Assessment for Experiential Learning

Chan’s book explores the challenges in assessing experiential learning, deepens our understanding, and inspires readers to think critically about the purpose of assessment in experiential learning. Experiential learning has been studied and proven to be effective for student learning, particularly for the development of holistic competencies (i.e. 21st century skills, soft skills, transferable skills) considered essential for individuals to succeed in the increasingly global and technology-infused 21st century society. Universities around the world are now actively organising experiential learning activities or programmes for students to gain enriching and diversified learning experiences, however the assessment of these programmes tends to be limited, unclear, and contested. Assessment plays a central role in education policies and students’ approach to learning. But do educators know how to assess less traditional learning such as service learning, entrepreneurship, cross-discipline or cross-cultural projects, internships and student exchanges? While the current assessment landscape is replete with assessments that measure knowledge of core content areas such as mathematics, law, languages, science and social studies, there is a lack of assessments and research that focus on holistic competencies. How do we assess students’ ability to think critically, problem solve, adapt, self-manage and collaborate? Central to the discussion in this book, is the reason students are assessed and how they should be assessed to bring out their best learning outcomes.　Offering a collection of best assessment practice employed by teachers around the world, this volume brings together both theoretical and empirical research that underpins assessment; and perceptions of different stakeholders – understanding of assessment in experiential learning from students, teachers, and policymakers. The idea of assessment literacy also plays an important role in experiential learning, for example, reflection is often used in assessing students in experiential learning but how reflection literate are educators, are they aware of the ethical dilemmas that arise in assessing students? These questions are discussed in detail. The volume also introduces a quality assurance programme to recognise student development within experiential learning programmes. The book will be particularly informative to academic developers, teachers, students and community partners who struggle with the development and assessment for experiential learning, those who plan to apply for funding in experiential learning, and policymakers and senior managements seeking evidence and advice on fine-tuning curricular, assessment designs and quality assurance

Assessment for Experiential Learning

Chan’s book explores the challenges in assessing experiential learning, deepens our understanding, and inspires readers to think critically about the purpose of assessment in experiential learning. Experiential learning has been studied and proven to be effective for student learning, particularly for the development of holistic competencies (i.e. 21st century skills, soft skills, transferable skills) considered essential for individuals to succeed in the increasingly global and technology-infused 21st century society. Universities around the world are now actively organising experiential learning activities or programmes for students to gain enriching and diversified learning experiences, however the assessment of these programmes tends to be limited, unclear, and contested. Assessment plays a central role in education policies and students’ approach to learning. But do educators know how to assess less traditional learning such as service learning, entrepreneurship, cross-discipline or cross-cultural projects, internships and student exchanges? While the current assessment landscape is replete with assessments that measure knowledge of core content areas such as mathematics, law, languages, science and social studies, there is a lack of assessments and research that focus on holistic competencies. How do we assess students’ ability to think critically, problem solve, adapt, self-manage and collaborate? Central to the discussion in this book, is the reason students are assessed and how they should be assessed to bring out their best learning outcomes.　Offering a collection of best assessment practice employed by teachers around the world, this volume brings together both theoretical and empirical research that underpins assessment; and perceptions of different stakeholders – understanding of assessment in experiential learning from students, teachers, and policymakers. The idea of assessment literacy also plays an important role in experiential learning, for example, reflection is often used in assessing students in experiential learning but how reflection literate are educators, are they aware of the ethical dilemmas that arise in assessing students? These questions are discussed in detail. The volume also introduces a quality assurance programme to recognise student development within experiential learning programmes. The book will be particularly informative to academic developers, teachers, students and community partners who struggle with the development and assessment for experiential learning, those who plan to apply for funding in experiential learning, and policymakers and senior managements seeking evidence and advice on fine-tuning curricular, assessment designs and quality assurance

Exercising 'soft closure' on lay health knowledge? Harnessing the declining power of the medical profession to improve online health information

This study aims to address the increasingly complex medical predicament of low quality online health information contributing to lay health knowledge and consequently to clinical outcomes. We situate the predicament within a social change paradigm of individualism, choice, diminishing medical power, and emergence of the legitimacy of lay health knowledge. We contend that the prominence of lay health knowledge has been facilitated by the internet, and is due to a surge in broadcasting of experiential knowledge coupled with increased access to and enactment of medical and non-medically sanctioned online information on health and illness. We draw on and further test the application of social closure theory to help conceive a potential solution to this enduring problem. We conduct a quality assessment of an indicative case study, Apicectomies, and test the application of our notion of soft closure on its findings, resulting in targeted, feasible and potentially beneficial solutions to increasing the medical quality of online health information. We further present the extant application of soft closure by Healthtalkonline.org, which collates a medically reliable set of experiential knowledge on a range of health issues. As such, we propose a constructive re-enactment of the traditional closure of the medical profession on medical knowledge

