This paper considers assessment from the perspective of the processes required within a self and peer process of a longer term programme of learning.
DEFIANCE:
Every god can be defied. No choice, no devotion.
There have been many rebels who have chosen to defy their gods.
Without this option, there can be no true devotion to a holy concept. Reading from the Tao
Introduction: Aspects of Assessment
The starting place is the present, and from the present to retrace the journey over past experience and to begin to identify the major learnings. At this stage, you do not have to be systematic - a list of what comes to mind will do.
Hence, the starting point is:
Stage One: Where I have been?
On programmes that have a relatively high level of personal development and negotiated content, it is likely that some of the learning achieved may well exceed what an individual expected to be able to learn at the outset. It may also relate to a wider range of concerns than is typical of most training programmes. Learning may relate strongly to:
Personal learning and development
A wider range of applications of learning to other contexts and relationships
There may well be some things that an individual knows now that they didn't know they didn't know at the time they began the programme. In other words, the range of what it is possible to know may well have increased as a result of development in personal awareness or skills practice. Being aware of such an increase in the potential for learning may be every bit as important as any direct learning that has taken place, since it may be opening up important new directions for the future.
The original learning contract is a helpful resource for locating the way you first understood the potential learning available on the course. It is also useful to consider the steps taken in between in relation to:
Me
My understanding of the content of the programme
My development in relationship to the content
The impact of the course upon my wider development - attitudes and beliefs
My fluency with the major skills and concepts of the programme
My work
Managing my work and my practitioner role.
A profile of where I am now would help identify:
Major features
Current issues
Developmental steps taken and anticipated
The place of the course as a vehicle for learning.
Because of the experience that I have gained whilst travelling through the course.
Stage Two: Individual learning review
An individual period of reviewing learning should be an important element in the preparation of any assessment process. Individuals need to consider what they have accomplished; what they have attained and where, in the light of each of these, they hope to be going next.
The period of individual review is provided to help each person consider what they value about the learning they have attained for themselves, before being influenced by the considerations of others. In a peer learning process, there is not only what is being claimed but some value given to the process itself. The process of consideration and reflection upon how individuals have managed themselves and their experiences over the duration of the course is often a major aspect of learning itself.
Many people, new to such forms of learning are tempted to find ways to limit the scale of their achievements, to pick on old habits that have ‘got in the way’, or to realise opportunities that have not been taken. Sometimes it is important for the assessment process to reflect the ways individuals have failed themselves, by not living up to their ambitions, allowing old patterns to deflect them and so on. By doing so they can then consider what to do next to change the patterns and limiting beliefs in the future. This should be distinguished from repeating old patterns of self-denigration and habitual negative self-criticism.
Most important is the affirmation of the learning that has been made the steps that have been taken and the learning that has been achieved.
The importance of sharing ideas and discussing thoughts with another course member can thus help to minimise negative influences and ensure we take a more balanced view of the overall involvement we have had with the programme of learning. Similarly, discussion with another can begin that process of evaluation and assessment, that is a preparation and rehearsal for the actual experience, which will come before a group of selected peers later.
Stage Three: Review elements
Some of the most important distinctions to make in evaluating the learning of a longer educational programme would include:
Those things that I have integrated in to my learning
Those things I am presently consolidating
Those things I am developing my understanding of more fully
Those things that are opening to me.
Stage Four: Review areas
Consider each of the major areas of the course, identify major learning gained, and challenges encountered. Sometimes what is of great value is not the actual learning, but the willingness a person has shown to meet themselves and the challenges of their own development in a new and more honest way. Ask:
What am I doing well?
What am I developing further?
What have I avoided?
Stage Five: Moving from reviewing to reflection
From any notes that you have made during this process it is useful to begin sharing your ideas and thoughts at this point with another course member. Spend some time on an overview of impressions and general thoughts before concentrating on a more focused exploration of learning.
Questions that might help:
Where are the major learnings? (Rate them on a 'good enough' scale of 1-5.)
How have I used my time - both on the course and away from it?
What blocks have I experienced?
What habits have caught me out and I might need to change next time
Where have I experienced support - both on and away from the course?
What, if anything, have I overdone or avoided?
The important thing to bear in mind throughout this stage of formulating the assessment claim is that is should be as relevant as possible and as specific as you can make it. It should be relevant in the sense of concentrating on those things most important to what you value about the learning you have achieved in relation to the practice claims you intend to make.
