Workshop Aim
By the end of this session, participants will:
- Understand the principles of structural assessment redesign in an AI-enhanced context
- Analyse the risk and purpose of their current assessments
- Redesign one assessment using process-focused and structurally sound strategies
- Identify next steps at module and programme level
Session Structure (120 minutes)
The session is structured in seven stages, alternating between brief facilitator input and individual, paired, or small-group activity. Input segments should not exceed seven minutes each — prioritise activity time over presentation.
1 Opening Provocation
0–10 minutes
Open with interactive voting on three statements about AI and assessment. Display each statement in turn and ask participants to indicate agreement using a show of hands, sticky dots, or a polling tool. Statements should be genuinely provocative — not designed for consensus.
After voting, invite brief discussion on the most divided statement. Use this to frame the session's central question: should the response to GenAI be about catching students out, or about redesigning the assessment itself?
Close the provocation by signalling the shift the session will make: from detection to structural redesign.
2 Purpose Before Policing
10–25 minutes
Deliver a brief mini-input (no more than seven minutes) on three connected ideas:
- Validity — does the assessment actually measure what it is intended to measure?
- Learning outcomes — is the assessment aligned with what students need to demonstrate?
- Making thinking visible — what structural features reveal student reasoning, rather than only a final product?
Follow immediately with a paired activity. Participants work in pairs to audit one of their own assessments against two questions:
Paired activity prompt:
1. What is this assessment actually asking students to
demonstrate? Is that still the right thing to measure?
2. Where in this assessment could a student submit work that
does not reflect their own thinking — and what structural
feature enables that?
3 Risk Mapping Activity
25–45 minutes
Create a physical risk spectrum in the room using a long sheet of paper or tape on the floor labelled High, Medium, and Low. Ask participants to place a card or sticky note representing their assessment somewhere on the spectrum.
Once all assessments are placed, facilitate a brief whole-group discussion. The aim is not to settle on definitive risk classifications, but to surface the structural features that place assessments at different points on the spectrum.
Facilitator guidance: Draw attention to the difference between risk of detection failure (which detection tools cannot reliably address) and structural mitigation (which redesign can address). Shift the conversation from policing to design.
Participants return to their seats with a clearer understanding of where their assessment sits and what structural changes might reduce vulnerability.
4 AI-Restricted vs AI-Integrated Design Decisions
45–65 minutes
Deliver a brief overview (no more than seven minutes) of the two-track approach to assessment design:
AI-Restricted
Assessments where students must demonstrate foundational knowledge or professional competency without AI assistance. Requires conditions of appropriate oversight or process visibility.
AI-Integrated
Assessments where students are expected to use AI tools critically and transparently, demonstrating judgment, evaluation, and awareness of limitations.
Move into a triad discussion. Groups of three work through the following prompt for each person's assessment:
Triad discussion prompt: Should this assessment be AI-restricted, AI-integrated, or a hybrid of both? Justify your position by reference to the learning outcome — not to concerns about cheating.
Return to the whole group for a brief share-back. Note any common patterns across disciplines or assessment types.
5 Redesign Sprint (Core Session)
65–100 minutes
This is the heart of the workshop. Participants work individually to complete a structured redesign canvas for one of their assessments. Provide the canvas as a printed handout or editable digital template.
The Redesign Canvas
The canvas has six fields. Participants should complete each in sequence:
| Canvas Field | Guiding Prompt |
|---|---|
| Learning Outcome | What should students be able to demonstrate by completing this assessment? |
| Current Task | What is the assessment currently asking students to produce or do? |
| Risk Level | High / Medium / Low — and what structural feature creates the risk? |
| AI Positioning | Should this assessment be AI-restricted, AI-integrated, or hybrid? Why? |
| Process Visibility Additions | What structural element will be added to make student thinking visible? (e.g. a proposal, reflection, oral component, checkpoint) |
| Scalability Considerations | Is this redesign feasible for the cohort size and marking load? What adjustments would make it sustainable? |
After completing the canvas individually (approximately twenty minutes), participants share their redesign with one other person for peer critique using the three prompts below.
Peer Critique Prompts
Each participant receives feedback from their partner using these three questions only:
1 Is human thinking visible?
Does the redesigned assessment contain at least one feature that makes the student's reasoning, decision-making, or learning process evident — something that AI alone cannot produce?
2 Could AI fully outsource this?
If a student submitted the output of an AI system with minimal human intervention, would it still meet the assessment criteria? If yes, what structural change would close that gap?
3 Is workload sustainable?
Does the redesign add meaningful value without creating disproportionate marking burden? If the cohort is large, are there completion-based, sampled, or peer-supported elements that maintain feasibility?
6 Programme-Level Alignment
100–115 minutes
Bring participants into small groups by department, programme, or discipline. Each group discusses three questions:
- Programme mapping: Across the programme, where are AI-restricted and AI-integrated assessments? Is there an appropriate balance, or are all assessments clustered in one category?
- Consistency: Are AI use expectations consistent and legible across modules, or are students encountering conflicting rules?
- Collaboration: Which redesign decisions can be made at module level, and which require programme or institutional agreement?
Facilitator note: This section often surfaces significant variation in how colleagues approach AI — resist the urge to resolve it quickly. The goal is awareness and a shared commitment to discussing programme alignment, not immediate consensus.
7 Commitment and Close
115–120 minutes
Each participant completes the following two prompts on an index card or in a shared document:
"The one structural change I will implement in my assessment
this semester is…"
"The colleague I will discuss this with is…"
The second prompt — naming a colleague — transforms a private intention into a social commitment. Read two or three aloud before closing. Collect the cards or keep the shared document accessible for follow-up.
Engagement Strategies
In-person workshops have different energy dynamics from online sessions. The following strategies help sustain focus and participation across the full two hours.
- Alternate between individual, paired, and whole-group work every 15–20 minutes — sustained individual work in a room full of colleagues quickly loses energy; build in regular transition points
- Use physical movement during risk mapping — getting participants out of their seats in the first hour resets energy and creates a memorable shared reference point for later discussion
- Keep input segments under 7 minutes — this is a workshop, not a lecture; every input segment should lead directly into an activity
- Use visible timers — display a countdown timer on screen during breakout and canvas activities; this maintains pace without constant verbal reminders
- Prioritise redesign time over theory — if time pressure forces a choice, protect the Redesign Sprint (Stage 5); this is where participants produce something concrete to take away