Community Learning Development Resource 102 – 09

SELF-ASSESSING COMMUNITY LEARNING SUCCESS

 

SUMMARY

Further questions to prompt the exploration and discussion of the nature of assessment within community learning – looking at worker led-assessment and the development of learner self-assessment.

 

1. A worker may need to assess the learning of an individual learner until she/he is able to effectively self-assess. What are the features of good worker assessment practice:

• Is the assessment objective?
• Is it done with a care for the learner and with their best interests in mind?
• Is it a learning exercise encouraging the development of self-assessment skills?
• Is the learner a full and willing partner in the process?

2. Should we see learners’ actions, and their perceptions of these actions and of themselves, as providing the best and most valid evidence of learning success?

3. Why should we evaluate the impact of learners’ actions within their lives and the lives of others, in order to assess the success of building their individual and collective capacity?

4. Do indicators that learning has been successful lie within the participation, contributions and actions of the learners within regeneration?

5. Why do many workers consider the feedback loop to learners, to be the most significant part of the assessment cycle, within capacity building?

6. Why does effective feedback demand skill and sensitivity on the part of the worker, in relating it to the nature and needs of the individual learner?

 

There is clearly an area of individual capacity building and personal development within community learning which seeks to equip individual learners with understandings and skills to be able to effectively self-assess their own learning achievements and successes. Beyond this there is the further development of individual learners to help and support other learners to develop their assessment abilities.

• For learners to be able to self-assess their own learning, how important is it that they have effective assessment skills and an interest and desire to own the process?
• The skills of self-assessment are high-order learning (mental/cognitive) skills requiring reflection, analysis and judgements by the learner about their own experiences, actions and feelings – what does this tell us about how we should work with a learner?
• Within education and training, self-assessment is often seen as an unreliable and inadequate process. Why within capacity-building should we seek to encourage and validate self assessment by the learner, as our most desired form of assessment?
• Once an individual learner has gained the skills and confidence to self-assess, their own learning, is it likely that the individual’s capacity to assess issues and opportunities elsewhere in her/his life is likely to be enhanced and stimulated?