Core Activity 7.3 Approaches to assessment in my setting

The background research on this subject highlighted a number of aspects of assessment that I want to incorporate in my practice.

 

In the PLOT webspace, they refer to a LAMP of learning model which has seven stages. from bottom to top, the stages are; use, connect, internalise, synthesis, apply and use. Progression through these stages leads to Deep Learning, and puts students in a position to interpret and adapt their learning to suit their own situation. Learning activities are designed to prompt learning through these various stages.

 

This progression is essential in my situation, where consultants sign up for training so that they can incorporate our new organisation model into their existing practice. The PLOT website offers a series of structured assessment and personal planning tools to underpin this approach.

 

Burgess has an excellent structure for creating personal development plans around identified areas of weakness.

1 Learning Objective

2 How will you work towards this

3 How will you know about your progress

4 Progress in reaching objective

5 Evidence

6 What got in the way

7 Further work needed

 

Step 5 requires evidence of progress, which enables the learner to create revised learning plans, taking account of step 6 (what got in the way).

 

In my experience in business, tangible evidence is often absent from the assessment process of an individual's performance. Even in peer assessed situations gut-feel scoring is much more typical and tends to lack objectivity. A client of mine has recently introduced a succession planning process in her company which attempts to overcome this assessment weakness. The leadership competences that have been identified for the future have a spectrum of descriptions which are assigned to be low, medium or high performance indicators. Tangible evidence of performance against the competency spectrum is required in the assessment process with the rating being given after consideration of this evidence. Human Resource staff have been trained to use a positive questioning process with managers who are doing the assessing to ensure the robustness of this evidence.

 

'So what' for my learning disciplines?

1. 
   
   Establishing meaningful criteria against which to assess progress and make action plans is essential. These can be compared against the LAMP model. As I assemble my H808 e-portfolio, I will consider the extent to which the goals I have set myself will provide me with the right framework and revise as appropriate. 
2. 
   
   The PDP structure that Burgess recommends also looks very valuable.
3. 
   
   Incorporating peer review of my progress, drawing on feedback from colleagues is a genuine option for me. I hope that this review process may also serve to educate and inform my colleagues about the potential of new approaches to learning.

 

References:

Burgess, H (n.d.) Self and Peer Assessment (online), The Higher Education Academy: Social Work and Social Policy (SWAP). Available from: http://sorubank.ege.edu.tr/~bouo/DLUE/Chapter-08/Chapter-8-makaleler/Assessment%202_%20Self%20and%20peer%20assessment.htm (accessed 19 August 2009). Professional Learning Online Tool (n.d.) Demo (online). Available from: http://www.plotpd.com/Demonstration/Demonstration.htm (accessed 20 December 2009).

 

E-Learning Design - Reflections

The work on H808 TMA 2 made me go back over some of my H802/H804 reading and has reminded me - gulp - of the shift in teaching focus that is offered by the online medium. Prensky and Schank are strong advocates of a learner centric approach to education.

Although in the back of my mind, I was already aware of this, I now realise that the Distance Learning programme that I have just recently delivered to 8 consultants has, at its core, a transmission approach to teaching. Our Web Tutorials had at least 50% of the time devoted to making presentations of materials, which, to be frank, may have felt uninspiring to the audience.

In version 2, I am considering converting some of these sessions into podcasts, which students can listen to in their own time. The Tutorials could be devoted to conversations about the implications and practicalities of the information provided in the podcast, and other background reading.

However, a much more learner centric model is provided by the Carnegie Case Study which I chose in Activity 6.1. If I were to follow Elizabeth Barklay's approach, I would define a number of learning outcomes, and then offer students a variety of exercises/activities to achieve this learning. Whilst this would be a major undertaking in the short term, if we could achieve the increased volume of students that were achieved in the study, the effort would be well worth it;-)

My most significant challenge in the new course design will be with my colleagues, who are all professionals who are genuine experts in the transmission mode of teaching. I am not sure how wholeheartedly they will embrace my proposals.

Reflective practice and action?

In the model of situational learning presented by Dealtry (2004) , I find myself involved quite regularly in all four categories of learning.

