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Join us as we explore the dynamic world of higher education at the University of Aberdeen. In each episode, you'll hear insightful discussions with educators who share their practice, highlighting what worked well and what didn't. Whether you're an academic, supporting teaching and learning, a student, or simply passionate about education, this podcast offers valuable perspectives and thought-provoking conversations to keep you informed and inspire you to try something new. If you would like to contribute, please get in touch with the Centre for Academic Development as we’d love to hear from you.
INTRO [00:00:03] This podcast is brought to you by the University of Aberdeen.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:00:11] In this episode, we hear from Bethany Parrillo, one of our first TESTA of student assistants. Bethany shares what it's been like to work as a student assistant, giving her perspective on TESTA and reflecting and contributing to assessment enhancement work at the university.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:00:25] So, Beth, what I'd like to explore with you, first of all, obviously you were one of the student intense who worked on the TESTA program. Um, and I just like to know a little bit what drew you to, to applying and taking on doing that role in the first instance?
BETHANY PARRILLO [00:00:42] Um, so I was actually recommended for the program and I had never even heard of it before. But when my professor said, “oh, would you be interested in this?” I said, well, you know, “let me have a look because” I hadn't heard of it. But then when I actually looked at it, it was really exciting for me because, you know, I'd never seen a program like that done at the university before. Um, of actually getting to put your input in and seeing, you know, sort of the inner workings of how the university runs. Um, and so that was really fascinating for me. And so I said, “yeah, absolutely. Like, I'll get on board with that”.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:01:22] Excellent. So that chance, sort of, ‘behind the scenes’ view of the university. Um, okay. So thinking then if it once, once you started, um, what sort of things were you involved in on a sort of day-to-day basis of, you know, for other students who are maybe thinking about doing an intern(ship)? What sort of things did you get involved in?
BETHANY PARRILLO [00:01:41] So it was a lot of, uh, liaison with the Centre for Academic Development. Um, and looking at how different departments sort of assess their students. Um, and so day to day would have been, oh, we might have a meeting on a day and then we go away and, you know, do some work. That was me and the other intern of, um, drawing up data sheets um, and just analysing particular courses and seeing how exactly these specific departments do work. Um, seeing how that differed across departments. Um, and that was really helpful to sort of figure out, okay, well, what's missing here? Um, and then being able to, um, liaison with CAD again and saying, okay, well, we've noticed these patterns in these departments. Um, and so it was really a learning experience for, I think, all of us.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:02:35] Mhm. Yeah. And I mean, you were looking at different departments. Was those, those were like were they subjects that you had no knowledge about or were they in areas that you kind of understood what the courses where you were looking at or?
BETHANY PARRILLO [00:02:48] So we started with DHPA, which is my department, um, which is, I don’t know, funny in some ways, but, uh, really exciting in others because, you know, it was courses I'd taken before. And, you know, I always was someone who read the course sheets and looked at, you know, this is what we're going to be doing. But it was funny looking at it from like an analysing perspective rather than, uh, “okay, here's what I need to do to, to pass”, um, more of a “okay, how would students perceive this, you know, wording this, um, assessment method”. Um, and then from DHPA, we moved um, into other departments. Um, we did some stuff in Education. We did some stuff in Psychology. Um, so those are things I'd never encountered before and it was really interesting to see how differently, uh, even the approach to the online, um, interface was for these departments. Um, and the sort of. You know, knowledge that assume you already have, which I would have had in of the DHPA stuff. But when you're looking at Psychology and you're like, okay, well, you know, if you take that principle and it's not in the other, I'm like, “well, I don't, I don't know what that is”.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:04:01] Yeah, yeah. So coming into something, with not maybe being in the School… Difficult, maybe?
BETHANY PARRILLO [00:04:08] Yeah, yeah.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:04:11] Okay. And then what do you think, like, in terms of- because you've obviously got to have a peek behind the scenes in different areas on how we're communicating information about assessments, um, how we’re sort of structuring them. What would you see was the, I don't know, biggest challenge or opportunity in what we're doing with the assessments currently in our university? So if you were to give the university a piece of advice of what could you do better or what are you already doing really well, what would that be?
BETHANY PARRILLO [00:04:42] Um. I think a lot of it is, you know, reviewing assessment methods. There was a lot of, oh, you know, these departments are so exclusively essay based assessment. And these departments are so, you know, practical based assessment. Um, I think it was realising that that's okay in some departments, you know, it'd be very, very difficult for you to assess practically things in DHPA, for example, because a lot of that is, you know, taking your own ideas and expressing that in essay form, um, whereas you can do more practical based assessments in more practical based degrees.
Um, you know, it'd be very difficult if you were like, oh, practically show me how you understand this doctrine and this theological camp. Um, yeah. How do you even assess that? So maybe that's something that will have to be researched more like is there a way you could do that? Um, but for now, you know, if it isn't broke, you don't need to try to fix it.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:05:46] Mhm. Excellent. Okay. Um, and so following on from that obviously there you get this idea that assessments. Um, need to... They need to be the right assessment for what you're assessing. So the method has to match what the assessment is, is looking at. Um, so sort on more of a higher level did you change your view at all about what you think makes a good assessment from the students point of view?
