Learning and teaching guides

Teachers can download these handy booklets for advice on a variety of learning and teaching topics.

These guides have been developed by the Centre for Academic Development at Victoria University of Wellington.

Assessment for learning

This guide focuses on the mechanics of assessment. It covers how to:

  • design good assessment tasks
  • develop marking guides
  • mark and moderate
  • provide students with useful feedback
  • promote academic integrity.

Developing questions

It will help you develop well-written 'objective-style' questions, for example:

  • multiple choice questions
  • true/false questions
  • matching-pairs questions.

These questions are 'objective' because they have only one correct or best answer.

This is in contrast to questions that can have a range of possible answers, such as those where students are asked to give an opinion, argue a case, create an art project or solve a new problem.

Group work and assessment

This guide explains how teachers can use group work to enhance student learning.

Group work teaches students interpersonal and teamwork skills, and has the added benefit of reducing the marking load for teachers.

The guide is in three sections. They cover:

  • strategies to ensure that group work is relevant, well planned and managed
  • assessment of group work
  • ways to evaluate the effectiveness of group work.

Peer reviews

Peer review is a useful way to improve learning and teaching. It's also useful for demonstrating accountability.

It can be an important measure of quality, alongside student evaluations.

Learn what peer review is, why you should use it, and the basics of how to use it.

Informal feedback

A guide to gathering feedback from students outside the University's formal student feedback system.

Collecting informal feedback is a quick and easy way for teachers to identify areas where students are having problems before the end of a course. It also lets students know that their lecturer cares about what they think.

This guide explores:

  • why teachers collect informal feedback
  • what it can be used for
  • how to carry out an informal feedback process.