Conceptualizing learning and its assessment in community placements

Police, at least in Sweden, Northern Ireland and New South Wales (albeit short-term in the case of the latter), have incorporated community placements into recruit training, with the aims of increasing professionalism, and of increasing police recruits' level of understanding of the circumstances typically faced by sectors of the population they will police. These community placements are quite similar in their aims, and the assumptions that underpin them, to 'service learning', an American initiative in schools and universities, where students undertake placements in disadvantaged communities, accomplishing 'tasks that meet genuine human needs in combination with conscious educational growth' (Stanton et al., 1999, p.6). Establishing a fair and appropriate assessment regimen is particularly problematic in community placements, above and beyond the problems with professional placements, because of the greater diversity in organizations and students' roles within them.

The immersion of individual students in what are intentionally unfamiliar environments, especially for a brief period (in this case, four weeks), means that the way in which learning from and through experience might occur becomes a critical issue. Misconceptualizing it can mean that assessment items are designed that measure the wrong things, or only a part of the intended learning. In the case of New South Wales between 1997 and 2000, the learning model underpinning the community placement was that of reflective practice. The sources of this model were Schön's (1987) notion of the reflective practitioner, combined with Brookfield's (1989) notion of critical reflection, and the experiential learning cycle (Boud & Walker, 1991; Boud & Miller, 1996; Boud et al., 1996). Each of these frameworks poses a problem for learning and assessment in community placements. Schön's identification of reflection-in-action as a characteristic of expert practice translates poorly across to temporary sojourns in unfamiliar work environments; critical reflection is seldom a feature of students' work, even when placements occur in their chosen profession (Kerka, 1996; Bartrop, 1992; Wilmot, 1995); and few theorists have explored the intentional, future-oriented aspects of the experiential learning cycle discussed by Walker & Boud (1994), when all that may sustain students in an unsuitable or difficult placement may be that completing the placement will allow them to pursue their chosen profession.

During the marking of the students' work, this hybrid model of reflection was identified as inadequate for the task, in that learning was evident in students' work, but this learning lay outside the assessment rubrics. If, as Packer & Goicoechea (2000) have asserted, ontology (our theory of being) precedes epistemology (our theory of knowledge), or even if it is merely that there is a pattern of mutual influence (Wilson, 1998), then it is important to address our understanding of what it is to be a learner or a member of a profession. Much contemporary literature on adult learning, although not using these specific terms, refers to the need to take actor, habitus and context into account, and considers that learning is linked to changes in selves and self-positioning (Billett, 2001; Wenger, 1998). That there are tensions between understanding individuals as autonomous and as socially constructed is also identified (Garrick, 1999).

Burkitt (1999; 1997; 1991), a sociologist, uniquely incorporates notions of embodiment, thought, feelings, actions, social and natural contexts, pasts and futures into his 'ecological' understanding of selves in the late modern context. In articulating his ecological approach to identity, he draws on very similar intellectual traditions to situated learning theorists, as well as those interested in experiential learning. Burkitt also considers the importance of action, the need to recognize the embodiment of selves, as well as the situating of selves in the late modern context, with its complex interplay of public and private worlds. Although the ecological perspective is not alone in reinforcing these aspects of being and identity, importantly Burkitt's ideas suggest that interaction between the embodied individual and his or her contexts (remembering, following Giddens (1991, p.53), that the late modern era involves us simultaneously in multiple contexts for action), and the multiple affordances inherent in this interplay (those of the individual and the multiple contexts), must be recognized in considering learning and its assessment.

It is not just the multiplicity of interactions within and outside the placement that need to be taken into account in considering learning. It is also important, particularly in education that is closely tied to an intended career, to consider how learners see their futures, and how this understanding of their future might affect their actions in an unfamiliar situation. The future is an under-researched area in adult education - the focus has largely been upon retrospective aspects of reflection. It is worth revisiting Giddens' descriptions of the consequences of modernity, particularly people's attempts to negotiate an unpredictable and potentially dangerous future against a background of a complex and ill-understood world. As he puts it, '[...] living in the modern world is more like being in a careering juggernaut [...] than being in a carefully controlled and well-driven motor car' (Giddens, 1991).

All in all, then, taking a holistic and interactive stance on selves opens the door to a more far-reaching and complex view of learning. In work placements, neither the work environment nor the student can be isolated from each other, nor can past, present and future. Placement processes - and assessment strategies - need to be designed with interactivity and unpredictability clearly in mind. Recent developments in assessment (Barab & Kirshner, 2001; McIntyre, 1996; , Kerka, 2002) highlight the difficulties in assessing performative skills, and suggest a shift in focus from summative to formative assessment, and to students tracking their own learning and achievements through the production of portfolios. Are these processes sufficient for the assessment of learning in community and other placements?

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

جامعة أم البنين (عليها السلام) الإلكترونية تعلن فتح باب التسجيل للدراسات التبليغية والقرآنية

مستشفى الكفيل يعتمد أحدث التقنيات العالمية في عمليات زراعة القوقعة

مركز السيد جعفر الحلي يستقبل مدير صحة كربلاء للاطّلاع على خدماته المقدّمة للزائرين

قسم الشؤون الفكريَّة يقدِّم ندوة ثقافية لوفد شبابي من الموصل

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

حالة صحية شائعة قد تُخفي "إنذارا مبكرا" للإصابة بالسرطان !

"أوميغا 3" صديق القلب.. هل يربك سكر الدم؟

بدائل لليمون.. 8 إضافات للماء تعزز فوائده الصحية

دراسة: محاولة متعمدة لنشر الإنفلونزا تنتهي بـ"مفاجأة"

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

سلامة الأطفال: سبع قواعد ذهبية للركوب الآمن بالسيارة

توقع خطير لماسك: الروبوتات ستتفوق على البشر من حيث العدد

دراسة تكشف عاملا غير متوقع يرتبط بزيادة خطر الإصابة بالتوحد

"ميتا" توقف وصول المراهقين إلى شخصيات الذكاء الاصطناعي ؟

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Parents with Learning Disabilities CONCLUSION

PROVISION OF SUPPORT

CARING FOR CHILDREN

EUGENICS AND ETHICAL ISSUES

PARENTING

DISCRIMINATION AND DIVERSITY

THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Parents with Learning Disabilities

Legislation and Learning Disabilities CONCLUSION

LEGAL SAFEGUARDS

MENTAL CAPACITY ACT 2005

THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT 1998