A presentation by Dr Panayiota Vassilopoulou and Dr Nikolaos Gkogkas, Department of Philosophy, The University of Liverpool, from the Advance HE Assessment Symposium held on 24 October 2019.
Philosophy in the Workplace: Assessing the Impact of Reflective Practices in Situated Learning
Work experience has become an integral part of UK Higher Education provision, and increasingly more credit-bearing student placements and internships are being embedded in the undergraduate and postgraduate curricula. However, the formal assessment of these components still appears challenging, especially for academic disciplines where the link between theory and practice, academic and situated learning, is not always evident. Drawing on recent literature on student-placement summative assessment, use of reflective journals, and authentic assessment, this paper discusses the assessment methods, marking criteria, and feedback practice we have been developing over a period of ten years for students undertaking work placements as part of their Philosophy degree. The main challenge for us, and we believe for other col-leagues in Philosophy and cognate disciplines, has been how to best align teaching & learning with assessment & feedback methods so that employability skills gained through work placements are not considered (by students, colleagues, and partner organisations / future employers) as competing with or simply adding on to discipline-specific skills. Rather, we shall be arguing, especially when these methods are focused on fostering and assessing reflection, work placements can be highly valued as an essential part of philosophical studies, significantly enhancing students’ academic learning outcomes.
