Why review?

Procedures for training and assessment don't always work well. As trainer and assessor, you need to be able to check that procedures are working, and suggest changes if they aren't. Even if it's a good system, you might find ways two improve it.

This means that you need to report in writing to those responsible:

• the strong and weak aspects of the training and assessment
• substantiate your comments where necessary
• record and report any disputed decision
• ask whether the way you reviewed training and assessment was helpful and effective
• evaluate the records you keep to determine whether they meet the needs of the organization, and
• suggest improvements to those in responsibility

The main factor in reviewing what you have done is your personal fear. Nobody likes being reviewed or evaluated, and many people will do anything they can to avoid discussing their weaknesses. If you're new to teaching or training, or if it's the first time you've taught or assessed a particular module, you'll be painfully aware of your mistakes. But you need to overcome those fears if you are to improve, no matter how good you are.

In practice, especially in a larger institution, a lot of what is done is to collate student feedback forms and your own forms, and to review the results with a responsible person or in a committee. Ideally, your assessment forms should have a space for comments that you can put into the review later on.

Your personal review

At this stage, the main point is to say honestly how you think it went.

Don't just describe what you did but evaluate it. You must answer "What do you think needs changing, and how would you change it?"

You need to review and evaluate what you did. Whether you taught a class or supervised work-based learning, you'll be painfully aware of what worked and what didn't, and you'll want to change some things next time. Don't forget to analyze your own skills.

• It's not acceptable to only report that you’ve thoroughly reviewed the unit.
• It is acceptable to say that the unit went very well and you wouldn't change anything. (However, good teachers can almost always think of changes they'd make next time.)

Hint: Make the review easier to do by making notes of good ideas and changes as you teach and assess. This will make the review more useful, because you'll include lots of things hat you would otherwise have forgotten.

You can base your evaluation comments on:

• the students comments to you,
• workplace supervisors comments to you
• industry representatives' comments
• your own reflections or observations
• comments from your colleagues, either incidentally or through moderation, or
• changes in the industry that you learned during the assessment

Reflection questions

Other than that, the specific questions are not compulsory but you must be able to pick up on what went well and what didn't. You might ask questions like these:

1. Was your delivery plan an effective guide?
2. Were unit expectations clear?
3. Was assessment appropriate to what was learnt?
4. Do students understand the subject better (not just know more)?
5. Was the workload reasonable?
6. Were facilities adequate?
7. Were written materials easy to follow?
8. Were instructions clear and adequate?
9. What new ideas did you have that you could use next time?
10. Did you get directed to other sources (books, websites, etc.)?
11. Were you accessible outside class?
12. Were you approachable and welcoming of your questions?
13. Were you informed of changes brought about by student feedback?
14. Were you well prepared for teaching sessions?
15. What worked best?
16. Could you teach some things more efficiently?
17. How could you be more effective?
18. How does the teaching plan compare with students' actual achievement of outcomes?
19. How do the program goals, the procedures and models compare with students' actual achievement of outcomes?
20. Does the lesson sequence make sense to students?
21. Do some things need to be added? (e.g. extra explanations or practice)
22. What would make the series more effective?
23. How effective have you have been in integrating work-based learning with external training?
24. What difficulties arose?
25. In light of the review, what are your areas for improvement and change?
26. What skills do you need to develop?

How to evaluate what has been done

Your organization probably has an established review process. People in positions of responsibility and your peers might also need to take part in reviewing your work, and you should actively welcome input from students. The review processes their feedback on how well you did, and identifies areas for improvement.

Reviewing the effectiveness of work-based learning is much the same. You should make a written record of work performance and learning achievements according to the requirements of your organization.

1. You need to ensure that your methods meet the principles of assessment and satisfy the rules of evidence. Compare your assessment process against established criteria such as the Training and Assessment package or best practice guides. You may need your supervisor's advice on how to improve your assessments in the future.
    
2. Get feedback from your supervisor and your colleagues. They will probably be able to give you good advice.
    
3. Look at how you planned to do it and ask whether or not it worked. Did students meet the program goals?
    
4. Reflect on how you thought it went. Look at your notes and honestly evaluate your own performance.
    
5. Get feedback from your students. There are two directions for feedback: from you to the students (discussed in an earlier chapter) and from the students to you. For reviewing a program, we refer to the students' comments to you on how the assessment and training and assessment went.

