Naomi Rowan: assessment, feedback and AI-era change for universities
Most of the universities I talk to are reviewing assessment, feedback and platform practice under workload pressure and uneven internal capacity. The work that helps is rarely a single tool or policy. It is the slower, more practical work of clarifying what each assessment is trying to evidence, where workflows are creating wasted friction, and where human judgement needs to be protected.
I help institutions make complex change more workable.
My work sits where assessment design, assessment operations, digital platforms and implementation meet. I translate between educators, students, professional services, senior stakeholders and suppliers, turning complexity into next steps people can actually take.
Over more than fifteen years, I have worked across higher education, international education and edtech, including LSE, Nord Anglia Education, Aula, MIT–Nord Anglia and Juilliard–Nord Anglia.
Selected experience
-
LSE: digital assessment strategy, Moodle workflow redesign, platform change, testing, training, vendor collaboration and adoption planning across 26 departments.
-
Aula: QA improvement and workflow standardisation; learning designs meeting the quality benchmark rose from 8.82% to 54.26%.
-
Nord Anglia Education: led professional learning, assessment-related work and large-scale digital initiatives across an international network of 86 schools in 35+ countries.
-
MIT–Nord Anglia and Juilliard–Nord Anglia: coordinated international partnership programmes and digital learning at scale across 68 schools and 11,171 users.
How I work
Do it with care. Do it together. Make it workable.
My approach is calm and practical, with care for the people who will need to live with the change. The work depends on clarity, good relationships and designing change institutions can actually use. The small conditions matter. Where do people lose time? Where do decisions get stuck? Where do systems create workarounds? Where can better structures give people more confidence?
Care
Understand context, workload and institutional realities before recommending change.
Collaboration
Work alongside the people who will need to live with the change: academic, professional services and technical.
Practicality
Turn ideas into usable processes, guidance and next steps that survive contact with everyday institutional life.
Credentials
My work is grounded in formal training across international education and music education, with continuing professional development in metacognitive practice, learning platforms and curriculum design.
Qualifications
-
MBA in International Education (Distinction), Keele University, 2017. Dissertation: The How, What, and Why of Emerging Culture in a New School.
-
PGCE in Secondary Music, St Martin's College (Lancaster University), 2005.
-
BMus (Hons) First Class, Lancaster University, 2004. Joseph Haydn Dissertation Prize.
Continuing professional development
-
Moodle Admin Skills, Moodle Academy, 2025.
-
Moodle Teaching Skills, Moodle Academy, 2025.
-
The Power of Making Thinking Visible, Harvard Project Zero, 2023.
-
Leading from the Middle, National College for School Leadership (NCSL), 2013.
-
Aula User Certification, 2021.
Selected partnerships and contributions
-
Workshops at The Juilliard School in music and performing arts education.
-
Programme collaborations with MIT, The Juilliard School and Boston College through Nord Anglia partnership initiatives.
-
Contributing author, Planet Action (Oxford University Press, 2024).
Selected endorsement
MaryCat Boyett
Naomi brings clarity, organisation and professionalism to complex projects and is trusted to deliver high-quality work on time.