Gizhko I.M.

Donetsk National University of Economics and Trade

ACTION LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION

There are now quite a number of courses in higher education that use action learning. These courses are designed to support undergraduate project work, research students or as support for continued professional development. Many action learning courses use resource packs or workshops to give an overview of important content. Tutors available as resource advisers are also a useful addition to an action learning programme. Use of an online learning environment can be excellent in combination with action learning communication with discipline specialists in tutorials or via e-mail as an effective way to give students access to expert advice when they need it.

But how can one ensure coverage of content areas? The main answer to this question lies in criteria for assessment. Procedures for judging or scoring students’ performance should correspond to the teaching/learning methods used, and be consistently applied and monitored. Assessment results should yield informative representations of students’ performance in relation to the expected outcomes for learning at specified levels.

The move to independent learning modes puts assessment in the spotlight as the control of the teacher is no longer paramount. The logic of developing the learner as a competent graduate conflicts with an assessment system which is controlled and implemented separately from the learner. Self and peer assessment help to develop the ability of the learner, not only to learn, but to test and evaluate the results of the learning.

Different mechanisms and procedures can be used to judge the quality of learning in appropriate ways. There is now an increasing range of examples to show how action learning can be supported through an assessment process.

Portfolios. They are often a collection of materials and entries of diverse nature gathered over the course and put together in some structured way to provide evidence of learning and development. The European Language Portfolio may serve as a model for portfolio developers. It is a collection of tools for recording and reflecting on the learner’s language learning and intercultural experience. It also provides grids for self-assessment of language achievements and the setting of personal learning goals.

Learning contracts. Learning contracts are negotiated between the learner and the teacher or between peer learners to specify the outcomes in terms of learning. Contracts (or learning agreements) specify the resources a student needs in order to learn, as well as what they will do to learn. Students are also likely to take some time to construct the contract and may need to renegotiate at times throughout the learning programme. This is particularly important when an area is very new for the student as they are unlikely to know, from the beginning, what they need to know. Self-assessment is obviously a crucial element in the judging of the success of the work done.

Profiles. A profile specifies what has been learnt on a course. It can be a simple list of topics covered or a fuller description of learning outcomes. Profiles are particularly useful for courses of independent study where the syllabus is not specified in course documentation in any specific form. Profiles allow external people to see what was covered by the course of study undertaken by the student. These are becoming part of higher education assessment alongside transcripts of student progress.

Diaries. Diaries capture the process of learning and the stages in a learner’s development over the time of the programme or course. They can be valuable as evidence to show learning and development at the end of the programme. A diary could form part of a portfolio.

Reflective document. This is a document written after the formal programme has ended which describes what has been learnt. It can be used together with project reports where the latter only reports the method of working, results and recommendations, and does not address what the learner has gained from doing the project. These are useful as individual assessments alongside a group project report.

Statements of relevance. These are written comments by the student on the relationship between input by the course tutors and their own learning with its practical application. They are reflective documents that draw out how the learner has made links between the general content of the workshop (or other input) and his or her own particular context.

Lessons log. This is a tool for evaluation of the course or programme by the tutors rather than the learner. It is simply a record of the feelings and ideas of the course team immediately after every workshop (and usually at the intervals during the workshop). It feeds very well into monitoring and review reports for the course and is invaluable in planning.

Work plan. This is a template which can be used at any level, with any course book and even more if you create your own learning materials without any course book at all. All the materials and activities included should be meaningful, challenging and authentic. This plan supports students’ engagement in learning and in negotiating while the teacher is able to stimulate reflection on learning progress, achievements and problems. There is a self-assessment grid which corresponds to the tasks given in the work plan.

These descriptions show how the assessment of action learning becomes an important part of the process of learning. But self-assessment cannot in any way replace assessment of students by teachers, universities or public examination boards. Self-assessment and assessment should complement each other. Self-assessment is based on the learner’s capacity to reflect on his or her own knowledge, skills and achievements. Assessment by others, on the other hand, provides an external, objective measure of the same knowledge, skills and achievement. Teachers should develop recommendations for students on learning strategies and criteria for self-assessment in order to make it possible for them to work in a self-study mode when the compulsory course is over.