The first year curriculum aids transition to higher education assessment and provides early feedback.
Good first year curriculum design aids students' transition to higher education assessment, introduces a range of appropriate assessment practices and provides early feedback on student progress to students and staff. Assessment increases in complexity from first to later years.
For example:
- a Feedback Strategy (e.g., as at http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/lid/ltweb/84079.htm) could be developed and communicated;
- annotated examples of good, fair and poor performance of assessment criterion could be provided to students – the QUT Faculty of Education has an "assessment repository" full of examples for students (Healy, 2008 ALTC Kift Fellowship Case Study);
- a piece of writing could be "corrected" in large group class using the track changes function for immediate feedback (Healy, 2008 ALTC Kift Fellowship Case Study);
- the class, including the teacher, could produce a small piece of written work, swap it and mark it against criteria (Healy, 2008 ALTC Kift Fellowship Case Study);
- Taylor (2008) suggests in a first year maths subject that by Week 2 students could be required to have reflected on their previous maths experiences, confirm vital course information, and develop a study plan.