It is not helpful to yourself to emphasise only the personal development achievements, for example. It is important that you give examples of the learning you are claiming that indicate the depth and the range of the skills you have attained. This ensures that you do not leave people in doubt as to your competence about being able to do ‘it’ where it matters and when it matters. It is useful to indicate:
Where you are still developing your practice
Where your future development will take you
Don't spend too much time on what you cannot yet do, or what you intend to do or it will take away from your attainments in the present - which is the main purpose of this activity.
The role of group members in relation to the claim
The group members help the individual making their claim by:
Clarifying
Amplifying
Extending
Looking Beyond
Challenging
Verifying
Enhancing
Appreciating
Validating
Honouring
Group members can helpfully sharpen up a claim at any stage - before and during the assessment process - by ensuring that the candidate is as specific as possible. Ensuring that a colleague remembers some of their achievements rather than emphasises what they still can't do is an important part of the assessment process on a course that has been two years in length, for example.
Many of us underrate what we can do once we have learned how to do it and once again focus on what we have still to learn. In this way the support, help and challenge of others is crucial in the preparation of a statement.
Stage Six: Organising my claim
There are those learnings that I want to indicate to myself and group members by providing some evidence of how that learning has been achieved or where it has been demonstrated and how it has influenced me. For example:
'What I used to do was... and what I now do is... And how I achieved the shift was...
or
This is learning that I have acquired and I have demonstrated here when... and I am employing it when I ... at work with ...
The claim is not only about the content attained but the understanding and the appropriate use of the learning. In the case of skill development, where, when and how are important but something of the scale of the challenge will be a valuable indication of what it meant to tackle a particular situation in a new way. If we are referring to knowledge, then it is important to indicate the influence such knowledge has had. It is therefore important to indicate the context, in which you applied.
What you are attempting to communicate to others is that these are indications of what you are claiming, there are some specific occasions, when you have demonstrated them, and other group members can corroborate your claim.
The claim therefore needs to have a balance between on-course experience verifiable by other participants and context-related application of the course you have applied in a work setting, for example.
Working through the process
Stage I
Headings
Main points
Things I think would help the claim
Things I am unsure about in relation to the claim
Stage II - Begin to talk
Meet with another group member.
Discuss your main ideas and queries.
Try things out and get feedback.
Begin to think how you might wish to modify it.
Stage III - Checking a claim
Is it:
Under claimed?
Has it elements missing?
Does it overlook any of the contribution that you have offered?
Doing justice to the full range of your efforts.
Stage IV - Making the assessment claim
The claim has a number of elements. It is about what I have learned in the widest and yet the most relevant sense in relation to :
Myself.
My attendance on the programme.
The type of programme it is.
The topics the programme covers.
The goals I established for myself.
The opportunities that the course offered
It includes the instrumental learning and may well go a long way beyond it. It may be that the most important learning is primarily connected to the subject matter or content of the course. At the same time, you have attended a course about some thing - with a content and the more applied the content the more the claim needs to relate to it - especially if you want accreditation or validation to practice.
It includes:
What I have attained.
What I know I know.
What I think I know.
What I am getting to know.
What I am still wanting to know.
Stage V -Sources of evidence
The evidence may come from a number of sources and by and large, the broader the range and the more comprehensive the more integrated the learning is likely to be. If I have only acted in a particular way on the course that is one thing, If I have tried it out elsewhere that is another. If I am applying it regularly, then something more is indicated than simply being able to do it.
Evidence may come from:
Journal
Experience on or off the course - but should be related to it in some way
Reports of what has been undertaken elsewhere
Personal and group reflection
Observation - what others have seen
The relationship to the content of the course
The relationship to the structure of the course – authority/ boundaries
Relationship to the pace and sequence of the programme
Relationship to key areas of the content
Reading and Discussion
Support and Supervision
Actual Practice sessions
What to look for in the Learning Statement
The learning statement is the finale of the assessment process. It is a condensed summary of the main points that you wish to ensure are recorded for later review and to stand as a landmark of you progress at a particular moment in time. It would be useful therefore to consider:
The method and purpose of those items selected.
That there is a breadth of and range to what is covered.
That it is a balanced and realistic account.
That there is congruence between what is claimed and the statement made.
That there is accuracy about the level of the description.
That there is clarity about what is being claimed.
That any important limitations are acknowledged.
Accreditation Statement
The finale to this process is an accreditation statement that is the essence of the assessment, once it has been ratified and agreed by peers.
An accreditation statement is designed to give those who are not part of this process - employers, clients, commissioners of services - a clear indication of the level and the competence that you are claiming to draw upon in the work you do. It therefore needs to be time limited to - three years - in our case - and it needs to be relevant to the field that you most wish it to apply.
