Community Learning Development Resource 102 – 10
ASSESSMENT STYLE AND BEST PRACTICE
SUMMARY
Features of best assessment of learning practice within community learning that empower learners, increasing their confidence and supporting their individual capacity building. Learners must have ownership of any assessment process and be active and willing participants.
- Assessment of learning is not something that is best done to people. It is best done with them. It is best that they are able to choose to engage with any assessment activity and that it is not imposed upon them.
- Any negative experiences of assessment processes which are major barriers to adults engaging in post-school learning are turned round and diminished.
- We have to understand what the barriers are for each individual and work with that learner to overcome them.
- The key medium in assessment, in many learning in the community settings, is conversation.
- The relationship, which best supports this, is one of equality, where the role of the assessor is to listen, confirm and celebrate learning success, and encourage and motivate the learner through effective feedback.
- We should be focusing, not on what someone learns but on what they do with it and how it benefits them.
- We should assess learning outcomes in terms of what they do for the learner.
- We should be interested in assessing what is achieved, through the application and use of learning, by the learner. We should find ways of tracing the connections between learning inputs and outcome benefits, and then measuring how successfully the learning inputs connected with and contributed to the outcomes.
LISTENING, WATCHING, RECORDING AND REVIEWING
Are these key activities for a worker who is seeking to gain evidence of the learning successes of the adults they are working with?
- Listening – to the learners and to those around them who can evidence the effects of successful learning. Listening to feedback from the learners on the use and value of their learning.
- Watching – how the learner behaves and uses their learning, and looking for evidence that what they are doing is derived from successful learning. Preparing to connect learning success with learner development and their capacity building.
- Recording – the practical discipline necessary to provide, preserve and feedback the evidence of learning success, gained from listening and watching.
- Reviewing – being able with the learner to explore their understanding and application of their successful learning, and the implications for them and their ongoing learning journey. Reviewing the evidence in support of the evaluation and improvement of learning experiences.
PROMPTS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION
- Who else, other than the worker, might effectively gain the evidence of learning success?
- What would make up a checklist of skills and abilities for someone seeking to assess learning within capacity building?