This is authored by Dr Brett Shipton | Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Law and Justice
Context – Why this mattered
Supervised assessments have increased in use across the Australian higher education sector, particularly due to the increasing use of AI and the doubts this technology has cast on the use of submitted written assessments. This learning and teaching reflection relates to the specific use of an interactive oral version of a supervised assessment. The degree of interaction between the assessor and student can vary in these circumstances, with a balance between student presentation and direct assessor questions in relation to the topic discussed. In my specific circumstance teaching JST265, I have chosen for the students to deliver a 10-minute presentation, with scope for a couple of targeted questions to test the depth of their knowledge in relation to the content being assessed.
Human Insight – What changed my thinking
As with any learning and assessment task I design and/or engage with, I seek to effectively scaffold or guide student thinking towards their learning goals. Scaffolding is a supportive learning strategy based on the work of Vygotsky (1978) and Wood, Bruner & Ross (1976), with a contemporary update described by Biggs, Tang & Kennedy (2022) and my own work relating to applying scaffolding Shipton (2023). Vygotsky (1978) operationalised this concept using the zone of proximal development (ZPD), which emphasises that students should be given learning activities or problems just beyond their current stage of development, with the teacher using various supports to guide learning towards this goal. I have found this concept to be very insightful, and I have used to guide all learning and assessment design and facilitation I engage in.
Practice – What I redesigned
Supervised assessments require higher-level thinking in relation to both subject content and the various skills required to present and communicate key concepts, including presentation design, verbally summarising and communicating key concepts and responding to assessor questions. Given the considerable skills variation within the cohort, e.g. younger vs older students, there was also the need to vary supports depending on individual student needs.
Scaffolding I used to support students in their ZPD included:
- Detailed rubric (including specific requirements for the presentation/interaction).
- An authentic scenario to encourage critical thinking and motivate.
- Structuring the task into clear parts and using key words to signpost thinking and actions.
- A structured briefing in class to clarify requirements and allow for questions.
Impact – What changed and how I know
The scaffolds I designed were very useful in guiding student thinking and actions within the assessment task. What I also found particularly useful as a scaffold was the use of the questions, I would ask for students to elaborate on their understanding. I quickly worked out the need to use the clarifying questions to guide students in deeper reflections on the concepts and events they described, and I will keep this in mind when preparing and utilising questions for future tasks.
On reflection, in future supervised assessments, I could also design additional scaffolds that may use:
- An exemplar video or demonstration.
- A formative practice session or peer-role play.
My Elevate experience
Presenting at the SLOWposium was a very beneficial experience. I gained some useful insights from the other presenters, seeing similarities and differences that informed my own presentation and reflection on supervised assessments. It is good to see a community of practice developing in this regard.
References
Biggs, J., Tang, C., & Kennedy, G. (2022). Teaching for quality learning at university. McGraw-Hill Education.
Shipton, B. (2023). Signature Pedagogies and an Integrated Policing Curriculum. In Signature Pedagogies in Police Education: Teaching Recruits to Think, Perform and Act with Integrity (pp. 97-111). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wood, D. J., Bruner, J. S., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 17, 89–100.
This reflective blog post is part of the Faculty’s Learning and Teaching SLOWposium 2026: Elevate session. Continue the conversation by exploring the reflections of our fellow presenters and discovering new perspectives on learning and teaching. Read the other presenters’ reflections here.
“Ideally, what we want our students to be in that zone of possible development. It’s where, we put people in situations, particularly where they’ve got to problem-solve, and extend their thinking skills, which often is really what many of these supervised assessments do.”
