Innovating assessment for education for sustainable development

Assessments comprise a major aspect of the learning experience in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), especially for students. Assessment links to pedagogy, discipline and student progression, supporting learning, upholding standards and preparing learners for graduate roles. Design principles for ESD assessment include future thinking, experiential, collaborative, interdisciplinary, authentic and creative assessment forms. Assessments can be integrated with active learning and flipped classroom approaches. Both formative and summative assessments support learning, with an emphasis on innovation. Many types of assessments are relevant for ESD, including field trips and authentic real-world engagement. Assessments can enable students to work individually or in groups, support active reflective learning, strengthen self-awareness competencies, demand accountability and require students to defend their work in response to questions from different perspectives. Dissertations can be excellent forms of deeper research-based learning, address external sustainability needs, and generate collective celebration of mutual learning. The breadth of assessment can also stimulate interest in sustainable development in students, sometimes shifting their career direction, and can deliver employability and entrepreneurship attributes. There is still a place for the critical essay, but this chapter seeks disruption of traditional assessment approaches and supports wider stakeholder-led assessment approaches befitting the complexities and rewards of ESD.