Programme: Assessing Adult Learning conference

Practitioners’ panel: Charlie Hayward (Boating Industry Training Organisation); Dave Tout (ACER); Libby Reardon (NZ Army); Lana Moriarity (student, Graduate Diploma of Teaching Adults, Victoria University).

This panel session will be introduced and facilitated by Jenny Whatman, NZCER.

This is a chance to hear experiences of being assessed and being an assessor in language, literacy and numeracy (LLN) from different practitioner perspectives.

This will be followed by the first of our guided conversation sessions, facilitated by NZCER’s Jennifer Garvey Berger. It is an opportunity for conference participants to discuss their own assessment stories at their tables.

Purposes of assessment – Rosemary Hipkins

Assessment is so integral to education practice that it is easy to take its assumptions, processes and consequences for granted. This presentation will explore the very idea of assessment as worthy of ongoing and open debate. Shifts in practice have already occurred as a consequence of systematic rethinking of what assessment can be and is for, with associated impacts on teaching and learning. Using recent assessment reforms as examples, Rose will link ideas and practices in ways that empower teachers to make considered responses to what can feel like runaway change.

Guided conversation: table discussion about the purposes of assessment and whether particular forms of assessment are fit for purpose.

Inside the assessment tool – Charles Darr and Juliette Mendelovits

Good assessment items are made, not born. The presenters will describe some of the processes that typically go into developing strong and valid assessment, showing how an item emerges from rough draft, is panelled, pummelled and revised, and is submitted to multiple reviews and testing on the rack of the assessment framework, before undergoing a formal trial-by-learner: the field test.

They will show how the new adult assessment tool uses computer adaptive technology to tailor each assessment to the achievement level of the learner, resulting in better targeted information. This part of the presentation will explore how the tool constructs an assessment for a learner and then provides reporting that connects performance on the assessment to the adult learning progressions.

Guided conversation: whole-room discussion picking up the points from the previous keynotes and on assessment experiences of participants.

Looking at assessment through a Mäori lens – Cheryl Stephens, Tamati Waaka and Aroha Puketapu-Dahm

The tertiary sector defines and interprets assessment in many ways.

Within Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiärangi, as a kaupapa Mäori tertiary organisation, the definition and interpretation holds significant weight. This ensures the perpetuation, sustainability and relevance to learning and teaching of mätauranga Mäori within the course curriculum. It also ensures that Mäori traditions of scholarship, which value critical thinking, integrity and excellence through transformation, are upheld and maintained in a unique and distinctive way that is responsive to a changing educational landscape.

In reflecting on their involvement in the consultation process and the trialling of the National Assessment Tool, members of Te Whare Wänanga o Awanuiärangi’s Ako Tuapapa - literacy and numeracy team - reinterpret and redefine how and why they assess, using a culturally-based pedagogical approach.

Guided conversation: participants discuss their responses to this presentation at their tables, followed by a question and answer session.

Questions from the day – all speakers

We will be collecting written questions throughout the day and this will be the opportunity for our speakers to respond.

Guided conversation: a final chance for reflection and discussion around the tables about the key themes, next questions and potential actions from the day.

Synthesis of the day – Peter Coolbear (Ako Aotearoa), Bronwyn Yates, (Literacy Aotearoa)

The speakers will draw together the important themes and lessons from the day, from their particular perspective within key education organisations.