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Evaluation of Learning

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By: Sharon White

Evaluation matters to students whose awards are determined by what comes up from evaluation process. It maters to those who do evaluation. Despite the fact there is a considerable body of international research about assessment and related issues, we experiment largely in the ignorance of the way others have effected positive change, and we have limited opportunity to learn from the lessons of others.

The Learner Group The group consists of nine learners, four are male and five are female. The group is all learners with moderate learning difficulties and are from white backgrounds. This is a group of school leavers, aged 16-19 yrs old on a full-time course working towards the Edexcel Skills for Working Life Entry-Level qualification. Many of the learners in this group have not previously attended mainstream schools, for a variety of reasons. Including disabilities such as dyslexia or deafness and many have behavioral problems that contribute to a low attention span.

In order to describe the assessment of learning strategies utilized during my teacher training, I have chosen a group of students from Edexcel Skills for Working Life Entry-Level to use has my example. I have taught this group in two hourly sessions once a week since September 2003. The subject I teach is Assertiveness Entry Level 2. By the end of the academic year the learners must produce evidence that they can:

- Recognize feelings of happiness, sadness, confidence, shyness and anger in themselves.

- Recognize feelings of happiness, sadness, confidence, shyness and anger in others.

- Give examples of situation that can lead to these feelings

- Recognize the way people behave when they are happy, sad, confident, shy and angry

- Give examples of situation that can lead to a change of feelings

- Describe some ways that behavior affects others.

The evidence of these capabilities, takes the form of a portfolio of designed to incorporate all the Assertiveness skills they have achieved during the academic year. These are marked internally and a sample group is taken for external verification. There is also an end of year assignment, which is designed by lecturers and is marked internally and by external verifiers. Each learner is expected to achieve a satisfactory mark in order to achieve a pass in the Edexcel qualification.

However, this assessment criterion is generally taken at the completion of studies. Although they are of value regarding student achievement, to the teacher to check whether learning has taken place and to the future employability of the student, they are of little value to the learner during the learning process. Therefore it is imperative, that an on going assessment procedure is put in place for the following reasons:

- To enable student progression

- To guide improvement

- To facilitate students choice of options

- To diagnose faults and enable students to rectify mistakes

- To give us feedback on how our teaching is going

- To motivate students-

- To provide statistics for the course or institution

- To enable grading

- To add variety to students- learning experiences

- To add direction to our teaching

Thereby when attempting to teach the learners in this group I adopted a variety of assessment procedures for the all of the reasons stated above.

Assessment in General

-Assessment is not a bolt-on extra to teaching and training but an integral part of planning, preparation and delivery.

Assessment is very important, as it is to check if learning has taken place. There are a lot of different ways to assess learners that can be used by a teacher, see below:

- Questionnaires

- Exams

- Essays

- Discussions

- Direct questions

- Role play

- Observation

- Practical

- Presentations

- Word search/crossword

- Quizzes

The advantages of assessment are as follows: -

- Teachers and learners have the opportunity to reflect on their own practice and their learners learning

- A teacher can identify learners who are not coping very well and need more help

- Learners receive feedback on their progress

- Learners could give feedback to teachers on their progress

- Helps motivate learners

- Allow teachers to see how well learners are absorbing the material being taught and amend their teaching methods accordingly

- Allow teachers to use different teaching style/method if need be

- Teachers can use a range of methods to assess learners

Assessment also has its disadvantages, this includes: -

- Increased workload for teachers in preparing assessment

- Increased workload for teachers in marking assessment

- Pressure on learners

- Any personal/social problems could have an effect on how well a learner performs in an exam

- Assessment can be expensive

There is a variety of terminology which is related to assessment, see below:

- Reliability: This is regarding the extent to which assessments achieve consistency of results. A method of assessment can be reliable when learners with the same ability achieve the same result

