Fernandes, Domingos2017-03-082017-03-082015Fernandes, D. (2015). Reinventing assessment and teaching practices in higher education: Reflections built on the AVENA project. In H. Pedrosa-de-Jesus & M. Watts (Orgs.), Proceedings of the III International Seminar on Research on Questioning – Critical Inquiry and Academic Growth in Higher Education (pp. 31-38). Aveiro: University of Aveiro. Department of Education.http://hdl.handle.net/10451/27152Research reported and discussed in this presentation was developed within a 42- month international research project (2011-2014) involving 36 researchers from four Portuguese and three Brazilian universities. The Project – Avaliação, Ensino e Aprendizagens em Portugal e no Brasil: Realidades e Perspectivas - has been financed by National Funds through Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) - Foundation for Science and Technology – Project PTDC/CPE-CED/114318/2009. The overall purpose of the project was to describe, to analyse, and to interpret teachers’ teaching and assessment practices in a variety of undergraduate foundational courses of either practical or theoretical/practical nature in each one of the following knowledge domains: Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Health Sciences, and Sciences and Technologies. Besides, the project was also aimed at studying teacher and student perceptions on a variety of assessment, teaching, and learning dimensions. This presentation will be based upon the study that was developed within the four Portuguese universities that participated in the investigation. Thus, pedagogical aspects such as the following has been analyzed: a) teaching organization and classroom dynamics; b) teaching and assessment tasks as well as teacher and student roles; c) feedback; and d) utilization of assessments. Data were collected through classroom observations and both teacher and student interviews. Besides, in order to study student’s and teacher’s perceptions, a 45-item questionnaire on teaching, learning, and assessment issues was administered. Results have shown that although different professors shared quite similar pedagogical perspectives, they made use of different teaching and assessment practices. The study also showed that structured classes with clear and well defined purposes; diversified teaching and assessment dynamics; utilization of carefully selected tasks; student active participation in the learning and assessment processes; distribution of high quality feedback; utilization of formative assessment; and utilization of self and combined modes of assessment, are closely related to better student learning, according to both professors and students accounts. Questionnaire results illustrate that teachers and students share the same perceptions concerning many assessment, learning, and teaching issues. However, one could also notice that there are some critical issues on assessment and teaching that clearly divide teacher’s and student’s perceptions. Besides, this research enabled one to come up with some reflections on task nature, student participation, feedback, and quality of learning.engHigher educationCurriculumCurriculum developmentCurricular practicesTeaching practiceAssessment practicesconference object