The Importance of Experiential Activities for Students: A case of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Experiential learning is a process that begins with practice, experimentation, and then the learner analyzes and reflects on the experience and the results of that experience. This process helps students consolidate knowledge, form and develop new competencies, skills, behaviors, and even new ways of thinking. This approach is considered to have many advantages compared to the traditional educational method. This research is completed based on analysis and assessment from survey activities and understanding the study habits of students, and the teaching methods of elementary, middle and high school teachers in Ho Chi Minh City. Through research, some schools in the city are still teaching and learning by traditional methods, the experiential activities alternating with classroom lessons are still rather new. Most of the students feel quite boring and monotonous when every day when they come to class, they listen to lectures, copy lessons, return lessons without any experiential activities. The inclusion of practical activities in the above lessons is very necessary to change the atmosphere in the classroom as well as help students to absorb knowledge in an intuitive and vivid way. And this research shows the benefits of practical experiences for learning and teaching in schools today. Methods of face-to-face interviews and questionnaires were used and then analyzed using a fivepoint Likert scale. The research results confirm the role of experiential teaching and clarify the question of how to help improve the quality of teaching in today's smart and modern society

General characteristics of anticipated user experience (AUX) with interactive products

Providing a positive user experience (UX) has become the key differentiator for products to win a competition in mature markets. To ensure that a product will support enjoyable experiences for its users, assessment of UX should be conducted early during the design and development process. However, most UX frameworks and evaluation techniques focus on understanding and assessing user’s experience with functional prototypes or existing products. This situation delays UX assessment until the late phases of product development which may result in costly design modifications and less desirable products. A qualitative study was conducted to investigate anticipated user experience (AUX) to address this issue. Twenty pairs of participants were asked to imagine an interactive product, draw their product concept, and anticipate their interactions and experiences with it. The data was analyzed to identify general characteristics of AUX. We found that while positive AUX was mostly related to an imagined/desired product, negative AUX was mainly associated with existing products. It was evident that the pragmatic quality of product was fundamental, and significantly influenced user’s anticipated experiences. Furthermore, the hedonic quality of product received more focus in positive than negative AUX. The results also showed that context, user profile, experiential knowledge, and anticipated emotion could be reflected in AUX. The understanding of AUX will help product designers to better foresee the users’ underlying needs and to focus on the most important aspects of their positive experiences, which in turn facilitates the designers to ensure pleasurable UX from the start of the design process

Service user perspectives and experiences of risk assessment and management in an acute psychiatric setting: A critical ethnography

Background: Many mental health policy documents state that involving service users in conversations about risk is important to improving quality of care and promoting recovery. However, a scoping review of the literature revealed limited evidence of service users having a role in the assessment and management of risk. It suggested that service users are unaware, uninvolved, and ill-equipped for, risk assessment and management; particularly in acute psychiatric inpatient settings. The power of staff to define, document, and manage the risks that matter are key factors in explaining service user experience. Research question: How do mental health service users experience risk assessment and management in an acute psychiatric inpatient setting? Methods: Data was generated by a service user researcher via four months of intensive, overt, non-participant observation of life on one acute psychiatric ward (47 service users; 35 staff), including formal meetings (ward rounds; community meetings; handovers; one-to-ones) and informal spaces, and via semi-structured interviews (11 service users; 11 staff). Findings: 1). Risk is a “sensitive” and “emotive” experience that can be “difficult” for service users to discuss openly. 2). An “honest sharing” of the individual’s experiential knowledge is required to enhance their self-knowledge (identify triggers) and develop new knowledge (coping skills) towards independent coping. 3). Service users feel distant from aspects of formal risk assessment processes and from the knowledge formed, resulting in feelings of powerlessness. 4). Clinical knowledge is prioritised over experiential knowledge in various ways. 5). To counterbalance this perceived power-disparity, service users are seeking more involvement, framed as opportunities to contribute their experiential knowledge. Discussion: This research contributes to our understanding of risk as a form of experiential knowledge, and risk assessment and management as epistemic activities. It explores conflicting epistemologies operating in the setting (clinical vs experiential), and the power dynamics involved, which contribute to service users experiencing forms of epistemic injustice. How epistemic justice can be recovered through an interpretivist approach to service user testimony and a coproduction approach to knowledge and power is outlined. That risk documentation can be used (as boundary objects) to navigate these issues of knowledge and power within the setting will be discussed. Implications for practice are that risk processes should be made transparent, one-to-ones routinely initiated by staff, and ward round preparation encouraged. Risk documentation should be co-constructed, to enable service user narratives to be centred in acute psychiatric inpatient risk assessment and management

