory in the department of English and Creative Writing, but those who are legitimately unable to attend will now have a clear alternative route to engagement, allowing them to demonstrate preparation, research and collaborative and/or individual reflection outside of seminar time. This route to engagement may be via digital platforms (e.g. Padlet) or analog means (e.g. written learning diaries) and will be valued equally by tutors with in-person participation where students are unable to attend.

A broad range of synchronous and asynchronous actions are outlined in the new criteria through which students can show their participation in modules, such as being prepared for seminars, carrying out independent research, showing respect for the ideas of others and exchanging ideas outside of seminars. Students can play to their strengths; they are not expected to engage in all the actions outlined in the criteria, or to a consistently high degree for each. Tutors will take a holistic approach to assessing students’ overall engagement.

Given the broad range of actions by which students will be able to show participation, including asynchronous engagement options, students with ILPs that mention “participation” will no longer be able to request that their module participation mark be excluded. This is because our aim, in line with universal design for learning, is to include all students within a single, fair approach and alleviate the burden entailed in having to request individual adjustments/exclusions.

Another change is that alongside the engagement element of module participation, worth 70% of the mark, there will be an additional assessment element, “attendance citizenship,” worth 30%. The attendance citizenship component seeks to encourage students to keep in touch with their tutors and maintain communication around any absences. Students are asked to notify tutors of a legitimate reason for absence in advance of a seminar or as soon as reasonably possible thereafter. Only students whose ILPs specifically mention “attendance” will be exempted from the requirement to notify tutors for every missed seminar. The number of unexcused absences a student has will determine their attendance citizenship mark.

Finally, students will still be able to obtain a top mark of 85 for module participation, although this will now only be available to those who have no unexcused absences (or whose ILP mentions “attendance”). A more granular step-marking scale will allow tutors to give more specific marks for engagement, with the option of 85, 75, 70, 65, 60, 55, 45, 30 and 0. Classifications defining expected engagement levels for each of these marks have been produced to give students’ a clearer idea of how tutors will be assessing engagement.

Feedback from students and staff will be gathered in the coming academic year to assess the success of the new approach and any changes that may be required. Watch this space!

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