Compliance, Assessments and Activity Tracking

Sharyn Hooper and Scott Huntley

The world of compliance in VET…

ASQA – Australian Skills Quality Authority

Registered Training Organisation (RTO) provides nationally recognised and accredited training in the VET sector in Australia

ASQA is the national regulator of the vocational education and training (VET) sector and conducts registration and compliance audits

RTO Standards The standards that refer to the

assessment process are 1.8 – 1.18 The standards require that we

validate assessment practices and judgments

A valid assessment judgment is one that confirms a learner holds all of the knowledge and skills described in a training product

RTO Standards In addition the assessment process

must be conducted in accordance with the Principles of Assessment and the Rules of Evidence.

Principles of Assessment:− Fairness− Flexibility− Validity− Reliability

RTO Standards Rules of Evidence

− Validity− Sufficiency− Authenticity− Currency

For more detailed information on the current standards -Download Standards for RTOs 2015

The audit experience We passed but challenges and areas

of improvement noted include – − Documenting the evidence to justify

the outcome you give a student. Why is a competent a competent???

− Feedback to students

− Informing students at every step in the learning and assessment cycle

Competency-based training and assessment

The definition that ASQA use for competency-based training and assessment:

Competency based training and assessment means that a person is trained and assessed to meet the performance and knowledge requirements to safely and effectively complete workplace activities in a range of different situations and environments, to an industry standard that is expected in the workplace.

Competency based What competency based training

and assessment is NOT…

Competency based training and assessment does not compare the training outcomes between learners. Learners are assessed against the requirements of a training product.

Competency-based assessment

What makes a student competent in a unit of study?

Is it 50%? Is it 70%? How about 100%?

How do I pass the unit? Students entering the VET sector

from school can be used to either:− Marks, percentages or similar. For

example 55 out of 100− If I turn up and hand something in I

must pass right???

We often get students who want to know the minimum amount they can complete in terms of assessment to be deemed competent− Surely if I do well in Part A I can skip

Part B???

How do we use Moodle? Like many Moodles, different

teachers use in different ways Not much interactivity

− Always a challenge to use more of Moodle’s potential

We wanted to trial Moodle core features to help with Compliance issues− Create transparency with our

students around Competency Based Assessment.

How do we use Moodle? Creation of a “Development Moodle”

to build pilot courses and trial features− We wanted to focus on Activity

Completion, Access Restriction, the Progress Bar, and Badges

− In other words, focus on controlling students’ workflows and feedback

Decided to trial Database cluster as Sharyn and Scott are both very familiar with this cluster− Focused on a single unit: ICTPRG425 Use Structured

Query Language

Student assessment guide One of the early steps in meeting the

requirements around the assessment process is informing the student of:− How they will be assessed− When these assessments will take

place

A standard document known as a student assessment guide is used

Student assessment guide Sample assessment guide containing

all the information required under compliance standards

Student assessment guide The evidence requirement is a

student acknowledgment of the receipt and understanding of this document

This is what the student sees:

Student assessment guide No access to the learning material

until the SAG receipt has been accepted:

Student Assessment Guides

There are other similar “red tape” forms that we need students to fill out, sign or acknowledge

For example Authority to publish or WHS checks

This used to be done with hard copies

Feedback and Tracking Options that we are trialling:

− Outcomes− Choice activities− Progress bar− Badges− Course Completion Report

Outcomes These are aligned to performance

criteria or elements of competence or benchmarks that a student needs to achieve

Once the benchmarks have been created they are assigned to the relevant assessment events

When teacher grades students’ completed assessment they evaluated each “benchmark” as satisfactory or not satisfactory

Outcomes Sample of setting up one Outcome:

Choices Activity We create a section in the Moodle

based on student achieving a benchmark

Same choice technique as used in the student acknowledgment of SAG.

In other words the student acknowledges the feedback and this triggers activity completion – this is our hack to allow the workflow to continue

Sample Choices Activity

Progress Bar We decided to do this on the

element level as there are so many performance criteria

One element represents one segment on the progress bar

When the student acknowledges the feedback on element completion it reflects on their progress bar.

Progress Bar Sample showing that one student

(Jacob) has achieved one element of competency so far:

Badges Can reflect the same data as a

progress bar We’ve set this up to reflect badges

gained:− per unit element of competency, − for a single unit or − for a cluster of units

Course Completion Report Once the outcomes, choices and

either badges or progress bar have been set up there are a number of reports that a teacher can use to track student completions

The next slide shows a sample:

Course Completion Report

Where to from here… This is just a start - lots more to try Great potential in saving time and

meeting our compliance targets A glimpse into the future – using

IFTTT or similar interfaces to trigger events outside of Moodle:− Putting a badge on a student

Facebook page− Tweeting a course completion

congrats!