Reference is made in Flexible Pedagogies: part-time learners and learning in higher education to a selection of case studies that illustrate how flexible pedagogies have been developed to support the needs of part-time learners.
This case study illustrates how the assessment practices in an undergraduate programme for part-time students were redesigned to replace the traditional end-of-programme dissertation.
Sheffield Hallam University
This case study relates to the part-time undergraduate programme BA (Hons) Health and Social Care Leadership and Management. The programme has been redesigned to reflect a more radical stance when using ‘assessment for learning’ with part-time ‘in work’ students. In developing this process to replace the traditional end-loaded undergraduate dissertation the course team drew upon the conviction that within the field of health and social care education more attention to putting a complex theory into practice – or praxis – should be given especially in relation to the ways in which the process of learner development is assessed. In considering more user-friendly and emancipatory approaches to assessment for the students two Critical Thinking Leadership modules have been created as mechanisms for developing innovative ‘assessment for learning’ processes. Each module draws upon assessment processes from all other programme modules by using patchwork text principles in which objects or concepts emergent from every assessed module are identified by students and ‘stitched’ together in ‘patches’ to form overarching justificatory and individualised narratives that become personal and professional development tools for the learner and their organisation.
