Innovative curriculum designing for work - based learning
Unit 3. Assessment of work-based learning
3.2.1. How to make effective dialogue-orientated evaluations?
To keep a good project work going teacher/trainer and students should
meet at least once a week to discuss the general progress and evaluate the work
that has been done so far. We believe that a dialogue-orientated evaluation is
more effective than a technical evaluation by the teacher/trainer himself. This
way, students reflect their work by themselves and identify, at best, autonomously strengths, and weaknesses.
This metacognition is very important in the learning process. The students
learn that it is their own learning process, their own responsibility, and they
will therefore treat the project as their own work.
Some questions for the dialogue-orientated evaluation:
- How is the project work going, what results have you achieved?
- What went very good?
- Where did you face difficulties?
- Which deviations from the original plan did you have to make?
- Why were they necessary?
- Why do you think these deviations lead to the successful finish of the project?
- Do you think there are any risks that might occur during the next steps?
- Which other findings did you make during the project work?
- Which are the next steps in the project work?
- Where do you need support?
- How content are you with the project work so far? Do you have suggestions for improvement?
The results of the evaluation dialogue should be documented, so that everybody can check the results and suggestions for improvement later on. This is vital for the learning process of the students. When the project is finished, they can check the documentations and get an impression on the project work, now from the perspective of the person who finished the project.
We suggest you as a teacher/trainer visualize the answers of the students on a flipchart.