Reform of assessment

COVID-19 has brought about many changes in the way we approach teaching and learning.  One big question about transforming the traditional teaching into online teaching (to be technically correct many called it remote teaching) is how are we going to assess students’ learning. In fact, this has always been an issue even before the online transformation.
To many of us, educator, examination is the only way we are comfortable to use for assessment and evaluation.  Unfortunately, it does not work well for online/remote teaching especially when "trust" is not there in the first place.  When we talk about administering the online exam, the issue is usually around how would we proctor the exam so that we can prevent cheating.  Some exam proctoring tricks were shared around and many platforms are available.  However, I believe that, without trusting 💙 Of an educator and honest 💙 of the learners, there would not be anything that would work. Also, the way exam score contribute so much to our society. It is used as a determinant for social perception, honor status of the degree, employment and admission to next degree, salary and other privileges.  The latter reason has been rooted in our society for a long time and wouldn’t be changed easily in the hand of educators alone.
This seems to be the perfect time for assessment reform and some guidelines/possibilities that have been identified through various meetings in educational development team and QA sessions are:

• Lessen the importance of summative exam.  Increase more small quizzes as a formative assessment
• If exam is necessary, the question should be at a higher order thinking, i.e. applying or higher.
• Use assignment/project for assessing higher order thinking
• Be clear about the expectation of what learners are expected to be able to do 
• Define the competences that are associated with each grade letter.
• Postpone the evaluation of foundation courses to the latter course in their own discipline when they apply those knowledge.  In the foundation course, focus on good learning materials and tutorial and assessment for learning.

There is even further talk on issuing pass/fail (S/U) grade at least during this COVID-19 interruption.  Many Ivy Leagues have led the way in the US (read the news here).  One of the reason being the fairness (or the lack of one).  Many learners have limited access to the technology and that put some learners on the disadvantage side.