Situation
		Familiar	Unfamiliar
Learning task	Familiar	A A learning task in an area you know well (low risk)	B A familiar learning task but applying it to a new situation (moderate risk)
	Unfamiliar	C An unfamiliar learning task but in a familiar work situation (moderate risk)	D New learning in a new part of the organisation (high risk)

In my case, Box A represents courses of mine that are popular and well established, which customers request on a regular basis. The learning that takes place on/after these events is driven by feedback from participants, which encourage me to consider making small modifications to the way I facilitate the course. Box B learning takes place when one of these familiar and popular courses is booked by a new client. The preparation needed in this case is to research the new context, including interviewing typical course delegates. This research provides material for reflection, which will be converted into modifications to the way that the course is delivered; content, style, duration, assessment etc. Both Box A and Box B are well established routines in my company. Box C is my company's preferred forum for Product Development. We get feedback from our regular market research that there is a potential demand for a 'new' course. Having conducted our research, we would aim to find an existing client who would be willing to partner us in prototyping the event. This means that the only learning that needs to take place is learning about the impact of the new course. Box D is altogether more risky, and would not be my chosen place of learning. However, in order to make that Box as safe as possible, putting a lot of effort (would that be reflection?) into getting to know the context by researching and interviewing the client's business, invariably gives a new course a better chance of success.

The Clegg et al (2002) model of reflective practice in academics has less obvious application in my practice.

	Action	Reflection
Immediate	A Immediate action that follows workshops, often characterised by an instrumentalist approach to instruction	B Reflection-on-action, most usually by experienced practitioners with relevant and immediate opportunities for reflection
Deferred	C Action following reflection does not happen because there is no immediate opportunity to put anything into practice	D Reflection following action is often prompted by formal assessment processes – this also happens after a period of rumination

Reflection takes place in a number of situations; following an event, to respond to a new client need, to respond to competition in the market place, to create a new dynamic in my own business, as a result of fresh research, reading etc. 

Perhaps because my clients are business people, there is a tendency to value tangible ideas, rather than theoretical ones, and whilst many clients require a report at the end of a course or courses, they would expect a series of action recommendations based on our experience. That seems to me to put these reflections in Clegg et al's Boxes B and D. However, in both cases the reflection would result in action, so the separation of these two activities feels forced in my situation.

One other situtation bears consideration; reflection to stimulate action. In my experience, committing to make a presentation or facilitate a course on an unfamiliar subject is a valuable method of forcing myself (or colleagues) seriously to engage in Deep Learning about a subject, and to integrate it into my existing knowledge base. 

Both of these models (Dealtry, 2004 and Clegg et al, 2002) have reflective journals as a key mechanism through which reflection takes place. In my case, summaries of my learning are made, but rarely purely as a learning journal. Much more typical is that the learning is recorded as part of the report given to a client, or appears when the next proposal for a course of a similar type is written for a new client. This may practice may lack academic rigour, but in my experience, it does inform and support the incorporation of my learning into future projects. This enables me to discover whether my reflections had any validity. However, the weakness of this approach means that the drive towards CPD is left to chance.

In creating my e-portfolio for H808, I hope to experiment with creating new routines around reflection that I can incorporate in my professional career.

References

Clegg, S., Tan, J. and Saeidi, S. (2002) ‘Reflecting or acting? Reflective practice and continuing professional development in higher education’ (online), Reflective Practice, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 131–46. Available from: http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623940220129924 (accessed 4th December 2009).
Dealtry, R. (2004) ‘Professional practice: the savvy learner’ (online), Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 16, no. 1/2, pp. 101–109. Available from: http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13665620410521567 (accessed 3rd December 2009).

My own professional values.

