BA (Hons) Social pedagogy Education and learning Youth work and cld programme requirements and guidance notes: Self-assessment of learning

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1 BA (Hons) Social pedagogy Education and learning Youth work and cld programme requirements and guidance notes: Self-assessment of learning 1

2 YMCA George Williams College 199 Freemasons Road Canning Town LONDON E16 3PY UK Telephone: Fax: YMCA George Williams College or stated copyright holder. No part of these materials may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any other information and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the College. Internet support Find our support pages on July 14, 2013 v2 2

3 Self-assessment: Contents Introduction What is self-assessment? Feelings about self-assessment Assessing your learning Self-assessment and course assessment Organising and writing the self-assessment of learning How might I start? Writing your self-assessment of learning Programme requirements Presenting your self-assessment of learning Programme requirements Some common questions Supervision and the self-assessment of learning Appendix A Assessment cover sheet 3

4 Self-assessment: Introduction In this section, we will introduce some ideas which are designed to help you think about preparing a self-assessment of your learning, in particular: What is self-assessment? Feelings about self-assessment Assessing your learning Self-assessment and course assessment The College holds certain assumptions about the course and the students on it that makes self-assessment a central part of the qualification process: i) students are adult learners ii) iii) each student takes responsibility for their learning each student needs to participate in the process of assessment of themselves, their practice and their learning as fully as possible in order to provide evidence on which the Board of Examiners makes its judgement. We also believe that the nature of informal and community education favours selfassessment. Those who work in the field are often obliged to make quick judgements and decisions and work on their own initiative, often with little opportunity to discuss matters with colleagues and line managers. Therefore, in order to improve and develop their practice, they need to become skilled in reflecting on their own performance. What is self-assessment? If we bear in mind the above rationale, the combination of the role of adult learner and informal and community educator can be most effectively measured by selfassessment. We hold that this self-assessment primarily involves taking responsibility to recognise, demonstrate and evaluate your learning and how you, as an informal educator, have changed in the light of that learning. Feelings about self-assessment We may feel excited and liberated by this opportunity to formally assess our own learning, or perhaps anxious and reluctant to take on this responsibility. It is often more comfortable to rely on others tutors, supervisors, line managers etc. to assess us even if we do not like what they say rather than take responsibility for making our own judgements. This may be an echo of our early experiences in formal education. To take responsibility for assessing ourselves involves the hard work of accepting and dealing with the implications of our own judgements whether they are good or bad. The term self-assessment may sound daunting, but in fact assessing ourselves is 4

5 something we do in a simple and rudimentary way throughout our personal and professional lives. Whenever we make statements like: I think I did a good job there I ll never do that again Next time I ll make sure that I don t know what went wrong I think I ll do it this way because I know I am good at we are making an assessment of ourselves and our activities. The assessments we make as students and as professionals need to go further than simply assessing our work in terms of good or bad. We need to demonstrate our abilities (or lack of them) and provide evidence from our practice which backs up our view, but the process in essence is no different from the everyday assessments mentioned above. Assessments are reflection after or during the event. If we are actually reflecting and not merely describing (telling stories about what happened), then we cannot avoid assessment. You are being asked primarily to assess your learning through your professional practice, but also through other interactions with colleagues, fellow students, tutors, supervisors, friends and family members. So, we can see that self-assessment is by no means the solitary activity the title of the process implies. It will certainly include an element of private reflection, but much of what we learn about ourselves comes through continuing interaction with others. Assessing your learning We are asking you to assess your learning. What does this mean? Some students make the mistake of using the self-assessment to list their abilities I can do this I have done that etc. This does not necessarily tell us what or how you have learnt. We want to see that you are aware of what and how you learn, your learning process. As a reflective practitioner, you need to be in a continuous process of learning and development, or you will not be effective in a fast-changing world. As Schon (1983:15) puts it the situations of practice are inherently unstable and therefore practitioners need to engage in an on-going critical conversation (1983:130) with themselves and others about the situations they find themselves in. Your self-assessment is an opportunity for you to formalise this critical conversation. You will be exploring in writing some of your most significant pieces of learning during the assessment period, and reflecting on your learning process as a studentpractitioner. But, you may say, how do I know what my learning is? This is an important question, and the College has a particular view of learning. The learning process is about changes in the way we see and make sense of the world (Gardiner 1989:139,40). Learning may well lead to changed behaviour. If you want to know whether you have learnt, look for change. If you want to know where learning 5

