CTER Assessment Literacy Workshop 2022

Assessment literacy is seen (…) as a sine qua non for today’s competent educator. (…)  [It] is a commodity needed by teachers for their own long-term well-being, and for the educational well-being of their students (Popham 2009: 1, 11).

The Consortium for Translation Education Research (CTER) in association with the University of Westminster in London, England and the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland are pleased to announce a jointly organised workshop on assessment literacy for translator trainers. This 2-day training workshop will be led by Dr Elsa Huertas Barros and Juliet Vine who have been actively involved in research on translator education and, in particular, assessment practices over the last seven years. The workshop has the official endorsement of the Consortium for Translation Education Research (CTER).

Event details

  • Date: 3rd – 4th November, 2022 (Thursday-Friday)
  • Venue: Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland at Mickiewicza no. 9 (details to be announced on arrival) – see map
  • Travel and accommodation: to be arranged and paid for by the workshop participants
  • Fee: No fee will be charged
  • Workshop working language: English
  • Work mode: Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD)
  • Hardware requirements: a laptop with Wi-F- connectivity
  • Online registration: Click here to register by 28.10.2022

Workshop programme:

Thursday (3rd November)

  • 9.00-11.00 – Workshop session 1: Introductory workshop
  • 11.00-11.20 – Coffee break
  • 11.20-12.50 – Workshop session 2: Introduction to the tenets of assessment
  • 12.50-14.20 – Lunch break (in town)
  • 14.20-16.20 – Workshop session 3: Professional judgement and communities of practice

Friday (4th November)

  • 9.00-10.00 – Workshop session 4: Modelling assessment literacy intervention using a translation task
  • 10.00-10.15 – Coffee break
  • 10.15-11.30 – Workshop session 5: Students as co-creators
  • 11.30-12.00 – Wrapping up

What is Assessment literacy? Assessment literacy is a thorough understanding of all aspects of assessment on a given module or course, so that both tutors and their students are clear about what the assessments are and what criteria will be used; and how to apply these criteria to their own work. Assessment literacy allows tutors and students to ensure that the assessment practices on their courses are part of the learning, not just assessment of the learning. Students need to be given the chance to make academic evaluative judgements about the quality of their own work in order to give them an understanding of what is expected of them and to allow them to become self-regulated learners. 

What are the benefits of assessment literacy for tutors? It helps tutors:

  • Support increased assessment literacy in their students
  • Set effective assessments which are fit for purpose and can be clearly explained to students
  • Turn tacit knowledge of standards into explicit knowledge which can be shared with colleagues and students
  • Create clear criteria and rubrics which will support reliable and effective marking practice
  • Allow tutors to give effective feedback to students i.e. feedback which will support learning

What are the benefits of assessment literacy for students? It helps students:

  • Improve their performance in the tasks they are being assessed on
  • Facilitate self-regulated learning which is crucial for life- long learning
  • Have confidence in the assessment process and reliability of the marking
  • Ensure assessment ʽforʽ and ʽasʽ learning as opposed to assessment ʽofʽ learning

What will be covered in this two-day workshop?

The day-and-a-half workshop is devised as a series of group activities, discussions and tasks.  Each session will cover some of the following topics:

  • Introduction to assessment literacy and how this concept supports and interacts with other key concepts in assessment.
  • Tutors sharing tacit understandings of translation criteria and how these are embodied in assessment criteria they use on their modules or courses.
  • Assessing assessments: what criteria should be employed?
  • The institutional constraints on introducing assessment literacy.
  • Modelling an assessment literacy intervention for students on a translation module.
  • Designing a module which embeds assessment in the design and implementation in collaboration with the students.

Note: Participants may be asked to assess a short translation which will be used as the basis of one of the sessions. Participants will also be asked to bring samples of their marking criteria and rubrics, either ones they have used, use at present or that they would like to use.