My beliefs:

• When people are able to do work that matters (paid or unpaid) they feel useful members of society and therefore feel good about themselves as human beings
• People doing work that matters make a difference to businesses and organisations enabling them to do well
• As a result, society benefits from the above virtuous circle
• Everyone can improve their personal skills and performance, as long as they are willing to take responsibility for this change
• As a learning professional, my job is not only to help people to learn, but also to help them to see the benefit of learning

My professional values therefore include the following:

1. Maintain and develop my skills as a learning professional in business
2. Take an active interest in the context in which my clients are operating
3. Promote excellence in all of my professional interventions
4. Embrace innovation as a key technique in professional and business development 
5. Provide relevant and useful tools and learning experiences to support clients in their pursuit of excellence
6. Keep up to date with technology so that I can offer enhanced learning experiences for my clients 
7. Contribute to an extended global community through which best pratice and learning can be shared
8. Above all, give great service that clients love;-)

H808 Core Activity 7.1 Professional Values

Having reviewed the values statements of four very different professional associations (ALT, BRACP, AMED, RAE), some interesting differences in values and focus are evident.

All emphasize, to a greater or lesser extent, the importance of professional being a credit to their association by pushing themselves to be as knowledgeable and wise about their profession as they can be. In some cases this means that professionals have to meet stringent entry standards, and must be prepared to continue their professional development, and to share their knowledge and experience with others in the association.

Of the four, BRACP and RAE have a much stronger emphasis on the service aspects of their duties as professionals (counselling and psychotherapy on the one hand and engineering on the other).

Perhaps because of the intensely personal relationship that a client develops with a counsellor or therapist, there is a heavy focus on the professional relationship with the client and the quality of outcome that the client can expect. Alleviating personal distress and enhancing the quality of relationships between people are explicit examples of this bias. There is also a strong emphasis on a promoting the role and benefit the profession offers to society. Respecting human rights and dignity and striving for the fair and adequate provision of counselling and psychotherapy services are important enough values to be clearly articulated.

The Royal Academy of Engineering launches their statement of ethical principles with a description of the role of the engineer as being to "work to enhance the welfare, health and safety of all whilst paying due regard to the environment and the sustainability of resources." And whilst professionalism and professional development is clearly at the heart of their ethical principles, these qualities are described much more from the perspective of the value and service that these principles provide to society (Professional engineers have a duty to ensure that they acquire and use wisely and faithfully the knowledge and skills needed in their work in the service of others.)

The Association for Management Education and Development, a UK association which is open to anyone operating in the field of organisation development, places much greater emphasis on the context in which their work is operating. Their values identify important elements that undoubtedly have a significant impact on the effectiveness of OD initiatives; the relationships between people and the organisation, change as a key catalyst in development, the contribution of development to the changing world. The skills and knowledge of members is not mentioned, although openness to feedback is.

In the case of ALT values, particular focus is given to the integration of the two key areas of expertise - technology and learning, both of which play a part in the effectiveness of the ALT professional. ("Learning technology is the broad range of communication, information and related technologies that can be used to support learning, teaching and assessment")

That duality of competence may also account for the fact that learning from others outside of their background and specialism is seen as an important value. In the rapidly changing territory which technology inhabits, the emphasis on being up to date with developments and being open to inputs from other professionals seems essential if Learning Technology is to emerge as a viable and relevant profession.
1. A commitment to exploring and understanding the interplay between technology and learning

2. A commitment to keep up to date with new technologies

3. An empathy with and willingness to learn from colleagues from different backgrounds and specialisms

4. A commitment to communicate and disseminate effective practice

Since the profession of Learning Technologists is very embryonic in its evolution, its values and principles are likely to be at a similarly formative stage. However, the lack of client or learner focus in the current value statement would seem to be a significant oversight, as is the absence of any higher purpose in the application of the professionals' skills.

References:

Association for Learning Technology (2006) Documents (online). Available from: http://www.alt.ac.uk/documents.html  (Accessed 30th November 2009)

British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (n.d.) Ethical Framework (online). Available from: http://www.bacp.co.uk/prof_conduct/  (Accessed 3rd December 2009)

Royal Academy of Engineering (2007) Engineering Ethics. Available from: http://www.raeng.org.uk/societygov/engineeringethics/default.htm (Accessed 3rd December 2009)

The Association for Management Education and Development
http://www.amed.org.uk/ (accessed 3rd December 2009),