Assurance of learning standards and scaling strategies to enable expansion of experiential learning courses in management education

In today’s dynamic globalized business environment, management educators must develop pedagogies that support students to manage and lead in rapidly changing business contexts. An increasing number of institutions use experiential learning as a component of their curriculum to address this challenge. Initially, a response to industry criticism that graduates were unable effectively apply skills needed to be successful, experiential learning has become a baseline expectation in management education programs. Students increasingly expect opportunities to practice and demonstrate competency in the theories they learn in the classroom by applying them in real-world projects. However, expanding such opportunities for students is limited by a unique set of complex administrative challenges inherent in this approach. To expand opportunities for students, institutions must overcome scalability obstacles resulting from the customized nature of the offerings. Business challenges where student teams work with external partners provide a real world learning experience. But they also pose difficulty in applying a standardized approach to assurance of learning. Course content must be redeveloped each time the course is offered, as external projects must be sourced, leading to input and output variation. Advising, monitoring, and assessing students is resource intensive, because at many schools each team is assigned a different business challenge. This article offers a set of assurance of learning standards that institutions can apply to project-based experiential learning courses and posits that greater cross-departmental integration in sourcing projects and better use of technology can increase the efficacy and efficiency of the courses to address the scalability issue.Educatio

Independent Evaluation of the Jim Joseph Foundation's Education Initiative Year 4 Report

Research indicates that well-prepared educators help produce strong learning outcomes for students. For the continued health of Jewish education, higher education institutions should have the capacity to prepare sufficient numbers of highly qualified educators and education leaders for careers in Jewish education. Teachers, division heads, and school heads represent a substantial segment of the educator population in Jewish day schools. More than 5,000 educators enter new positions in Jewish day schools every year and are in need of adequate preparation. The most frequent obstacle to instructional quality in Jewish day schools is the difficulty in recruiting qualified teachers (Ben-Avie & Kress, 2006; Jewish Education Service of North America, 2008; Kidron et al., in press; Krakowski, 2011; Sales, 2007).A similar problem has been observed in supplementary schools in congregational or communal settings. These schools enroll the majority of Jewish children and adolescents receiving a Jewish education in the United States (Wertheimer, 2008). In recent years, congregations have begun to replace traditional educational programs with new approaches that aim to raise the quality of instruction and the level of parent and student satisfaction relative to their programs. These new approaches may include greater integration of experiential Jewish education and community service, family learning, and the integration of all aspects of congregational learning under the leadership of one director (Rechtschaffen, 2011; Sales, Samuel, Koren, & Shain, 2010). High-quality programs that are updated or reconstructed across time to meet the needs of the Jewish community require well-prepared directors and educators. However, many directors and educators in congregational schools have not participated in teacher preparation programs, and the depth of Jewish content knowledge among these teachers is highly variable (Stodolsky, Dorph, & Rosov, 2008)

Closing the gap between business undergraduate education and the organisational environment: A Chilean case study applying experiential learning theory

In response to the continuous changes in Latin American higher education and the increasing demands for better prepared professionals, the Learning Connected to the Organisational Environment method was introduced in the course of Marketing at one public University in Chile. This was aimed as an integrated approach to education, providing pedagogical and social value by connecting organisations and real challenges with the learning objectives. This paper describes its design, implementation and initial impact on students’ learning process. Results on the impact of the LCOE method show that students valued learning with this new initiative (n = 158) and showed higher performance and improved quality of their written reports, along with higher evaluations of the teaching staff compared to students in the same course learning with traditional methods (n = 158). Discussion is centred on the value of this initiative and on suggestions for transference and future research

A Review of Work Based Learning in Higher Education

The idea of work based learning in higher education might sound like a contradiction in terms. Work based learning is surely in the the workplace. The senses in which it might also, under certain conditions, be in higher education are explored in this review. There are increasing arrangements whereby people can obtain academic recognition for learning which has taken place outside of educational institutions. In addition to traditional forms of professional education and sandwich courses, one can add a host of relationships between employers and higher education institutions which involve quite fundamental questioning of the roles and responsibilities of each in the continuing education and training of adults. Such developments can be related to broader themes concerning the organisation of knowledge in society, the changing nature of work and career, the learning society and the implications they hold for individual workers, their employers and educational providers. The Department for Education and Employment sponsored the study to produce a substantial literature review of progress and issues raised in the field of work based learning in higher education. The first part of the book provides a contextual and conceptual backdrop against which more practical aspects of work based learning are then considered in part two. The final part considers strategic issues of implementation for higher education institutions, employers and individuals, before turning to more wide ranging issues of policy