The Assessment Development Workshop (ADW) is an intensive, multi-day workshop that facilitates and supports the design and development of effective and inclusive assessments. 

Participants will engage in facilitated topic sessions, collaborative reflective teaching practice – including giving and receiving feedback – and self-guided learning to enhance or redesign an existing assessment or start from the beginning and create a new one. 

The facilitated sessions will focus on topics including foundational design topics like: constructive alignment, universal design for learning (UDL), evaluation frameworks, and designing or adapting assessments for contextual considerations like generative AI and equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility (EDIA).  

Workshop Objective 

Participants will apply learning, feedback from peers – informed and inspired by facilitated topics sessions – and input from workshop facilitators as they design or redesign an assessment and its corresponding evaluation framework that: 

• Constructively aligns with one or more course-level intended learning outcomes, 
• Adheres to the principles of constructive alignment, universal design for learning (UDL), and accessibility,  
• Follows McMaster’s Guidelines on the Use of Generative AI in Teaching and Learning, as well as any course-level policy regarding the usage of generative AI, and 
• Benefits from both reflection and constructive feedback (offered by peers and those experienced in educational development).  

Intended Learning Outcomes 

By the end of the workshop, participants should be able to:   

• Design or redesign an assessment in keeping with instructional and learning design principles,  
• Design or redesign a corresponding evaluation framework in keeping with instructional and learning design principles,  
• Engage in reflective teaching practice by giving, receiving, and reflecting on feedback related to assessment and evaluation design, and  
• Apply various assessment design approaches and considerations, including generative AI.  

Requirements 

Participants will need to have an existing course assessment to enhance, or an idea for new assessment for the first day of the workshop. There is no summative evaluation for the workshop, however workshop completion will require participants to: 

• Attend  all sessions in full, 
• Redesign / design an existing assessment and corresponding evaluation framework, 
• Utilize feedback to brainstorm how they would redesign / design their assessment and corresponding evaluation framework, and 
• Provide valuable and considerate constructive feedback on others’ assessment and evaluation designs.

Who Can Participate

You are eligible to register if you are:  

• Teaching or contributing to a course that will be offered during the upcoming academic year,   
• Eager to learn more about an instructional and learning design approach to assessment and evaluation framework design, and    
• Able to commit to the dates of the ADW in full.