6 needs to happen, look for areas where you seem stuck. Ask yourself in what ways have I changed? and in what ways do I need or want to change? Remember that changed behaviour may relate to a change in your attitudes, values and beliefs as well as a change in the way you act. Of course, changes in thinking or attitude will lead to changes in the way you act, and this becomes the evidence that learning has taken place. So the process of assessing your learning involves exploring: the changes that have taken place in you, your relationships and your practice the nature of those changes the evidence for those changes e.g. I am now more patient with young people (the change) because I understand that adolescents usually go through a stage of challenging authority so I don t immediately jump in (the nature of the change) for example, when Maria spat at Simon I did not tell her off but waited and discussed it with her later when we were washing up together (evidence of the change). From this example you can also see that a change in attitude (more patience) arose from new understandings (about adolescent development) and this produced more skilful practice (creating discussion about the incident). So learning involved a coming together of knowledge, attitudes and skills. In assessing your learning, therefore, you can look for changes in all three areas: what you know and understand; your attitudes, values and beliefs; your skills and abilities; and, importantly, how these are linked, as in the example given above. So the College is looking for an awareness of your learning and the process of your learning, drawn from the range of experiences you have had during the assessment period. As Saljo (1979) says, learning comes about by extracting the meaning from your experiences. Self-assessment and course assessment Self-assessment within the programme is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your learning as a developing reflective practitioner to the Board of Examiners. This has important implications. It means that other people will be reading your assessment. What makes sense to you might not to others. You therefore have to consider the reader, and explain things more clearly than if it was just for yourself, not in terms of additional description, but by clarifying your thoughts about what you have learnt. The self-assessment of learning has to stand alone, without additional explanation from you or somebody else. It will have to be organised and presented in a way that makes reading straightforward we give guidelines about this later in this document. 6

7 References Schon D. A. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: how professionals think in action. London: Temple Smith. Gardiner, D. (1989) The Anatomy of Supervision. London: SRHE/Open University Press. Saljo, R. (1979) Learning in the Learner s Perspective some common sense conceptions, from the Institute of Education No. 77, University of Goteborg. 7

8 Self-assessment: Organising and writing the self-assessment of learning There are no hard and fast rules about how to approach writing this self-assessment. However, it is important that you approach the early stages with an open mind, and recognise that although you have to identify evidence to support the statements you make, the self-assessment is not a mechanical exercise, where certain boxes have to be ticked. Here at the College, because you are taking responsibility for your own learning, you are required to do something different you have to: 1. put your assessment in your own words 2. think through your thoughts, feelings and actions and 3. make your own judgements about them. How might I start? 1. Write down some ideas We suggest that you get some ideas or headings down on paper fairly quickly. This can help you when the time comes to shape your self-assessment under the headings that we will explore later on. At this stage, your ideas may be quite disorganised, but writing them down at this point is more important than their organisation. Consider: Thinking about yourself, your strengths, weaknesses, values, beliefs, experiences, knowledge, skills and attitudes. If you are a student at the end of Levels 4, 5 or 6, you may want to consider the overall picture of your development since the last assessment. For those of you working on your interim self-assessment at Level 4, perhaps you might consider building on the personal statement you put together for your interview at the College. What are your strengths and weaknesses as a student, a practitioner and a person? What do you think you understand and what do you have doubts about? What motivates you? What prevents you from achieving what you want? What values are important to you? How are you working with your emotions, prejudices, anxieties, and hopes in the new situations and responsibilities that you have found yourself in as an informal educator? 8

