Page 39 - Reimagining Higher Education : Case Studies On Designing For Inclusion, Equity, And Access In The Buka Project

M. Leikomma · Inclusive Learning Design

Assessment and Feedback

Inclusive assessment is more than evaluating student performance at the end of a
course. It is ongoing, allowing both students and educators to understand how

learning is proceeding, and it facilitates student learning (Teräs & Annala, 2021).
Inclusive assessment happens frequently and early and builds towards later

assessment. The first assessments should be low-stakes and not have a great

impact on the final grade. The methods used should be varied, and they should
always be made transparent to the students, for example through the use of

rubrics. Students must always know what the assessment criteria are and what is
expected at di erent levels. If possible, alternative methods for assessment should

be provided, for example, by o ering students the opportunity to be assessed
through group work, audio instead of writing, writing instead of presentation, etc.

Multiple means may also be used for providing feedback, in order to benefit

students. Not all feedback has to be written as audio- and video-based feedback
can also be used. While individual feedback is important, sometimes generalised

feedback given to the whole group is also possible. When providing feedback, it is

important to not only focus on those aspects of the student’s work that need
development, but also on those aspects of the work that are already good quality.

Any feedback given should be detailed and constructive, as the student needs to
know why something needs improvement or why something is already on a

satisfactory level, and not just be on the receiving end of negative comments
and/or praise.

Universal Design for Instruction (UDI)

One set of principles that can be used when planning inclusive education are those
principles from the Universal Design for Instruction (UDI) (AHEAD, 2021). While it

is not a learning design model as such, it o ers good guidelines and a quick way of
ensuring the maximum number of learners possible are reached in education. As

the name implies, these nine principles can be used quite universally (see Table 1).

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