BETHANY PARRILLO [00:06:17] I think it was really challenged. Um, in terms of... Certainly you know how certain professors word assessments, um, and you know what their expectations of those assessments. Um, you know, speaking with the people at CAD and saying, oh, I would have thought that was very clear about what was expected of me And them saying, no, it's not. Um, so and taking that on board and saying, okay, maybe actually… I was able to understand it because of, you know, previous knowledge I have and, and knowing how this department functions and knowing how the professors work and what they expect. But someone who's maybe a first year coming in is going to look at that and not really understand what's going on. So, yeah, sort of understanding that, you know, every person will interpret something slightly differently. Um, and, you know, expecting that the professors take that into account as well.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:07:21] Mhm. Okay. So that that communication how we, how we explain to students what we are looking for and um so just yeah working on that. Um, so I mean you've now seen TESTA sort of through so you've, you've um, collected all that amazing data and then we've pulled that obviously together with the, the student data and produced reports for, for the, for the Schools.
Do you feel that- I mean, obviously we're very early stages, but do you feel that carrying on with something like TESTA will in time improve our assessment practices? Or do you think there's something different we should be doing?
BETHANY PARRILLO [00:08:03] Uh, I think it depends, um, on, on a few factors. I mean... In some of the places we were doing the TESTA, the feedback. There was a feeling of like hopelessness, but there was a sense of, you know, some of these professors have done things like the way they have for decades and then say, well, “you need to change the way you do this”, is a massive step for them. Um, and I mean, it's understandable. It's understandable to have to go, you know, completely reverse. And what we've done previously is a lot. Um, I think it is probably helpful. I mean, even if reports like this can be more publicised, um, because I got, you know, this sort of exclusive look into, you know, really narrowing in on what people are assessing. But it might help the entire student body if they were able to understand, you know, this this is how exactly we're being assessed, um, and breaking it down like that when, you know, when normally students would read, “oh, this is the assessment” and just crack on with it, rather than, you know, having an hour or two to actually sit down and just… Look at, look at what that means.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:09:23] Mhm. Yeah I think I sense like a fascinating idea. So I'm just thinking how do we take that forward. So in terms of um… Do you think before doing TESTA um, or other students who happen to be involved in TESTA, do you think they um, perceive that how much work goes into designing assessments or… What was your sense of assessment design before doing TESTA?
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:09:52] Um, I, I was the sort of student who, uh, didn't really think about essay questions. Um, so. But, but never really even thinking about the design behind it. I mean, I could look at it and say, “okay, I know who's written this question, and so I know where they're coming from”, but I never sat down and was like “okay like, how do you actually craft a question and how do you craft something that is going to assess what you want to assess?”.
Um, and even speaking to a few friends that were in university the same time as I was when I was doing the program, they had never thought about it either. Um, I mean, I had close friends who did very varying disciplines, um, you know, music and science and education. Um, and all of them were assessed in different ways, but… None of them had ever really thought about why that was the case. Um. Or you know why, why they were assassin that specific way.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:10:53] Mhm. Yeah. And this is one thing that has always fascinated me is obviously, as academics it's our job to take on that workload and design the learning for students and make sure that it's appropriate. Um, and we, we want to engage with students. But then there's an element of, for me, students want to be here to be the students. They don't want to be the teachers. Um, so how much do you think we should be - should we be doing more to engage students with helping them understand that behind the scenes? Or do you think actually, it's appropriate students do their side of the curtain and we do our side. You know how much peeking behind the scenes should we be trying to think that would help students in any way?
BETHANY PARRILLO [00:11:35] I… I'd like to think that students would care enough about their assessments to want to know things like that. Um, I certainly would. Um, and I mean, I'm currently doing a postgraduate um, that is something I'm interested in is, you know, wanting to know, you know, why is it that you've done it exactly like this? And why is it that these are the, the options of essay questions that you've chosen? Um, you know. I would, I would personally, and this is just shooting from the hip, but it'd be interesting if professors would actually assess themselves and, you know, even within the own department, if you had I mean, or outside the department might even be more helpful. But if you had someone within the department looking at essay questions from another professor and saying, “okay, well, why would I answer that?” And, you know, can I see the thought process of how my colleagues crafted this.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:12:35] Yeah. So actually taking TESTA even further than- so at the moment what TESTA's looking at is that sort of flow from the learning outcomes through to the assessment, the amount of assessments, the percentage weighting, those sort of things, the feedback, but actually taking it a step further and actually start to reassess the individual assessment.
BETHANY PARRILLO [00:12:53] Mhm. Yeah.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:12:55] Yeah?