9 2. Talk to others Once you have started to think about these questions, talk to people and think about how you interact with others. Remember that self-assessment is not done in isolation. Reflect on what people say and do when they react to you. Through listening to what they have to say or by observing their behaviour we can gain further insights into ourselves. Supervisors are particularly important reference points as your selfassessment has to be seen by them before it is assessed by the College. 3. Think about learning and change After writing down these thoughts, consider what was said in the introduction to this document about recognising learning and change from your experiences and reflections. Are your knowledge, skills and attitudes developing and if so, how? What are the changes that are taking place in you and your practice? Tempting as it may be to solely include positive development, remember to include changes that may seem to be for the worse (e.g. I am less confident about, I no longer like doing ) recognising and working with this learning is a sign of the developing reflective practitioner. It may be helpful to consider: What changes have I noticed since starting the course? (or since my last selfassessment?) How have I reacted to those changes? What have I done well? What could I have done better? 4. Look for evidence Once you have made statements about your learning, you need to demonstrate that you have evidence for the claims you make. Evidence is material which helps to support the truth of what you say, and it is likely to come primarily from your professional practice, but also from your other experiences with students, tutors, supervisors and others. Readers of your self-assessment of learning will need to make a judgement if the evidence you have provided is authentic and credible they need to be assured that it is the work of the person who makes a claim for it, and it is free from obvious error and distortion. We do not ask you to append your work recordings, for example, to your self-assessment as evidence, but it is expected that your description of events is clear, typical and reflective of your practice. Your evidence must also be comprehensible. The meaning of your evidence should be apparent, and should relate directly to the statements you make about your learning. In other words, if the evidence you provide is not self-explanatory, an explanation or a connection is necessary the readers weren t there at the time! Also ensure that your evidence is up to date. The evidence you present at each level will need to reflect your development as a learner and practitioner. Your initial experiences, feelings and thoughts, the statements you make about them and the evidence you provide for them will almost certainly change as you work 9

10 through the assessment period. A self-assessment of learning often feels like taking one step forward and two steps back. As we write things down or get a grip of them in our heads, so we can go back over our experiences and perhaps understand them in a different way, and this is likely to be an on-going process. The learning can never be complete, your initial thoughts will open new doors, and leave you with other questions and new directions for development. Eventually, you will reach a stage where you will need to convert your ideas, conversations and evidence into your self-assessment of learning. 10

11 Self-assessment: Writing your selfassessment of learning Programme requirements The focus should be on your learning during the assessment period. Some of this learning may well have begun and continued outside that period, but this does not matter as long as you show your awareness of how that learning has (or has not) continued to develop within the relevant assessment period. You are asked to organise and present your self-assessment of learning under the following headings: Introduction and conclusion As with any report or assignment it is necessary to orientate the readers to what follows. In the introduction we recommend you to do two things: say something about your position at the beginning of the assessment period. At Level 4, you can talk about your feelings, experiences and thoughts at the beginning of the programme. Later, you can pick up on where your last selfassessment of learning left off highlight any key themes or points that follow. The conclusion does a different job. Here you need to: draw together any common themes. Your assessment so far will have tended to break things down into smaller blocks. At this stage you need to say something about the whole. How do all these things come together as a student/practitioner List any further areas that you need to explore, questions you need to address and so on. If you have not discussed these in your assessment then you will need to talk a little about things here. Self-assessment of learning - main headings Your assessment should be written under 4 headings. Critically explore and reflect on how your practice has developed through: 1. Your learning about what is important to you (your attitudes, values or beliefs) in relation to making professional judgments as an informal educator What have you learnt, how have you changed and why is that significant to you? What evidence have you provided to support this? 2. Your learning about yourself from participation in College groups, line management and supervision sessions at this level 11

12 What have you learnt, how have you changed and why is that significant to you? What evidence have you provided to support this? 3. Your learning from significant professional and academic experiences at this level What have you learnt, how have you changed and why is that significant to you? What evidence have you provided to support this? In your final section you should critically explore and reflect on: 4. How your future practice will be affected by this learning? How will your future practice change in light of your learning? What further development is needed? To sum up When organising the self-assessment of your learning: start with an introduction critically reflect on the evidence you have gathered and presented indicating what you have learnt in the current assessment period and what your learning means to you ensure that your material is up to date and is of a sophistication appropriate to the level finish with a conclusion that includes any common or key themes and any further areas or questions you need to explore or address. 12

