Capability Building Assessment Program Day 2

*notes to support planning from conversations and activities

Day 2
23rd October, 2009

Information, insights, ideas, issues from Day 1

• Inspiring day
• Context of work and how information can be applied
• Principles of formative assessment
• What does it mean to be competent?
• Visualising competency and how to share picture
• Assessment – accomplishment
• Sharing
• Quality
• Feedback is important “feed forward”
• Range of approaches to assessment for learning
• Learners understanding criteria
• Asking the right questions
• Looking forward to increasing repertoire of techniques
• Need to incorporate feedback into all learning programs and ‘more’
• How do you get buy in from assessors
• Working towards best practise
• Formative collection is organic
• Time!
• Engaging next ‘generation’ of educators
• Having ‘indicators’ to measure progress
  
  Implications of the Somme for research in VET
  Seeking feedback is key to understand client and encourage learning
  Assessment should be developed by active educators to ensure flexibility and feedback
  Keep system flexible to allow for variables
  Provide structure as well as allowing people to be flexible
  Open minded, reflective, listening, flexible, effective communicators, talk to the ‘troops, team player, your judgment
  Go in with a plan, willing to adapt depending on feedback and evidence, reflect on outcomes
  Not going in with a ‘locked’ view; willing to accept others ideas; unanticipated outcomes; different outcomes, improvement on outcomes
  Better educational practice
  
  
  Improving Performance ‘drawing activity’
  
  Messages:
  - Importance of feedback
  - Knowing background of person
  - being on ‘same page’
  - framing questions
  - face 2 face: ‘getting into mind of others’
  - listening, clearly describing (phone, on line)
  - communicating effectively
  - ‘rating’ quality of work – providing feedback,
  - Identifying strengths; positive; constructive
  
  
  Action Learning
  
  Cooperative venture – working with others
  What can you do to help others? (eg time and space)
  Realise limitations (self and others)
  Focus on improvement
  Better learning outcomes
  (Eg introducing new strategies, changing resources)
  Action = ‘just do it’; learn from it, share what you find
  Research = problem to be addressed; pose some solutions, test them out, share
  Focus on where the action is: the world of work or training environments
  Focus on practical everyday problems in the organisation – not too concerned about ‘theory’
  
  Approaches
  
  Focus around practice (individual, team, work unit, others / organisation)
  Which level/scale are you interested in working at?
  Where are you comfortable pitching your project?
  Focus around ‘you’; your students – not necessarily systemic (spin off)
  
  Plan
  
  Focus around something easy to communicate
  Based around learning outcomes (eg retention, diversity); enhancing learning experience
  What form of information is useful to ‘me’? What are you interested in?
  ‘collection’ of stories – make decisions about type of information
  What can we do now? What can be achieved? Timeframes (eg events, festivities)
  Who will be working you? What will they do? How will they help? What will their involvement be?
  Develop a framework within which to work – use planning tools (flexibly)
  
  *examples of projects (include website)
  
  Act!
  
  People inside organisation need to know what u r doing
  Keep others and self informed
  
  Observing
  
  Be as open as you can to see what’s occurring around your program
  How are people feeling about it?
  
  Reflection
  
  Professional Judgment
  Focus on the positives – messages to sell
  ‘Don’t keep sending the troops to the front’
  Support from Managers and Supervisors
  Teams managing the project
  What support do you need?
  Email to Rob
  On line forums
  Plan for ‘future’
  Maybe some unresolved issues – identify them; continue to explore
  
  Research questions
  
  ‘Researchable’ (time, money, capability and capacity)
  Is problem ethical? (privacy, safety, legislative, language, behaviour, needs, emotions, morals)
  Interest (to researcher and collectively)
  Clear problem or issue
  Jargon free
  Relevant to group involved
  Collaborative
  Manageable in terms of time frames and resources
  What you already know about the situation
  
  *Strategies for encouraging and sharing ideas, interest, passion, drive
  *establishing new/novel(?) findings – or revisiting, reframing, rediscovering, exploring
  
  Background work
  
  Perception and reality
  Gut feelings
  Assessment practices/barriers
  What choices do people have/want?
  Conversations
  feedback
  
  Initial Planning
  
  People
  Time
  Resources
  WIFM
  Benefits
  Structuring
  Preliminary questions/planning
  
  More Tips
  
  Refine
  Keep managers engaged
  Listen to others
  Keep reasonable scope – within resource range
  Keep track of small victories
  Framework for action
  ‘be a bit tough on yourself’ (time, planning, action)
  Look at literature, talk to others, consult with others
  Initial impressions
  Use ‘jottings’ – keep a record
  ‘play’; reward, recognise and acknowledge others
  Build bridges; don’t be too fixated
  Take risks
  What doesn’t quite work this time might ‘lay the foundation’ for next time
  
  What is:
  Interesting? exciting? challenging?
  
  
• starting!
• Synergies with other projects
• timing
  or job roles
• gaining support
• group activities
• finding 1 qu
• formulating plan