Assessment on the TQFE

1. Assessment on the TQFE A case study of constructive alignment? Dr Iddo Oberski & Dr Kathy Nicoll Presentation for ‘Constructive alignment of learning outcomes to assessment methods’, Friday 27/2/2004

2. Teaching Qualification (Further Education) • Based on ‘National Guidelines on Provision Leading to the Teaching Qualification (Further Education) and Related Professional Development’ (Scottish Office 1997) • Competence based: performance at place of work assessed by College-based staff • Underpinning knowledge: assessed by University-based staff

3. Models of Professionalism • The technical expert • The competent practitioner • The reflective practitioner (Eraut 1994)

4. FE Lecturers as professionals • Technical expertise within own subject area • Competent practitioners through achieving the TQFE occupation standards • Reflective practitioners through in-depth engagement with theory on the Stirling TQFE

5. TQFE impact on professional development • “I have found the TQFE course very rewarding. I use what I have learnt constantly to help inform my teaching and the broad understanding of the social, economic and political sides of the subject have given me a feeling of confidence in my professionalism” • “It fully deserves its prestigious status. It has been successful in making me evaluate and approach my job with a more informed view and a much wider perspective” • “I have found the course interesting and challenging. I have thought a lot about my practice and TQFE has certainly influenced what I do” • “I have enjoyed TQFE. It has enabled me to reflect on my practice in a more informed way and I am hopefully a more effective lecturer” (Staff-Student Committee Online Meeting, Spring 2003)

6. Theory versus Practice • “I have found the university based academic content of the course more important and enjoyable to me personally. I find the writing to performance criteria in WBAs limiting and rather uninspiring” • “perhaps the number of essays could have been reduced to have focused more on work based assessments in relation to our role specifically in FE” • “I have improved my essay writing, but can’t say that writing essays will improve my teaching” (Staff-Student Committee Online Meeting, Spring 2003)

7. Constructive alignment on the Professional Development Unit? • Essay (pre-alignment) • Critically discuss the models of professionalism and professional development within the Further Education context with reference to alternatives • Critically evaluate a ‘case study’ course or programme evaluation with reference to the literature on evaluation • Identify and critically discuss contributions that a lecturer can make to support continuous quality improvement within the FE context with reference to appropriate literature

8. Critical Incident analysis (post-alignment) 1 Identify a critical incident from your professional practice that you would like to examine 2 Analyse the incident using the guidelines offered by Tripp (1993) to help you 3 Inquire into the incident by finding literature that will help inform your analysis 4 Work with colleagues to analyse the incident further and with reference to the literature 5 Develop practical knowledge regarding the critical incident 6 Write a description of the incident using the following headings as a guide: etc.

9. Assessment assesses what students have learned in response to assessment