13 Self-assessment: Presenting your selfassessment of learning Programme requirements Here we set out how to present your self-assessment. For those of you who have written a self-assessment for the College before, please note that there are some changes to the presentation requirements. The self-assessment has to be word-processed and submitted via ymoodle to the College and submitted either by or as a paper copy to your supervisor. Presentation 1. Please use a standard 12 point black font and 1.5 line spacing. Leave good margins on each side of the page. The reader may want to make notes, and pages sometimes slip in the photocopier. 2. Use sub-headings for each of the main sections of the assignment 3. Put your name, the title Student Self-Assessment of Learning, the date and the word count on a separate title page. In addition, please ensure that on the title page, your self-assessment is marked: PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL TO STUDENT, SUPERVISOR, TUTOR AND MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF EXAMINERS. 4. Number each page and put your name in one corner (or as a header or footer). 5. FILL IN, AND DATE THE ASSESSMENT COVER SHEET AND CHECKLIST (see appendix A of these guidelines, there is also a copy in your student book). There is no need for you to physically sign the self-assessment as submission via ymoodle is in effect a digital signature. Length of self-assessment of learning Self-assessments of learning must fall within 10% over or under 1,500 words for the interim assessment at level 4; 2000 words at the end of level 4. At the end of levels 5 and 6 the word length is 3,500 words (plus or minus 10 per cent). Submission of assessments You should give or send a copy of your self-assessment to your supervisor and submit a copy via ymoodle. The ymoodle copy will be seen by your tutor and by the Assessment Board (see your programme calendar for this submission date). Both your supervisor and tutor need to see your assessment before they can finish writing their assessment. Your supervisor and tutor will send copies of their assessment to you (at interim stage of level four only, your supervisor, instead of a full assessment will send a 13

14 statement of students learning and attendance which can be found in the Supervisor s Handbook). Your tutor will send you their assessment via the ymoodle assignment submission area. Also get an assessment from your line manager at your professional practice setting. (At interim stage of level four only, your line manager, instead of a full assessment will send you Appendix 1 and 2 which can be found in the Line Manager s Handbook). Once you receive your line-manager s assessment you must sign at the end of it that you have read and agreed the contents. When you receive your supervisor s and tutor s assessments sign your agreement etc. on the assessment cover sheet. If there are any points of disagreement these must be submitted to the College on a separate sheet of paper and a copy given to the original assessment writer. Check that: you have dated and signed all the boxes on your Assessment Cover Sheet (see Appendix A of these guidelines, there is also a copy in your student book ) your tutor has dated his or her assessment and sent it via ymoodle. your supervisor has signed and dated his or her assessment, the dates of your supervision sessions have been listed (as well as any that you may have missed), and that your supervisor has made a statement regarding his/her view on the accuracy and adequacy of your self-assessment. At interim stage of level four the supervisor need only complete, sign and date the statement of student s learning and attendance. your line manager has signed and dated his or her assessment and Appendix 1 (attendance at line management supervision and face-to-face practice sessions) and Appendix 2 (the Student as a Professional Practitioner) in the Line Manager s Handbook have been appropriately completed, signed and included with the line manager s assessment. At interim stage of level four, the line manager need only complete, sign and date Appendix 1 and 2. you have signed that you have read and agreed each assessment. any points of disagreement with your tutor, supervisor and/or your line manager are listed on a separate sheet and submitted with the relevant assessment. A copy of these must also be given to the relevant tutor, supervisor or line manager with whom you have the disagreement. You should not change your self-assessment after it has been submitted to your supervisor and the College. These three assessments (full tutor s, supervisors and line manager s assessments at the end of each level, tutors, supervisors statement of student s learning and attendance and line manager s Appendix 1 and 2 at level four interim stage) should then be submitted to the relevant Programme Secretary at the College. Late assessments may not be considered by the Board of Examiners. It is your responsibility to take a copy of all assessments as the originals are kept alongside the Academic Record. 14

15 Students failing to submit an interim self-assessment of learning at level four by the due date and having no mitigating circumstances will not be able to submit this piece of work late as it loses its usefulness when written retrospectively. You will also not receive any tutor s feedback on your assessment writing and the non-submission of this piece of work will be noted on your academic record which is available to the Board of Examiners. In its place, you will be required to submit an alternative selfassessment of learning entitled: All learning arises from experience. Reflect on this in relation to your professional practice. This will also be written to 2,500 words; it will not be graded but must reach a satisfactory standard. The Interim Programme Committee which meets mid-way through level four, will inform you if and when this particular piece of work is due. 15

