Towards professional judgement
INTERVIEW | Ken Fraser, Manager, Institute Professional Development, TAFE NSW - Western Sydney Institute, Penrith campus
Extensive experience in workplace delivery has changed Ken’s teaching and learning practice, improved his confidence in assessing RPL and led him to an exploration of professional judgement.
Ken Fraser moved into workplace delivery in 1998. His previous experience had been of structured courses with a sequence of modules, delivered by the teacher in the classroom. In 1998, for the first time, Ken’s students were existing workers in the food technology area. His work involved:
- analysing the work roles first and the way that things were being done in the workplace
- identifying the AQF level for each work role and a combination of units based on that role
- preparing assessment tools based on the key work units, and then tying in the rest of the “complementary” units into a holistic assessment process.
"My experience of workplace delivery really did change my attitude to teaching and assessment, and improved my confidence in assessment decision-making and assessing evidence of prior learning"
Workplace learning and assessment
Ken found he was now able to see how, for these students, the workplace had been both the site of learning and the source of the learning ‘content’. The learning sequence was tied to the developing work role of the students - from single task completion, to multiple tasks and then to problem solving tasks.
Assessment activities could be tied to the nature of the work. The emphasis was on the direct observation of skills and questioning at the lower AQF levels, and work-based projects at higher AQF levels, as well as evidence from supervisors about the student’s regular work performance.
New developments
In 2005, Ken spent a year working in educational development looking at new approaches to assessment practice. One aspect of this role was to pass on what he had learned in the workplace, and to see how it applied to mainstream delivery. The big shift in assessment was away from teacher-centred events and towards evidence-based assessment negotiated with students, including consideration of workplace evidence wherever possible.
Key questions
In 2006 Ken worked in the Manufacturing Engineering Construction and Transport (MECAT) Curriculum Centre where much of his work centred on converting modules to units for Unit Based Enrolment (UBE), and providing advice on delivery and assessment practice in Unit Guides.
Ken found the key questions were:
- ‘what does it mean to be competent?’
- ‘what sort of evidence would show competence?’
rather than ‘how will the teacher assess this?’
Professional judgement
Ken concluded the professional judgment of the assessor is the critical element in the assessment process, not the wording of an assessment tool. “Weighing up evidence from the workplace is an area where many teachers are apprehensive – especially if they have not observed the workplace activities themselves.”
Next challenge - supporting professional judgement in assessment
Ken’s new challenge is to bring his experience in workplace delivery and assessment practice to his current role as the Professional Development Manager for Western Sydney Institute. He acknowledges that his work experience aligns with a number of new directions for VET and priorities for TAFE and he is keen to initiate professional development activities around teacher confidence in using professional judgment in assessment decision-making.
In his discussions with teachers, Ken now asks “what do you need to be convinced that the workplace evidence is reliable and valid?” Teachers usually answer that just a short time with the student is needed. The reason for this is that experienced assessors ask effective, probing questions to verify workplace evidence and most teachers in the classroom are already good at this! They tell Ken that they can usually catch any contradiction between the workplace evidence and what they are hearing and seeing.
Recognising the competency assessor
Ken’s philosophy is reinforced by several recent seminar papers, including one “A Common Sense Client Centred Approach” presented by Brian Spencer at the RPL Done Well Forum, 2006.
Brian Spencer refers to “ recognising the competency assessor” and says:
‘ Sometimes people learn bad practice; they may have worked in a poor workplace; practices and philosophies may have changed; they may have known it once, but it is now outdated. Without significant engagement between the assessor and client this important area will be missed. Assessors using the Recognising Competency model are able to observe discrepancies between what a candidate says and what they do during workplace visits.’
Quality VET delivery
Based on his experience, Ken believes that integrating delivery and assessment across multiple units in the context of real workplaces and real work issues is the basis of quality VET delivery.
“Professional judgement is more than a leap of faith. It can be developed and a solid questioning regime can identify discrepancies between what a student says and what they do at work”.
See Also
Reframing the Future
Think piece: Brian Spencer A Common Sense Client Centred Approach
RPL Done Well Forum 2006
This thinkpiece explores common sense questions for candidates and other strategies for assessors to recognise competency …
Just as would be expected during a job interview based on contemporary methods, the Recognising Competency assessor will usually use three types of questions:
• Factual questions to create a record of all the important details
• Probing questions to establish details
• Hypothetical questions which invite the candidate to ‘do the job’ within and beyond their experience.
A common sense Client Centred Approach.
Assessment Evidence Game
This activity has been adapted by the former Vocational Education and Assessment Centre (VEAC) from Guide 4, ANTA Training Package Assessment Materials Kit which was originally designed for a unit of competency from the Construction Training Package. It has been adopted for: Information Technology; Community Services; Automotive/Transport; Tourism & Hospitality.
Assessment Evidence Game
Smith P and Dalton
http://www.ncver.edu.au/research/proj/nr3013.pdf Page 19
It was evident here that teachers analysed student styles at a level they could observe in the classroom, and that they could actually use in their teaching design and delivery. That very pragmatic approach was evident among most teachers in the focus groups and meant that they could work with styles at a useable level of analysis.
The questionnaire we used in this study also took that macro-level approach to focus on those style characteristics a teacher has the opportunity of observing while interacting with students. The results from the analysis of the components of the questionnaire relating to the identification of student style indicate that teachers rate their capacity to identify, on average, all characteristics of student style covered in the questionnaire at least at the ‘reasonably often’ level, and ranging to just above ‘good’. That overall result indicates a fair degree of confidence in teachers about being able to make those identifications. Closer inspection of the questionnaire results suggests that teachers’ identifications of student style are made through observation of the student as he or she goes about their learning in the teacher’s presence. While that finding is one largely to be expected, it does indicate that teachers are typically evidence-based in making their assessments, and that they do make these assessments as class proceeds,
VET Professionals Making Good judgements:
Thinkpiece by Dr Anne Jones
Reframing the Future Publications
Dr Jones research into how VET educators make assessment decisions continued into the early 2000s. Dr Jones talks about the nature of the judgements that VET educators make and to see that these are central to professional VET practice and the foundation for quality learning in the VET system. VET practitioners are professionals and make judgements about their practice.
As with other professionals, experienced VET educators weave their way through a maze of predicaments and obligations when they are making assessment judgements. Dr Jones asked participants to tell her bout times when it had been difficult to make an assessment decision about a learner’s level of competence and the stories poured out. The difficulties included ethical, political and personal predicaments, lack of resources and social tensions.