- Validity: The purpose of validity in assessment is to make sure that the correct thing is being assessed (is the method of assessment measuring what it is intended to measure, e.g. the aims, goals, performance or objectives)

- Diagnostic: A diagnostic assessment can be carried out at the beginning of a module in order to determine the learner's current knowledge or skill and to identify learner styles/needs. Diagnostic assessments are also a good way of identifying early on areas in which learners may struggle and require additional support

- Formative: This is a more relaxed approach and allows the teacher to provide feedback throughout a module or course. It allows the learner to make modifications to their work based on the feedback received

- Summative: This is the end product, i.e. awarding marks, grades or certificates and usually takes place at the end of a module, term or year

- Continuous Assessment: Continuous assessment is important in order to check that learning is taking place.

-It has been claimed that an assessment of this nature may provide a much fairer picture of a learner’s level of achievement than that given by a traditional formal examination.

Assessing Learning Outcomes The module I deliver is assessed through portfolio building and one piece of Core Assignment. During all my sessions I mainly use informal methods of assessment, such as observation, questions and answers. If a learner has to write or display something, in the second session plan the learners have to work in small groups and discuss and identify the main body parts used in non-verbal communication. They have to select the 5 main parts, write the results on the cards provided and cut them out. They then have to feedback to the other group (please refer to appendix one to see the session plans). This is assessed through observation, i.e. going from learner group to learner group and viewing their progress. I find this the ideal form of assessment as I can monitor how well the learners have understood the task set out to them.

At the end of the module the learners will complete a core assignment externally assessed by the examination board. The learners must work independently on the assignment with no personal help from the assessor/invigilator or any other source. Although learners with agreed

Particular requirements, in relation to their mode of Learning or assessment, can have their usual support: unless this compromises the aim of the assignment.

The core assignment is made up of six tasks. The tasks, which they have to complete, are all previous work they have done throughout the module. I gave a copy of the assignment to all learners and asked them in class. I found this to be effective for reasons being, one was that it showed me that learning had taken place through observation by me from walking round the class learner to learner.

Learners were given six tasks to do, which will be marked by the assessment criteria (refer to appendix two for assessment criteria) provided by Edexcel. The assignment will be marked the lecturer and then by Internal Verifiers and then by External moderator. The two marked pieces of work can be found in appendixes (refer to appendix three for marked assignments).

With this group I use question and answer frequently, it is used when learning outcomes require learners to explain something, which has been covered in the session. Sometimes it is important for me to use direct questions otherwise it is always the same learners who always answer the questions.

Recommendations from Learner Questionnaires

In order to receive some feedback from my learners about my teaching style and delivering methods to them, I designed an evaluation form and handed out a copy to each learner (please refer to appendix four for a copy of evaluation form). The learners then completed the form and returned them to me. The learners were told that they did not have to write there on the evaluation sheet if they not want to and it is completely confidential. This section concentrates on the comments that I received from my learner group and my recommendations for future practice based on those comments.

Evidently with the feedback from the learners, I managed to deliver the session sufficiently and effectively. The learners did realise that I was nervous at the beginning of the module but grew more confident as time went on. The learners did also mention that my OHT would have been better if they were typed (all the time) and my handwriting was neater and clearer (whiteboard) whenever I used them. But the most convincing feedback I got from all the learners was that most of the module was very enjoying and they hoped that I teach them next year.

Conclusion

It is important that there is diversity in the assessment process of a course to ensure that the same students are not repeatedly disadvantaged by the use of similar procedures.

Assessment is an important part of teaching and learning. Assessment can be carried out formally or informally using a variety of methods depending on the types of learner you have.

Evaluation is very important as it helps lecturers to improve. The evaluations that I carried out with my learner group have helped me to identify about my key strengths and also areas where I can make improvements.

The article was produced by the member of masterpapers.com. Sharon White has many years of a vast experience in Essay Writing and custom essays writing consulting. Get free samples of essays and courseworks and buy essays .

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