You also need to encourage students to provide critical feedback on their learning experiences so you can evaluate the effectiveness of the learning program and the way it was done. Listen carefully to the student’s comments on how it went. It will make sure that you and the students understand each other and will allay any negative impressions that the students had. It will help you review of the assessment.

Multiple choice student feedback forms are sometime sarcastically called "happy forms" because they often do little more that ask: "Are you happy?" They are widespread because they are quick and easy to use for both staff and students, and keep a paper trail of feedback. Although they meet AQTF requirements as a feedback system, they are often unreliable because people tend to give minimum answers with little thought, and tend to be overly optimistic.

6. Identify areas you need to improve on and write them down.
    
7. Put the improvements into practice in your teaching and assessment. (There's not much point doing a good review if you don't implement the findings.)

Otherwise, you are quite free to look at a wide range of methods to evaluate what has been done. You don’t need to use all the methods, just those that are most helpful in your situation. You might choose to interview management, instructors, assessors, and students. Observing assessments could be most helpful.

Other review methods

Some other review methods are:

1. Record and address OHS issues.
2. Outline how the training sessions went. Base your answers on:
• students’ self-assessment
• student feedback
• comments from your supervisor or peers, and
• comparison against outcome statements.
3. Evaluate how you did getting students to:
• review how the training went, and
• review how the sessions helped them achieve learning goals. (Use the assessment results and personal observations to draw your conclusions.)
4. Evaluate how you did encouraging students to evaluate their own performance and identify areas for improvement.
5. Check student satisfaction though surveys of graduates
6. What were the students’ needs, and what actual progress did they make?
7. Get and discuss reactions to the training from other relevant stakeholders. For example, you can check student performance though employer and industry surveys and feedback
8. Suggest ways of improving the procedure for recording information of the training and assessment processes.
9. You could also examine many different kinds of records, some of which might need careful analysis:
• exemplars and benchmarks
• guidelines to interpret endorse or accredited unit statements
• assessment tools, templates and proformas
• assessment records
• client and student feedback
• moderation results

Possible questions

Of course, the simplest way to do this is to have a standardized form and fill it in fully.

You can never ask every good question, but here’s a list of the kind of things you might need to address in your notes:

1. Was your delivery plan effective in guiding the learning process? If you didn't write it, give your feedback to the person who wrote it.
2. Were unit expectations clear?
3. Was assessment appropriate to what was learnt?
4. Did you handle the assessment gap successfully?
5. How long did it take to return assessed work?
6. Do students understand the subject better (not just know more)?
7. Was the workload reasonable?
8. Were facilities adequate?
9. Were written materials easy to follow?
10. Were instructions clear and adequate?
11. What new ideas did you have that you could use next time?
12. Did you get directed to other sources (books, websites, etc.)?
13. Were you accessible outside class?
14. Were you informed of changes brought about by student feedback?
15. Were you approachable and welcoming of students' questions?
16. Were you well prepared for teaching sessions?
17. What do you think needs changing, and how would you change it?

Other questions

In your review, get answers and supporting evidence to these questions:

1. Did the program provide training sessions in a number of contexts using a range of delivery methods?
2. Did training meet competency requirements?
3. Are there appropriate training materials and resources?
4. Did instructors assess their own delivery?
5. How did stakeholders and students react to training? Is there documentation?
6. Did the instructors make changes to subsequent delivery based on feedback from students and others?

Other questions might also come up in the review process:

1. How many students were assessed? Over how long a period?
2. Under what organisational constraints did assessors have to operate?
3. What occupational health and safety factors were significant?
4. How effectively did assessors relate to other appropriate personnel in the assessment process?
5. How often did you assess?
6. Did budgetary restraints affect the assessment process?
7. What information needs of government and other regulatory bodies were involved?
8. What were the support needs and professional development needs of assessors?
9. What were the characteristics of persons being assessed? Were they well motivated?
10. Are there any human resource management implications?
11. Were assessment decisions consistent?
12. What levels of flexibility were there in the assessment procedure?
13. Were assessments fair? Efficient? Effective? Reliable? Valid? Flexible?
14. What competencies did students achieve?
15. What difficulties were encountered during the planning and conduct of the assessment?
16. Were the location and resources suitable?
17. Did assessments work well in their specified contexts?
18. What grievances or challenges to the assessment decision were there?
19. Is the system easy to administer? Is it practical?
20. Were there any access and equity considerations?