14:00-16:00

Opening the Black Box: Designing Process-Focused Assessment for the Age of AI

Facilitator: Professor Naomi Winstone, Professor of Educational Psychology and Director of the Surrey Institute of Education at the University of Surrey, UK

As Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) reshapes higher education, educators face the urgent task of rethinking assessment for authenticity, engagement, and integrity. This masterclass introduces Black Box Assessment as a practical framework that empowers educators to design assessments which capture the process of learning rather than relying solely on polished final outputs. Drawing on the concept of Black Box Thinking, participants will explore how focusing on the journey of creation, including errors, missteps, and responses to feedback, can provide richer, more valid evidence of learning in an AI-saturated educational landscape.

Through a combination of guided activities, exemplars, and collaborative design exercises, this session translates the theory of Black Box Assessment into actionable strategies.

Participants will learn how to:

1. Embed process tracking and reflection checkpoints within existing assignments;
2. Use digital tools and learning platforms to document and evaluate iterative student work;
3. Design rubrics that recognise experimentation, error, and refinement as indicators of cognitive growth;
4. Balance transparency and agency by giving students ownership over how they demonstrate their learning journey.

Participants will leave with a clear understanding of the four core principles underpinning Black Box Assessment (process, error, transparency, and trajectory), and how to implement them within their own disciplinary contexts. The session will also address practical challenges such as workload management, student buy-in, and institutional alignment, offering tested solutions and adaptable templates.

By the end of the masterclass, participants will not only grasp the conceptual rationale for Black Box Assessment but will also possess the tools, examples, and confidence to “open the black box” of learning in their classrooms, building assessment systems that value thinking, creativity, and progress as much as final performance, and that remain resilient in the era of GenAI.

Programme of Events 27th May 2026

Trinity Innovation Workspace, Trinity Business School

Registration with arrival refreshments

Welcome: Dr Pauline Rooney, Head of the Centre for Academic Practice   

Opening Address: Prof Vincent Wade, Senior Lecturer and Dean of Undergraduate Studies 

Keynote Address: The Process is the Point: Assessment and Feedback in the Age of Generative AI.

Prof Naomi Winstone.

Professor of Educational Psychology and Director of the Surrey Institute of Education at the University of Surrey.

Read full bio here.

Learning unfolds over time, through interpretation, decision-making and revision, yet our pedagogy commonly focuses on artefacts. Assessment has traditionally privileged the work students put forward for assessment over the processes that got them there. In feedback, dominant models focus on the delivery of comments rather than the process of student engagement and implementation of feedback.

In this talk, Prof Winstone will consider what becomes possible when we reframe both feedback and assessment as processes of learning rather than products of performance. 

Chair: Dr Pauline Rooney, Head of the Centre for Academic Practice

Refreshment Break, Posters & Networking

Parallel Sessions  

Room 115, First Floor, Trinity Business School 

Room 119, First Floor, Trinity Business School 

Preparing students for the reality of a career in Sustainability: A business perspective on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)

Brian Minehane, 
Trinity Business School  

Teaching is challenging, especially when faced with a class from diverse study and cultural backgrounds. The need to address student-centred learning with a deep understanding of what businesses need students to know requires balance to meet academic learning outcomes and business imperatives for sustainability. Brian's session combines both perspectives and tries to find a balance that meets everyone's needs - a challenge in itself. The session will offer opportunities for further discussion of these themes.

Between technoableism and meaningful student support: GenAI and accessibility  

Dr Krzysztof Rowińskin & Fionn O'Sullivan, Student Learning and Development

Debates around GenAI in education have oscillated between techno-optimist visions of a democratisation of access on the one hand and calls for keeping the university AI-free on the other. In this presentation, we will discuss a model for supporting students facing access barriers to education with GenAI tools, while maintaining a critical approach to technology and its threats to cognitive skills, societal cohesion, and the environment.  

If trees could vote

Carmen Sanjulián, School of Languages 

This talk explores how sustainability can be meaningfully integrated into Spanish language classes, meeting linguistic goals while fostering the critical thinking needed to shape a fairer world.

Multimode assessment as an alternative to in-person final exams in the era of AI  

Dr Julia O’Sullivan, Trinity Institute for Neuroscience

This presentation will explore the redesign of an assessment strategy for scientific education of graphic designers. The redesign attempts to minimise the use of AI in the assessments by combining assessment types, prioritising assessment AS and FOR learning, while still maintaining some assessment OF learning. This approach adapts traditional assessment methods to best serve graduate students with varied levels of scientific education. 

Lunch, Posters and Networking 

 Welcome: Patricia Maguire (Academic Secretary)  

 Provost's Address: Provost Linda Doyle  

Opening Plenary: Prof Vincent Wade, Senior Lecturer and Dean of Undergraduate Studies 

Activity: The Research Wall: Showcasing Change, Identifying Opportunities 

PechaKucha Talks (20 slides, 20 seconds) 

MethodMentor: AI-Supported Chatbot for Research Methods Learning   

Dr Silvia Gallagher, CHARM-EU

New Horizons in Learning: Co-Design of Undergraduate Nursing and Midwifery Curricula  

Ass. Prof Philip Hardie, School of Nursing & Midwifery

AITA: an AI Teaching Assistant Tool 

Prof Biswajit Basu & Prof Anil Kokaram, School of Engineering

SPEAK: Simulated Practice to Explore Application of Knowledge  

Assoc. Prof Sheila Ryder, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Open Forum: From Sparks to Conversation  

Chair: Prof Vincent Wade, Senior Lecturer and Dean of Undergraduate Studies 

Closing Comments: Looking to the Future 

Finish