assessment : Case study: Assessing learning or assessing a performance?

A group of students in the drama class at college have been working all term towards a theatre production. The leading player has studied hard and learned her lines well but her acting is wooden. Two weeks before the performance date a new student transferred to the drama class from another course .  She is a natural, confident actor and quick at learning her lines. The performance is next week. You have just heard that there will be a mock inspection of the college on the day of the performance. Who do you choose to play the lead part?

Last modified: 3 June 2013

assessment : Case study: Whose responsibility is this?

Barry was a tutor who had just interviewed a potential student for a course. During the interview he discovered that the new student’s previous qualification had been acquired as result of a fraud. The qualification had been obtained from a college X that had  allowed one of their assessors to sign a form saying that the student had undergone work experience when he had not in fact done so. This student had not done a work placement, neither had any of his class colleagues and so he had not realised it was course requirement. When his  previous assessor had signed off his work he had assumed this meant that all was acceptable.  The student was shocked when Barry told him his previous college X appeared to have committed a fraud and he said, “That means that my qualification is like an empty shell, what’s going to happen next?” . If you were Barry’s  mentor what advice would you give Barry ? Should he:-

a) Contact the College X where the fraud had taken place and tell the quality manager
b) Contact the Awarding Body that provided the certificate and inform their external quality reviewers

c) Contact another standard setting body like the College funders – the Skills Funding Agency or the college inspectors OFSTED

d) Do nothing and tell nobody about this as you don’t want the student to suffer any detriment

e) Contact a professional standards body like the Institute for Learning for advice

Last modified: 3 June 2013

assessment : Case study: Family Friendly Education

Anthea worked at a college that was well-known locally for its pastoral care for all its students. There was a strong family atmosphere and there were several family groups employed there – parents and grown up children, brothers and sisters, married partners and unmarried partners. Anthea was employed as an Assessor and was asked to assess the course work of a relative. She felt confident to do this fairly as she was following the assessment criteria carefully – in fact she felt if anything she might be too hard on him rather than too generous in her marking.

If you were the internal verifier what would you do?

Last modified: 3 June 2013