All specialist undergraduate maths students at Middlesex University engage with their learning through loaned iPads. Learning sessions are designed and delivered around these common smart devices enabling rich multimedia, collaborative, and interactive lectures. The common platform promotes equality in assessment as students are (more) equally resourced, and provides opportunities to diversify assessment.
In this talk the team will discuss how they explored new and innovative ways to assess mathematical knowledge and skills confidently knowing that all students have equality of access to equipment, and no student will be technologically limited by their financial situation. This is important as digital poverty and poverty in general is a real concern for our students. Around 60% of Middlesex Students are from the poorest most deprived areas, 20% higher than the sector, and we have the highest proportion in the sector for students who were eligible for free school meals.
The team will discuss how they are working more collaboratively with students by designing inclusive assessment that give students multiple equivalent options for demonstrating learning outcomes e.g. written work, video, audio, multimedia blogs. This will improve equality of opportunity, be more inclusive, reducing the need for reasonable adjustment, and enable technology-supported coursework which provides greater opportunity for authentic assessment.