16 Self-assessment: Some common questions What about my private life? The assessment is about your learning as a student-practitioner in informal and community education. It is not about the quality of your private life. However, changes which happen to you will very likely show in private as well as in public. You may choose to give evidence from your private life if you think it is appropriate. Who am I writing for? You are writing your assessment for yourself, your tutor, your supervisor and for the Board of Examiners. If your writing has not been of use to you it is not likely to be of use to your supervisor, whose job it is to work with you to help you take your self-assessment further and who also has to write an assessment. If the writing is of no use to you and your supervisor it will not convey to the Board of Examiners what you have learned. What about the individual criteria contained in the Index of Evidence? The Index of Evidence is a separate document which you are required to complete at the end of level 4, 5 and 6 to demonstrate how you have met the programme s assessment criteria. This is a different exercise to that of assessing your learning. Rather, it is about stating and evidencing your abilities in relation to the criteria for qualification. Your self-assessment of learning will be just one of the sources that can provide evidence to include in the Index. Full details of the Index of Evidence are provided elsewhere. Other problems that sometimes occur Telling Stories Your stories are important but remember that once you have embarked on a story or a description it can be difficult to stop. We can get ourselves locked into a story or a description as if we were a tram on tramlines. This is one of the main reasons why assessments can get unnecessarily long. What happens to you is important, but why it happens and what you have learned about yourself through the experience is more important. Beware of when you are narrating or describing. Make sure you only put in what you need to make your point. The bulk of the self-assessment should be analytical, exploratory and reflective rather than descriptive. 16

17 Assess yourself not the Programme Say what you have learnt, not what a wonderful/awful time you have had. Do not plead your case or justify yourself Self-assessment is reflection, looking back, an analysis of happenings after they have taken place. If you have evidence of learning, the Board of Examiners will be satisfied. If all you can see are failures and difficulties, then you need to show what learning has come out of these failures and difficulties. We can learn far more from our failures than from our successes; if we never made a mistake we would never learn, and we would not be able to help others to learn. 17

18 Self-assessment: Supervision and selfassessment of learning Taking your work to supervision In supervision, you have a regular opportunity to reflect on your practice, to identify what you know and do not know, what you can do easily and what you cannot. We say this not because we think supervision should be a process of checking strengths and difficulties, but because you cannot discuss your work with another person in any depth without coming to some conclusions about what you did well and what you did less well, what new things you have learned and what all this means for your professional practice. Since supervision is designed to be the place for on-going self-assessment, it follows that when your supervisor writes his/her assessment of you there should be nothing in it which you have not in some way discussed together in supervision sessions. Similarly, when you write your self-assessment of learning, it should contain no real surprises for your supervisor. Your supervisor may not see things in quite the same way as you do, so you may learn some new things about yourself by discussing your self-assessments in supervision sessions. In order to make best use of your supervision sessions, it is a good idea to take some notes along with you. These may take the form of your current strengths and weaknesses, or a list of questions about your practice that you wish to explore. Of course, these can also be taken to other settings, such as study groups and so on, but supervision is provided specifically so that these issues can be raised and thought about. The focus of supervision is primarily your professional practice. Programme material may be referred to, but it should always be related to your professional practice. It is as a student practitioner that you come to your supervisor. The supervisor s assessment Supervisors also make formal assessments of students. These statements should amplify or add to the statements you make about your learning in the selfassessment. The only appropriate evidence for this assessment is that gained from the supervision sessions themselves. So as not to interfere with the process of selfassessment, supervisors are asked not to write their assessment before your selfassessment of learning has been completed and seen. The supervisor uses the same headings as the student self-assessment of learning. In addition, the supervisor must formally state whether in their view the student s selfassessment is an accurate and adequate reflection of the student s learning based on evidence gained from the supervision process. Given that the supervisor has to read your self-assessment and to write his/her own assessment, you must let your supervisor have your self-assessment of learning in good time. Details of these deadlines can be found in your Course Calendar. The supervisor should let you have a copy of his/her assessment three working days prior 18

19 to the due date. The procedure for the submission of the supervisor s statement or assessment is outlined earlier in this document. 19

20 Appendix A: Assessment cover sheet Name of Student: Level of Study: Name of Line Manager: Name of Supervisor: Name of Tutor: Date: Please use the following checklist and sign your name in each box if: You have written your self-assessment and Index of Evidence, and received and read all other assessments You have checked that your Line Manager has signed their assessment, and Appendices 1 and 2; and your Supervisor has signed their assessments. Tutor s assessments are digitally signed via ymoodle. Students should sign in the box below that they read the assessment and agree its contents. Interim/End of Level Self-assessment (Digitally-signed submitted by ymoodle) Index of Evidence (Digitally signed submitted by ymoodle) Any elements that need to be signed-off by your manager should be done so on a separate sheet Line Manager s Assessment (This assessment needs to be signed by your Line Manager) Appendices 1 and 2 (Each of these need to be signed by your Line Manager) Supervisor s Assessment (Sign that you have read the assessment and agree the contents). Tutor s Assessment (Sign that you have read the assessment and agree the contents). 20