Assessment SIG End of
Year Newsletter
It’s been an exciting year of development in this
first year of the English Australia Assessment SIG and we are
shaping up for even more in 2020. Many thanks to those of you who
have participated and contributed to the SIG activities so far. We
began the year by inviting you to tell us what sort of topics you
would like to see covered and based on your feedback, we ran a
webinar on writing test specifications with Louise Fitzgerald in
March 2019. There were 165 registrations, which was a pleasing
start to the SIG.
In July, the University of Queensland hosted the UECA
Assessment Symposium, organised by our own Assessment SIG convenor,
Stephen Walker and his dedicated UQ staff. This year, the symposium
stretched to a two-day event, with 16 assessment focused
presentations on the Saturday, covering assessment development and
validation, assessing productive skills, receptive skills and types
of assessment. On the Sunday, delegates were treated to a focused
item writing workshop presented by international freelance
professional test writer, trainer and author, Pauline Cullen. Both
days were extremely informative and well-received by
participants.
Finally, in September, we hosted a workshop on
designing rating descriptors for productive skills, with Ute Knoch
from the University of Melbourne. The session was very well
attended and the feedback highly positive.
The positive responses to the professional development
opportunities we’ve offered so far is a good indication that we all
appreciate exposure to professional approaches in assessment
writing and development as well as the opportunity to speak to each
other about ideas and experiences. We would very much like to
continue in this vein for 2020 and once again, we invite you to let
us know what is important to you. Please post a message on the
LinkedIn Assessment SIG group page and let us know, or
alternatively, message us via LinkedIn.
2020
For 2020, we have an awesome webinar planned for March
when language assessment experts Dr Alistair Van Moere and Dr Jing
Wei will be presenting on ways of comparing and linking test
scores. Watch out for the March date to be confirmed early in the
New Year!
We also have a third UECA assessment symposium planned
for July 18th, 2020. This time, it’s on the glorious Gold Coast, so
please work that one into your annual PD budget! And we would very
much like to know whether our members in Sydney and Melbourne are
interested in having a symposium, or workshop that people can
attend locally. We would be happy to coordinate and assist to make
this happen.
We wish you all a safe and happy holiday season and
look forward to collaborating with you again in the new year.
Cara Dinneen Hora
Hedayati Stephen Walker
  
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