L5 DiT assessment methods

Throughout the course, learners will be collecting evidence and reflecting on their teaching journey.  Initial assessment will be in the form of a welcome meeting, where they will be able to meet one of the team and be fully introduced to the course.  Ideally, a mentor will attend this meeting.  The learner must have two mentors lined up, one with a more pastoral role.  The mentor who will be conducting observations must be qualified to at least Level 5 in teaching.  Learners must also be able to work over two settings – one to be the main setting.  This can be a different department, or on a different course in the same department.  Learners must also be able to teach at least 20 hours online/remotely.  Then, formative and summative assessments will be as follows:

 

·         Three written assignments

·         A portfolio of practical teaching evidence against given criteria

·         10 observations in your settings

·         A project 

·         A reflective learning journal

·         A final professional discussion with one of the Train Aid team

There are three written assignments, which can be spaced out over the qualification to your own timeline.  Unit 1 focuses on pedagogic methodologies and curriculum development in further education.  This promotes research on some crucial educational theories and an analysis of the provision in the current Further Education sector.  Unit 2 is about professionalism and inclusive teaching practices in further education.  This looks at the roles and responsibilities of a teacher, along with the role of inclusion and how the learner is able to actively promote this.  The final assignment is focused on digital resources.  Here, the learner can focus on resources that they have found useful, along with those they have designed/adapted, looking at new and emerging technologies.  Templates are given for each assignment and various resources will be available to support learners.

As the learner works through the course, they will be given a checklist of criteria, with suggestions of what evidence to collect.  This includes policies, staff and student interviews, assessment data, planning, observation and self-evaluation reports, evidence of collaborative working, meeting minutes and much more.  Each piece of evidence will show the learner’s understanding of each aspect of the criteria – we encourage annotation, as these should be working documents.  Templates and examples are sent out to each learner to support this work.  This portfolio will also form the basis for the professional discussion – more later!

Part one of the project is an exploration of the meaning and structure of action research.  For Part two, learners will need to choose a question or hypothesis to investigate.  Behaviour management is the absolute key to being able to teach and students being able to learn.  This is the reason it has been chosen as the basis for the practical action research project.  As long as it is within the remit of behaviour management, learners will be able to set their own question/point of focus of an area to improve within their setting.  For example, they could look at the data of a particular under-achieving group of learners and put some ground rules in place.  After working through a series of planned steps of agreeing the rules, introducing them, seeing them in action etc, then they could review the data to look at any changes.  It could be a focus on one individual student – it will entirely depend on the setting and circumstances.

Throughout the course, it is crucial to be a reflective practitioner.  Learners will regularly make entries into the journal about aspects such as their teaching, the students’ learning, strategies observed from colleagues and so on.  This will enable the learner to have time to reflect on where they are in their journey and where areas of development are showing themselves.

At the end of the course, each learner will have a professional discussion with one of the Train Aid team and their key mentor.  The mentor will have worked with the tutor from Train Aid to devise questions. There will be a set of questions based on the course criteria to discuss.  We will also have thoroughly reviewed learners’ submitted evidence before the discussion and will be able to ‘fill gaps’ in any unachieved criteria or expand on any lighter areas.  This is a great chance for learners to show how far they have come and also to discuss what they have enjoyed and found more difficult over the time of the course.

 

With these assessment methods in mind, we look forward to welcoming more new learners in the coming academic year and we will be here to support every step of the way.  This course is interesting, challenging and holistically assessed, enabling Train Aid to have a part in encouraging new further education teachers.  

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