BETHANY PARRILLO [00:12:57] Yeah. I think um obviously TESTA is still very young um and might not have the scope for all of this yet. Um, and that might not be what TESTA wants to accomplish. But um, it really was a very learning year of um, just uh, as opposed to proposing more questions than it answered, really. Um, and wanting to get further stuck in with, um, the whole process.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:13:25] Mhm. So the other area obviously that with TESTA, as part of what you were being asked to extract from the courses was things like “what were the learning outcomes”. As a student before doing TESTA, how much awareness or interest did you have in learning outcomes? Did you? Was it something that you valued in any way?
BETHANY PARRILLO [00:13:41] So it was definitely something that I read because I was used to course syllabuses when I was in high school. Um, and you had to read through them and sign them. So I hope people read through them. Um, but then moving on to university, reading through them and even going back at the end of term and saying, “okay, did I get all those learning outcomes? Or were they so vague that, you know, it's all very pie in the sky” or, you know? “Yeah, I guess I maybe got that as a learning outcome”. Um, or, you know, “do they look really cut and paste? Um, and are they similar across the degree programme?” and like, okay, so if they're just very general and not actually really learning outcomes for the course specifically.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:14:36] Mhm. Okay. Excellent. Um, and then if you were to speak to future students, um, who's who are considering doing an internship, what would you say to them? Is it something they should think about? What would persuade them?
BETHANY PARRILLO [00:14:56] Um, I would say absolutely. Absolutely. Go for it. Um, you, you get to see things you would never see otherwise. You learn things you never learn otherwise. Um, I had a great experience. Um. I mean, even that carried into how I function as a student. Um, it helped me to be disciplined about my time because I had my work. You know, I was getting started on my dissertation and doing this internship. So, uh, it really helped me personally in a lot of ways. And it was really good to have such, you know, intimate interactions with people who were superiors and, you know, having like a, a line manager, as it were, um, and having sort of intergenerational conversations like that I think I've really put me in great stead, uh, for the future.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:15:47] Um. Excellent. Yeah. You're a great advocate for, for internships! That is really fantastic. Um, and then just to, to finish off, um... If you were, um, Uh, a new student coming in. Um, you're just starting your first year, um, what piece of advice would you give those students in terms of dealing with assessments? And what should they be thinking about when, when they're looking at their courses?
BETHANY PARRILLO [00:16:22] Um. I would say look at assessments as soon as possible, because if you start working to deadlines… That is how you're always going to function. Um, and that's not necessarily the greatest approach. It probably works for some people. Um, but for me, it was always really helpful to look at assessment questions straight off the bat and think, “okay, I'm interested in these topics, maybe not so interested in these. Um, I'm interested in learning more about these topics over the course of, you know, the weeks that we do this course. Um, will I learn more about these topics and maybe be swayed to sort of change my topic?”. Um, and really just get started as soon as possible. Um, because, uh, it was so much easier to think, “okay, I've got three weeks until this essay's due”. If I'm working till the deadline. Everything's going to pile up. So if I give myself a week for research, a week to write, a few days to edit and then submit, um, it's just a lot more manageable and a lot less stressful.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:17:27] Um, yeah. Fantastic. And then actually, one last question, I promise, last one. Um, just, you know, you obviously got this, uh, this task of data mining going [AUDIO DROPS] view only, and that was a very specific part of our TESTA program, was that you looked at it through the eyes of a student coming into a course. Um, was there anything you noticed that you would recommend or that you think was really good about in terms of how to find that information? Like, was it anything that sort of stuck you was like, well, “that was a really good example”, or “this is a terrible way to do it” in terms of helping students understand where to find and what the information is on the assessments?
BETHANY PARRILLO [00:18:09] Well, there were several examples of courses where we couldn't even find the course codes. Um, and obviously that is really unhelpful for students, um, to just have a full Blackboard layout of “here's a bunch of tasks to do”, but not any kind of direction whatsoever. Um, and when you're maybe in a job environment and, you know, it's expected from the get go, you can work with that. But when you're a new student just walking in and you see just thing, like just things of what to do. Um, it can be overwhelming. Um, so I would really encourage people to put course codes as, as far to the top as possible. Um, and emphasise that reading them will be helpful because I guarantee you that they are.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:19:03] Yeah. So those, those course guides giving clear information about what you're going to do when you're going to do it, that's a summary rather than just I'm here and I've got a lot of things in front of me.
Yep. Excellent. Well, thank you so much, um, for sharing that. Was there anything else you would like to tell the people listening to the podcast about TESTA or anything that you think we haven't covered?
BETHANY PARRILLO [00:19:30] Um. I think it was just a really fun experience! Um, you know, it was really great working with the people that I did because they were really understanding of the fact that I was a student and that I had other things to do, um, and I had a life outside of university. Um, so, yeah, I suppose just, you know, thanking, thanking them because they made the experience really smooth.
KIRSTY KIEZEBRINK [00:20:01] Excellent. Thank you so much, and thank you for taking the time to do this over and above everything that you're, you're doing. And, um, I'm so pleased that you have come back to do your postgraduate studies with us as well.
OUTRO [00:20:11] It's fantastic. I am so thank you. This podcast is brought to you by the University of Aberdeen.