The “Trialogical Learning & Assessment Approach”: Design principles for higher education

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The exceptional historical period we have experienced in years 2020- 2022 has made evident the need to rethink university teaching through a thoughtful integration of in-presence and online activities, in which to enhance participatory learning practices. To this aim, according to the Assessment for Learning (AfL) and to the Sustainable Assessment (SA) frameworks, teachers should conceive students’ assessment as an integral part of the teaching-learning process. The Trialogical Learning Approach (TLA) has so far proved to be an effective learning design model: its six Design Principles (DPs), in fact, have supported many university teachers in planning meaningful technology-mediated learning activities. Yet, the trialogical principles seem to fail in considering students’ assessment practices. The aim of this contribution is to show how, though not explicitly mentioned in the TLA theory, the assessment components are extensively included throughout a trialogical university course. By following a practice-based research methodology, we considered trialogical university courses previously documented by different authors. Observing the course implementation from an AfL and SA perspective, we retrieved the precise assessment components disseminated in each trialogical DPs. Thus, we could go back to the original TLA theory and propose its broadening in an assessment perspective, which we called Trialogical Learning & Assessment Approach.