A case study of constructive alignment? 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

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

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

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

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)

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)

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

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.

Assessment assesses what students have learned in response to assessment