Inclusive and accessible education is at the forefront of our minds in universities, with growing diversity of students. As educators, we also have high expectations of what our students can accomplish on their degrees. An important factor in student success is their assignment literacy. When receiving multiple questions of how to do well in an assignment with ample written guidance, my instinctual instruction was to ‘read the guide!’. But with many students not grasping the expectations, I noticed that written assignment briefs are one-dimensional and can be difficult for students to translate into a submission. Having already adapted my content delivery to improve accessibility and ensure multiple ways of learning the content, I decided to apply the principles of an accessible curriculum to assessment guidance (Advance HE, 2011). The key principles of accessibility I applied to the assessment are the anticipatory principle (emphasising the proactive approach to considering what students may need in different stages of learning), the transparent principle (making it clear to students what is expected), and the flexible principle (pointing out the need for adaptation depending on changing students’ needs). My solution resulted in piloting ‘guided tour’ exemplar videos that created a feedforward tool and enhanced assessment literacy. Exemplars as Feedforward Feedforward, a process to support student improvement prior to summative assessment (Sadler, Reimann and Sambell, 2023), is more important to students than feedback but is often not possible to provide in advance of submissions (Hendry, White and Herbert, 2016), especially for non-traditional assignments that students may not have engaged with before. This leaves them unclear on how to achieve well. A common way to build assignment literacy and student confidence is by using exemplars before-task (To & Liu, 2018). The practice of sharing exemplars is varied, ranging from simply posting a past example on a virtual learning space to dedicating contact hours to students marking exemplars before discussing with a marker as a sense check and calibration effort. According to Hendry, White & Herbert (2016), the highest value comes from students hearing the marker’s perspective of previous submissions. This explains why my video exemplars have been a hit. Guided Tour Exemplar Videos Exemplar videos are an effective way of sharing the marker’s perspective without taking up valuable contact hours. They give students a ‘guided tour’ of previous submissions, briefly going through the example assignment submission, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the piece in line with the marking criteria. The videos are created in sequence, enabling comparisons between the exemplars. This indicates to students (a) different ways of getting marks for the same criteria, (b) how to personalise/ individualise assignments, and (c) what differentiates grades. It helps bring the marking criteria to life and improves students’ understanding of the marker’s expectations. These videos have been of particular benefit to my placement students completing a Portfolio of Professional Practice. This is a non-traditional assessment format, making it difficult for students to apply previously received feedback. The marking criteria are vague to enable freedom and creativity when students share their professional development from their industrial placement, but this results in students worrying about ‘getting the assignment right.’ The videos provide a timely and preemptive opportunity for task and marking clarification (Sadler, Reimann and Sambell, 2023). Students have commented that by watching the videos and hearing my perspective as the marker, they have a better understanding of how to approach the assignment. The videos can also act as a discussion prompt if students still have queries; helping them to articulate their concerns and ask more nuanced questions. Learning Benefits This approach is advantageous to both me and my students. For me, it saves time (the same videos can be reused until the assignment or criteria change) and allows me to focus on those who need more specialised support. For the students, it builds confidence in their ability to complete the work and clarifies what they need to do. I have found real value in using videos to share exemplars with students. I was surprised to find that while instructional videos are commonly used for teaching (Dunne et al, 2020), there is little acknowledgement of how they can be used to support assessment and feedback literacy. The next step is to explore video co-creation with students fostering the collaborative principle of inclusive curriculum and encouraging active student participation. 27 Scholarship Matters How can students achieve high grades if we do not build their understanding of what it takes to meet the assessment criteria?
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