Traditional authentic assessment tasks are frequently tied to future work and enmeshed in neoliberal and capitalist visions of education. We advocate an alternative approach where authenticity signifies meaningful learning outside the confines of the classroom to promote deep learning that 'sticks'. We proffer an understanding of "assessment…

Studies reporting flexible assessment strategies and their impact across different modes of study remain limited with little emphasis placed on the role these arrangements play in devising authentic assessment processes. This paper synthesises recent research work depicting flexible design principles and practice strategies for how educators might…

What does it mean to teach in higher education (HE) from vantage points that do not privilege human self-interest, but include nonhuman animals as significant subjects of educational practice? This paper addresses human-animal relations as a nascent area of HE pedagogy. It explores premises of, and approaches to post-anthropocentric HE pedagogies…

In this Point of Departure, the idea of authentic assessment is examined and troubled by drawing on Derrida's hauntology. The spectres of higher education invite us to reconsider what is 'real' about past, present, and future assessment practices. Such spectres do not lecture or produce a single, definitive interpretation. Rather, these spectres…

Recent feedback literature emphasises the active role of learners in feedback processes and a programmatic approach to feedback design. This conceptual paper argues for the importance of ipsative processes, i.e. processes focusing on learners' progress as a mechanism in meeting these two requirements. It suggests that the iterative nature of…

In her early work, Suellen Shay argues that higher education tends to valorise objective notions of reality while downplaying the subjectivity of individuals. In Shay's view, this one-sided approach leads to a deficiency in the preparation of students for the holistic reality of the world they will experience beyond university. Taking Shay's…

Activity theory is a relatively young methodology for researching higher education teaching practices. Beyond systemic analyse of workplace activities and their development, activity theory used in its full interventionist capacity can foster practitioners' transformative agency to initiate practice change. Nevertheless, this is not an easy…

Educators are responsible for developing generic graduate capabilities, but the theoretical justification for teaching techniques is infrequently articulated. This conceptual paper aims to provide theory-informed principles to guide teaching practice in developing future-focused generic capabilities. The paper describes future-focused generic…

The rise of populism has sparked a debate about the role of facts in public discourse. How should higher education teachers respond? This article reviews the literature on approaches to teaching and identifies and problematises a tension between emphases on facts and thinking. It then outlines the current 'post-truth' challenge, which suggests…

Social justice in education can be understood as empowering students to participate meaningfully in their education on par with peers. Participation amongst students in higher education classrooms is becoming a concern because of increased globalisation and local student diversity. In this work, Nancy Fraser's three-dimensional framework of social…

Studio, a breeding ground for curiosity and wonder, has become more of a confined space for innovation lately. Infrastructure shortage also has triggered a somewhat impersonal attitude to studio learning. Can Design-Activism mitigate such stresses on the studio by becoming an alternative mode of driving studio processes? Reflectively, this study…

Conceptualizations of time and work in the higher education context are increasingly atomized, as time is seen as measurable, quantifiable, and limited. This growing phenomenon, seen through the lens of projectification, has the power to reconceptualize how university leaders and the academic workforce consider and utilize their time and work,…

Teaching a one-off session on a colleague's course is a commonplace occurrence in higher education teaching practice, but it is not an area that has received sufficient attention in pedagogical literature. This article focuses on the scenario where a feminist teacher is invited to give a guest lecture, but is not sure if working with feminist…

This paper aims to provide a tentative roadmap for ensuring that higher education policy makers and practitioners are apprised of what might be done to advance a concept of socially just assessment praxis. It extends current thinking around the notion of social justice approaches to assessment by further developing the conceptual framework…

In this Point of Departure, we will present six key concepts, grouped into the following three dimensions which are salient for incorporating a cyberfeminist perspective into online higher education: Critical technologies (Platform capitalism and Digital gender gaps), Gendered gazes (Digital gender-based violence and Safer spaces) and…