In 2022/2023 I undertook a redesign of the MFAC1501 Foundations individual assignment. The Foundations course is the initial course for first year medical students during Phase 1 of the medical program. The assignment has been further refined for the 2024 iteration of the course, following my successful appointment as co-convenor for MFAC1501.

I recognised that students entering the program come from diverse backgrounds, with varying levels of prior experience with scientific writing. The aim of the assignment redesign was to:

• improve scaffolding for students, providing a guided 
• align the assignment to relevant course learning activities that introduce students to various skills that we expect students to demonstrate in the assignment; skills on which they are assessed
• set clear expectations for students regarding the assessment criteria and development of academic writing, research and critical evaluation skills

In 2023, I introduced a marking rubric (2023) that engages Bloom's Taxonomy verbs to explicitly outline the learning outcome expectations, which were aligned to each grade level. This marking rubric is supplied to the students as part of the assignment instructions, is utilised in a peer review exercise during the course and sets the standard for marking by assessors. The purpose of using a rubric is to explicitly set expectations for both students and assessors. A further benefit of the rubric is to provide marking standardisation, increase marking objectiveness, and reduce the risk of personal biases.

Building on discussions with colleagues at the 2023 Education Focussed retreat (Dr Kerry Ubel, Dr Megan Kalucy - who shared their work simplifying oral case presentation marking rubrics), I undertook a revision of the marking rubric in 2024 (marking rubric 2024). I used ChatGPT 3.5 to help me simplify the assessment criteria by highlighting 4 essential criteria for a P (and 2 for a P+) based on the previous version of the rubric. Following this, I have refined and adjusted the rubric to ensure that it is easier to read for the students and assessors. I based my development of the assessment criteria on the principles of the Biggs SOLO taxonomy and Bloom's taxonomy to assist in creating criteria that build in complexity (from F to P+ grades) and incorporating Bloom’s taxonomy verbs as much as possible.

The assignment instructions provided to students are clear and include supporting background information where relevant, this may be particularly helpful to students who require more information to understand the task. It was important to me to ensure the assignment was aligned to relevant learning activities in the course - these activities support the student in meeting the assessment criteria, and demonstrate development in skills such as critical thinking, critical analysis and evaluation, scientific writing, and reflection. The assignment instructions include a proposed timeline and checklist, including aligned course learning activities, to assist students in keeping track of their assignment progress through the course. This is a strategy in which I have embedded my new interest in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles; I saw this as a way we can equitably support students who struggle with executive functions involved in learning, particularly students who may be neurodivergent. For example, it supports students by breaking larger tasks (assignment) into smaller tasks or steps, and provides a scaffold to assist in managing time amongst competing demands of the course. 

I outlined an assignment template for the students to utilise in preparing for their assignment. The aim of this was to reduce cognitive load for the students. This was achieved by providing them with a template that was appropriately formatted and included section headings and appendices. Throughout, I provided relevant information to ensure that all students understood the expectations and had easy access to necessary resources. This was important because I recognised that students have different levels of experience in scientific writing, referencing, critical evaluation and analysis. Thus, my aim was to provide an equitable introduction to university level scientific writing and cater for different support needs amongst the first year medical students.