Food, ruins and keynotes: CRADLE team reflect on international visits
14 May 2024
Recently three CRADLE members were invited to visit various international institutions: Dr Joanna Tai to Quality and Qualifications Ireland in Dublin, Professor Phillip Dawson to the Education University of Hong Kong, and Professor Margaret Bearman to the University of Hong Kong. They reflect on their visits below.
Dr Joanna Tai
CRADLE Senior Research Fellow
Quality and Qualifications Ireland
I was delighted to accept an invitation to present for Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI), especially as we both agreed that an in person keynote would be far more enjoyable than a hybrid presentation. This meant I could also offer a masterclass on assessment in work integrated learning to stakeholders across the higher and further education sectors. However, my trip to Dublin began with some drama due to escalating international tensions and weather conditions disrupting flight plans.
Luckily, I made it in good time to give the keynote address on Assessment for Inclusion: are we all heading in the same direction? at QQI’s conference on Rethinking Assessment: Inclusive Assessment & Standards in a Dynamic and Changing World, which was run by QQI in collaboration with AHEAD (the Association for Higher Education Advocacy for Disability) and DAWN (the Disability Advisors Working Network). The event was invigorating, where many leaders of inclusive education practice in higher education offered their perspectives and insights.
The stand out session was from the student panel, where they related experiences which supported many of the arguments educators were making about the reasons for rethinking assessment.
Thanks also to the students for giving me tips on local sights – from art galleries to the ruins on display in the foundations of the local Lidl. While it was a whirlwind trip, it was also great to connect in person with CRADLE collaborators like Geraldine O’Neill, a leader in the field of assessment of work-integrated learning and assessment for inclusion. Geraldine is the author of a chapter in CRADLE’s latest book Assessment for Inclusion. It was also a joy to meet new friends and forge new connections.
Professor Phill Dawson
CRADLE Co-Director
Education University of Hong Kong
For most of CRADLE’s existence we’ve had collaborations with colleagues at the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) and while I’ve written with them and they’ve visited us, I’d never visited them. We finally found a way to make it happen: a keynote at a conference EdUHK was hosting, the International Congress on Educational Futures. The conference was fascinating, a mix of an international conference with more than a dozen countries represented, and an institutional education conference. I spoke about assessment and artificial intelligence.
The next day I went to a special symposium on feedback literacy at EdUHK where I spoke about using behaviour change techniques to improve student feedback literacy. It was great to try out some of these new ideas from our ARC Discovery project on an expert audience, who really challenged me. Finally, it wouldn’t be a Hong Kong travelog without a mention of the food – I know I should write about the veggie and tofu dishes (which were outstanding) but I think I fell in love with the A1 Bakery (not to be confused with Melbourne’s equally awesome A1 Bakery).
Professor Margaret Bearman
CRADLE Professor of Research
University of Hong Kong
My trip to the University of Hong Kong was, like Jo’s, very busy and focused on the digital. I was invited to a symposium on Communication Intensive Courses (CIC) – a very interesting initiative by the University of Hong Kong’s Teaching and Learning Innovation Centre to ensure that their students have digital and visual literacies through embedding them in courses. This means of course, changing assessments! So it was wonderful to have that opportunity to address educators. A particularly interesting initiative was to engage peer consultants – i.e. students who helped other students through teaching and feedback to develop their visually and digitally communicated work. Lots of thoughtful and creative work, which made everyone consider again how text bound we are at university.
I also did a few other things: an assessment design decisions workshop, a seminar on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Higher Education (HE) for the Consortium for Higher Education Research in Asia (CHERA) and an interview for a MOOC on AI in HE with the wonderful Jessica To. These last two will be publicly available in some format. It was wonderful to be in Hong Kong again – I loved being warm – and wonderful wonderful food. The turnip cake from the dim sum shop (just next to the hotel) was a highlight but there were many many highlights!
