Designed as a low weighted, in-class activity to increase student engagement and to foster skills in facilitation and leadership, this assessment sees students take on the role of leading various small activities. These may include preparing the learning environment, facilitating a class warm-up activity, or hosting a mid-class break.

Designed as part of an active, applied learning pedagogy, this assessment sees students conduct a live interview or conversation with a peer, with the aim of demonstrating their proficiency in a relevant practical skill or piece of theoretical knowledge. Although performed in pairs, students are marked individually for their contributions.

Students travel to a relevant cultural institution or public space (e.g. gallery, museum, landmark), imagining they are appointed as industry experts, curators, attachés or tour guides. In groups, each student delivers a brief presentation on an assigned piece (e.g. artwork, artefact, or monument) so as to replicate professional presentation contexts.

Students write a 1500 – 2000 word document (in a form decided by the convenor) in the language being taught. This is paired with an oral presentation based on the written piece. Students are assessed on grammatical proficiency and their ability to conform to stylistic conventions of the written genre.

This assessment has students design a multimodal poster including text, images and visual design elements as an inquiry into a topic of disciplinary relevance. This technique has successfully trialled in the School of Education where it functions to introduce pre-service teaches to inquiry-based pedagogical models, but serves all HaSS disciplines.

Students are each assigned a different discipline-specific piece of equipment or technology and must give a presentation during class time outlining its key features and functions This assessment is designed to create a collaborative learning environment that introduces students to the relevant materials and technologies used within their discipline.

In small groups students present an article review in dedicated tutorial time. Groups create a Pinterest page in which they collate and curate digital material relevant to their topic. Audience members use Padlet (an online notation tool) to comment on presentations in real time (via personal smartphones) to inform discussion.

Short (15-20 minutes) in-class practical quizzes in which students rotate around a room of artefacts. Designed to teach and test practical skills and/or the practical application of knowledge, these quizzes are most effectively administered intermittently (2-6 per semester) to test cumulative knowledge and to provide regular feedback on their learning.

Students are set discipline-specific problem-based exercises for completion during class. The objective is to craft a written response (1500 words) to the problem, or use group collaboration to develop and deliver a 10-15 minute presentation proposing a solution. This assessment requires active problem solving and engagement with relevant web sources.

SCIE1000 covers mathematics, computer programming, communication, science and modelling. The main goal is to help students see that similar tools and approaches can be applied in a wide range of discipline areas and contexts. So my goal was mostly to develop students’ abilities and confidence in transferring knowledge from one context to another context that may initially appear to be quite distinct, but in reality the same general approaches apply. This is important in this course because we teach students from all areas of science.