Day 3 dawns fine and warm. The weather across the entire
week has been very summery. Hopefully a prelude to a good summer.
Begins with supporting colleagues Maaike Jongerius, John Delany
and Lyn Williams from the Academic Division at Ara Institute of Canterbury,
presenting the ‘assessment health check tool’. This is a moodle resource to
support Ara tutors with ensuring their assessments are constructively aligned. Rationalised
the pedagogical frame for undertaking the development for the moodle resource.
If assessment drives learning then improvement of assessments will be a core
objective. The resource had to cover the principles of assessment but not be
too basic for staff who have completed teaching qualifications recently. The
integrated activities in the health check can be completed online or as part of
a facilitated workshop. The moodle site was brought up and examples of various
worksheets / exemplars and the reasons and background on how they are used.
Evaluations of the resource, the likes and dislikes, also shared. Presented on
what Ara is committed to progress work on assessment practices.
Then Dr. Salome Meyer and Nancy Groh, educational advisors
in the education development centre from Eastern Institute of Technology / Napier
on ‘the changing conversation about early diagnostic assessment’. Outlined background,
original premise / benefits and evolution of LNAAT. The tool is one of several
developed to support the NZ government strategy to raise the capability of the
workforce. Rationalised the need to change the approach to using diagnostic
assessments. Matched literacy and numeracy demands in various occupations –
what reading or calculation is required everyday at work? Provided a guide to
tutors to better integrate literacy and numeracy within situated learning
off-job. Addressed the issue of international students and their distinct
needs. Developed academic inquiry course(non-credit bearing) to assist
international students to orientate to the NZ educational demands. Developed a
revised view of literacy diagram to summarise the different concepts.
Last session is a panel with Geoff Scott, Shaima Al Ansari
and Tracey Bretag on ‘What will you do on Monday?’ Panel presented their takes
on – what is the single key message you will take away? What single thing will
you do, or do differently? What would you tell your boss they need to do? A
question and answer session followed.
All in a good opportunity to achieve several things. One was
the affirmation of my own understanding and application of the principles of
learning -centred assessments. The various attended, all provided some
templates, exemplars, concepts and tools useful in both my educational
developer and researcher roles. Thankfully, many of the sessions I selected,
focused on assessment FOR learning, although there was still a thread running
through on summative assessments, prevention of plagiarism etc. Many
presentations were on problem / inquiry / project based learning but not many
examples from the vocational education / trades learning context. Therefore, as
always, there is still a need for more ‘structured’ inquiry and study to build
an evidence base of how to assist trades learning.
