1. Components and timelines
  2. Designing the IOA
  3. Preparing your students
  4. Recording the mock IOA

1. Components and timelines

An Interactive Oral Assessment (IOA) is a major assessment change and should be considered in the context of your overall assessment structure.

Depending on the institution and approval processes you may need a lead-time of around 10 weeks before the start of semester to design the IOA.

How to design an IOA

First consider how the IOA is part of a whole of unit assessment redesign rather than a replacement for an existing assessment. This is because you will need to provided scaffolded resources such as a video demonstrating the IOA during semester.

IOAs work well when they are linked to earlier assessments allowing you to use the IOA to probe the depth and extent of the students understanding.

Examples

  • A staged or sequenced assessment where there may be an individual submission, leading to a group project, finishing with an IOA 
  •  An individual IOA in the exam period may require individual assessment submitted in Week 12, that you explore and probe during the IOA
  • A group or individual IOA after a submitted group written report. The IOA may ask students to extend and build on a particular aspect of the report.

IOA design template

The interactive oral assessment (IOA) design template is used to guide discussions as you begin to prepare your assessment.

Download

This template is closely based on one originally developed by Dani Logan-Fleming and Popi Sotiriadou.

IOA Timeline

Before semester: 

  • Embedded the IOA into your assessment schedule and had it approved
  • Developed an authentic scenario that will activate knowledge and skills students have developed in the course
  • Recorded an example of an IOA using a related scenario  
  • Familiarised your teaching staff with the assessment requirements

During semester: 

  • Co-developed with students and teaching staff a rubric to guide and mark the conversation during the IOA assessment  
  • Discussed the recorded example and rubric in class with students  
  • Included activities to develop oral communication skills and evaluative judgement in workshops 
  • Developed conversation prompts with your teaching staff to relate to the assessment criteria   
  • Organised the venue for the assessment (physical room or online via Zoom and scheduler)
  • Shown students how to use the scheduling mechanism for the assessment 
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