‘What can HE and Schools learn from each other about assessment and AI? A conversation with Tim Kitchen and Keith Heggart’

Abstract

Generative AI is forcing both schools and higher education to reconsider some long-standing assumptions about assessment. Yet, while the challenges are similar, the responses across the two sectors are often quite different. Schools bring experience in designing scaffolded assessment, observing learning over time, providing structured feedback, and working within tightly defined curriculum and assessment frameworks. Higher education, meanwhile, has been experimenting with new approaches to assessment security, authentic assessment, AI-supported learning, and the redesign of tasks for increasingly diverse and digitally mediated learning environments.

In this conversation, Tim Kitchen and Keith Heggart explore what schools and universities might learn from each other as they respond to generative AI. Rather than focusing on detecting or preventing AI use, the discussion will consider what AI reveals about the purposes and limitations of existing assessment practices. How can we design assessment that provides meaningful evidence of learning? What role should process, dialogue, feedback and student agency play? And where can AI be productively incorporated rather than excluded?

The session will identify practical lessons across both sectors and consider how greater dialogue between school and higher education educators might support more authentic, equitable and future-focused approaches to assessment.