Workshop leaders (bionotes)

Elsa Huertas Barros

is a Senior Lecturer in Translation in the School of Humanities at the University of Westminster. Elsa’s main research interest include translator education, translator competence, assessment practices, and student-centred approaches. Elsa has published her work in international journals including The Interpreter and Translator Trainer (ITT), and The Journal of Specialised Translation (JoSTrans), and has also published book chapters in edited volumes such as Translation and Meaning (2016), by Peter Lang, and Phraseology in Legal and Institutional Settings: A Corpus-based Interdisciplinary Perspective (2018), by Routledge. Elsa co-edited the ITT special issue 12(1) on ‘New Perspectives in Assessment in Translator Training’ (2018), republished by Routledge as New Perspectives on Assessment in Translator Education (2019) and the volume Quality Assurance and Assessment Practices in Translation and Interpreting (2019). Elsa is collaborating with PACTE in the EACT project aiming to establish evaluation procedures for different levels in the acquisition of translation competence and in the European project “Towards a European Framework of Reference for Translation” (EFFORT).

Juliet Vine is a Senior Lecturer in Translation and Interpreting in the School of Humanities at the University of Westminster. Juliet’s research interests include pedagogical research, with a focus on translator competence and assessment practices, and contrastive rhetoric focusing on Chinese and western rhetorical traditions. Juliet has published book chapters in edited volumes such as Translation and Meaning (2016), by Peter Lang, and Quality Assurance and Assessment Practices in Translation and Interpreting (2019). Juliet has also published her work in international journals including The Interpreter and Translator Trainer (ITT), and co-edited the ITT special issue 12(1) on ‘New Perspectives in Assessment in Translator Training’ (2018), republished by Routledge as New Perspectives on Assessment in Translator Education (2019).

References:

Boud, D. (2000). Sustainable Assessment: Rethinking Assessment for the Learning Society. Studies in Continuing Education, 22(2), 151–167.

Boud, D. & Falichikov, N.  (2006). Aligning Assessment with Long-Term Learning. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31(4), 399–413.

Huertas Barros, E. & Vine, J. (2019a). Training the Trainers in Embedding Assessment Literacy into Module Design: a Case Study of a Collaborative Transcreation Project. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 13(3), 271-291. Free e-print

Huertas Barros, E. & Vine, J. (2019b). Constructing Standards in Communities: Tutors’ and Students’ Perceptions of Assessment Practices on an MA Translation Course. In Huertas Barros, E., Vandepitte, S. & Iglesias-Fernández, E. (Eds.) Quality Assurance and Assessment Practices in Translation and Interpreting. Advances in Linguistics and Communication Studies Series. (pp. 245-269). Hershey, PA IGI Global.

Huertas Barros, E. & Vine, J. (Eds.) (2019c). New Perspectives on Assessment in Translator Education. London Routledge.

Huertas Barros, E. & Vine, J. (2018). Current Trends on MA Translation Courses in the UK: Changing Assessment Practices on Core Translation Modules. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 12(1), 5-24. Free e-print

Huertas Barros, E. & Vine, J. (2016). Translator Trainers’ Perceptions of Assessment: an Empirical Study. In Thelen, M., van Egdom, G.W., Verbeeck, D., Bogucki, L. & Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B. (Eds.) Translation and Meaning, New Series. Vol. 41. (pp. 29-39). Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang.

Nicol, D. (2009). Assessment for Learner Self-regulation: Enhancing Achievement in the First Year Using Learning Technologies. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 34(3), 335–352.

Polanyi, M. (1998). The Tacit Dimension. In L. Prusak (Ed.). Knowledge in Organization. Boston, MA,Butterworth Heineman.

Popham, W. J. (2009). Assessment Literacy for Teachers: Faddish or Fundamental? Theory into Practice, 48, 4–11.

Rust, C., Price, M & O’Donovan, B. (2003), ‘Improving Students’ Learning by Developing their Understanding of Assessment Criteria and Processes. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 28(2),147-164.

Rust, C., B. O’Donovan, & M. Price. (2005) A Social Constructivist Assessment Process Model: How the Research Literature Shows us this Could be Best Practice. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 30(3), 231–240.

Smith, C., Worsfold, K., Davies, L., Fisher, R., & McPhail, R. (2013). Assessment Literacy and Student Learning: the Case for Explicitly Developing Students ‘Assessment Literacy’. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 38(1), 44-60.