By Associate Professor Tim Fawns
Posted Tuesday 12 August, 2025

In the second of our challenge space conversations, our speakers explored the challenge of what is involved in leading cultural and structural change in higher education, especially in the context of generative AI, traditional assessment practices, and the need for team-based reform. This conversation was inspired by Monash’s Programmatic Assessment and AI Review (PAAIR) project and our shared need to navigate areas where clarity is lacking and definitive answers are hard to come by. 

In challenge space conversations, the community poses questions for which we don’t have clear guidance or ready-made answers. They are online (recorded) webinars, featuring panels with specialist knowledge, tasked with thinking aloud and grappling with complexity. The audience continues to pose difficult questions to take the conversation in new and unexpected directions. The aim is to surface new lines of inquiry, spark ongoing thinking, and, over time, inform resources and guidance. Now, it’s your turn. Help us to continue the discussion, in the comments below this post or via social media.

The latest conversation was held 3rd June, 2025. The recording and key takeaways from the conversation are below.

View the video or read the full transcript.

Panellists:

• Professor Tansy Jessop, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Education and Students at the University of Bristol and author of Transforming the Experience of Students Through Assessment (TESTA)
• Professor Claire Palermo, Deputy Dean Education, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University and Academic Lead of the PAAIR Project
• Associate Professor Tim Fawns, Monash Education Academy and Academic Lead of the PAAIR Project
• Professor Ari Seligmann, Associate Dean, Education, Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture and Academic Lead of the PAAIR Project

Key takeaways

Breaking down silos to build shared programs

A core focus of the conversation was the challenge of moving from isolated teaching practices to a collaborative, program-wide mindset. Without breaking down silos between educators and units, meaningful programmatic approaches are not possible.

One starting point is understanding the deeper beliefs that drive people’s assessment practices. Educators may be influenced by how they themselves were assessed decades ago, often without realising it. Rather than mandating change, teams might be better off creating safe spaces for reflective dialogue, where the origins and assumptions of current practices can be openly discussed.

“It’s about having very open and curious conversations about where people are coming from with their assessment.” (Claire Palermo)

These conversations can be informal in small teams or require structured workshops in larger settings. But the goal is the same: shared purpose and aligned direction. Teams that take the time to map assessment across entire degrees often discover not only duplication or gaps, but also new opportunities to create more coherent learning journeys.

“We know and recognise that the major problems and the major challenges of the age can’t be solved by individuals or a single expertise and we need to be able to bring lots of different kinds of perspectives and lots of different kinds of expertise together, and coordinating courses and programs of study and preparing students, organisations all require that diversity and the respect – respecting the different positions, but also marshalling all of the different expertise to address the challenge at hand.” (Ari Seligmann)

Letting go of objectivity

The session also tackled the complex reality that assessment involves subjectivity and interpretation. While rubrics and criteria provide structure (and many assessors appreciate this), academic judgement remains a crucial, interpretive element of the evaluation of quality of students’ work, particularly in more complex, conceptual, authentic, or creative assessment types.

“I think this is quite challenging for people, but I think what it opens up is the idea that marking and making judgements is complex and that the way we engage in marking may be different for all the paraphernalia of criteria… [There’s a comment in the chat] about academics also quite liking the firmness of rubrics and policies and depending on them. And I think they encourage quite conservative tendencies… Partly an aversion or a fear, and a reality, that more authentic and creative forms of assessment are much more difficult to come up with a consistent, standardised judgement… So I think as we move into a more varied assessment, people get increasingly nervous about whether students will get the mark which reflects what they’ve done. And I think that’s a tension we ride around innovation.” (Tansy Jessop)

Rethinking tradition in the face of disruption

While many assessment practices are deeply embedded, the panel emphasised the importance of curiosity and openness to new possibilities, without throwing away principles of assessment. The panel commented on how considering the implications for sustained or lifelong learning of past assessment could shine a light on how we might want to refocus our current practices.

“One way to kind of unravel it and really think about its limitations, if it is indeed limited, is to explore what that was like in terms of historical practice for that individual who will have gone through a similar training program. How useful was that for your learning?” (Claire Palermo)

The panel also noted how disruptions like COVID-19 and the launch of widely-available generative AI technologies have accelerated change in ways that might otherwise have seemed impossible.

“The two biggest drivers away from tradition that I’ve seen have come out of COVID and Generative AI. People are being quite creative because they see these as massive disruptors and you just can’t carry on like you were before.” (Tansy Jessop)

For many, these disruptions have revealed a deeper challenge to identity and practice.

“… it also requires a lot of bravery and courage to ask ‘Why? Why this way?’ and to ask why not other ways.” (Ari Seligmann)

There is risk to asking these questions and reforming practice, but there is also risk to maintaining the same approaches while the context around us changes.

Building and sustaining engagement

Reforming assessment systems is a long-term effort, and sustaining that momentum requires support, recognition, and space to reflect.

“I think our promotion processes also work against collectivism, and that we may want to promote more collective effort to promote people for their collectiveness rather than just individual efforts in order to support more of our ambitions.” (Ari Seligmann)

And leaders, the panel agreed, must model openness, experimentation, and imperfection.

“Very little is stable, and we’re going to constantly be revisiting and revising, and so we actually may want to reward and support the people who can quickly test and fail and have it more than just hanging on to the older ways, but to come up with a reward in some ways it’s going to sound silly, but to reward failure. Reward failure that we can learn from, not just not just reward success.” (Ari Seligmann)

“We don’t have all the answers, and we need to create environments where it’s okay to experiment and see how something goes and if it fails, that’s okay. We’re going to learn from that experience. And, you know, fostering those cultures within our teams is really important as we embark on this kind of change work.” (Claire Palermo)

Navigating resistance

Resistance isn’t always a problem. Sometimes, it’s a resource. Diverse perspectives can strengthen design, as long as there’s space for honest conversation.

“We want to hear opinions and we want to be able to vet value them and incorporate them as we can so that people have a voice.” (Ari Seligmann)

“Not just pretending to kind of consult or take people’s views, but having a team culture where that is really fostered and shared — that ability to speak freely about their concerns or ideas.” (Claire Palermo)

“How do we make sure we create space for people to legitimately critique and resist what they see as concerns about the direction of travel?” (Tim Fawns)

Rather than trying to convert every sceptic, leaders might focus on those open to movement:

“Napoleon’s Law of Thirds … Your keen people will come with you anyway. Work with the people in the middle to let more and more people become enthusiastic about the direction of travel  … Don’t spend all your time trying to unfold the arms of the terribly reluctant.” (Tansy Jessop)

Indeed, this is part of what these challenge space conversations are for. To create space to surface tensions, areas of friction or conflict, and to talk about them without the compulsion to resolve them too quickly.