Welcome to the new look REAL Assessor Newsletter

We hope you'll find this issue valuable to your role as an assessor.

2019 Moderation – what you need to know
Reform of Vocational Education - Proposal for Consultation
How to stay compliant
Completing assessments in Te Reo or Sign Language
Using Assessment Centres to improve trainee engagement
Entering the correct date of assessment
Timeliness of marking or completing assessments
Recording Oral / Verbal discussions:
How to deal with plagiarism
How to CRAVE good evidence
MyPath outage - 22 - 25 February - Aka Toi coming soon

This year, we ‘re contacting assessors when they have submitted their first assessment results in 2019 to get their 2019 Moderation Plans in progress. If you’ve already submitted results this year, please send assessment samples to moderation@careerforce.org.nz attaching Moderation Cover Sheet to begin your 2019 moderation. If you prefer to attend the Peer Moderation Workshop, the schedule and registration form are on our website.

As always, feel free to contact us if you have any concerns to:
assessor-admin@careerforce.org.nz

We're sure most of you will be aware of the proposal that has been released for consultation and which has drawn significant media coverage. In short, the proposal makes three recommendations:

1/ Redefining the roles of education providers and Industry Training Organisations (ITOs), and creating new Industry Skills Bodies. ITO (on-the-job) trainees would be transitioned from ITOs to the new Institute of Skills & Technology
2/ Merging the 16 Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITPs) into one Institute of Skills & Technology (IST)
3/ Creating a unified vocational education funding system

You can read more about the proposal here.

What does this mean for assessors and trainees?
For Careerforce it remains business as usual. We make an absolute commitment to you that existing and new trainees will not be adversely affected. All current or new trainees will be able to complete their training programmes and have their qualifications awarded.

For further information, please visit the Careerforce website and read the recent communication to employers in which Careerforce outlines its initial concerns. This is a six week consultation with submissions closing Wednesday 27 March. We encourage you to have your say during this consultation, either directly, or providing your feedback to Careerforce.

Compliance with moderation requirements is a mandatory condition of you remaining a Careerforce assessor. This is audited by NZQA. If you entered assessment results during 2018 and have not already sent samples for moderation, you will not be able to enter any further assessment results until you do so. Similarly, if you have been asked for further samples or additional information from the National Moderators, and not provided these, you need to respond to these requests. The deregistration process will automatically commence unless you contact assessor-admin@careerforce.org.nz with a plan to resolve any outstanding requirements. The National Moderators can work with you in a number of ways to suit your situation. Our Learning Engagement Advisors can give you individual support with the assessment process. We can only help if we are made aware of your needs.

The assessor made notes of the key points from the trainee answers on the assessment and added a detailed note to the moderator about the process used. Good practice! Another Apprenticeship assessor identified Māori trainees struggling to complete their written assessments in English. She explained that they could do these in Te Reo and they completed some very good work once the language barrier was removed. Again, good practice and meeting the trainee’s needs.

If you have trainees that wish to complete their assessments in Te Reo Māori or Sign Language, please contact assessor-admin@careerforce.org.nz so we can arrange translation services to help the trainee and the assessor complete the assessments in the most appropriate way.

We’ve used assessment centres to help workplaces get their trainees engaged and progressing through their qualification pathways. The assessor and observers/verifiers or workplace supervisors work together to complete the observations/verifications for a group of trainees. We then ask the trainees along to work with them to complete any gaps in their assessments and to have oral discussions so we can record evidence of answers for the assessor.

This process can be used by workplaces themselves as an internal process. If you are interested, contact us via moderation@careerforce.org.nz and we will tailor an approach to suit your needs.

Pacifica Talanoa
(talanoa means to talk or speak; it’s about inclusive, transparent dialogue to share stories and build empathy)

Warm Pacific greetings to you all for the start of 2019. Are we seriously in the month of February already?

In December 2018 Careerforce Te Toi Pukenga held our first Pacifica Talanoa with a focus on engaging with our Pacifica Apprentices.

We held a working breakfast fono at our Careerforce office in Manukau, Auckland to find out what kind of support is required to engage and motivate our Pacifica apprentices. Despite being nervous and a little hesitant to enter the front door of our building, the barriers were broken down through laughter, music, sharing of food and the telling of stories of their learning journeys to date. Those in attendance felt the initiative was well worth it and requested that this be on going event.

If you are in the Auckland area and have Pacifica trainees that could benefit from attending the Talanoa group email: Kuini.Peteli@careerforce.org.nz (Apprenticeships) or Toreka.Mamea@careerforce.org.nz (all other qualifications)

Resources/professional development opportunities to better support success and engage Pacifica trainees can be found here.

There are three parts to an assessment:

Preparing your trainee (discussing the assessment and ensuring that they understand what they have to do)
Conducting the assessment (theory and practical)
Giving feedback and processing results

You should not record the date of assessment until after you have given your trainee feedback, i.e. completed the entire assessment process. That way, the entry of results will be easier to keep within the five working days of completing the assessment.

Where the assessor has marked a trainee’s assessment and found areas that need further clarification or checking, a discussion can occur to collect more evidence.

Any additional information collected by the assessor during these discussions must be clearly documented.

'Evidence’ is the learner’s work, which demonstrates achievement of the assessment criteria. It needs to be recorded in ways that can be verified by another subject specialist or a moderator."

If the evidence has come from a dialogue with learners, assessors must provide a checklist or annotated file note with a standard-specific description of the evidence viewed that supports the judgements made." NZQA

What does this mean for a Careerforce assessor?

When you have any discussions with your trainees to collect more information, the new information must be noted down.
The notes must be clear so that anyone else reading them has a clear picture of the trainee’s performance.
The notes can be bullet points or a summary – they don’t have to be a full transcription of the conversation.
Be specific and ensure the notes are aligned to the task that requires more evidence.
Write the notes in a different coloured pen
Clearly identify that this new information is from an additional discussion.
Sign and date the notes.

Plagiarism is the presentation of someone else’s work as your own. In assessments this is seen as answers that have been copied in part, or in full, from the learning material. For assessment to be authentic the trainee must show their own knowledge and skills. While Careerforce assessments are open book, trainees cannot copy information from the learning material as their answers.

To avoid plagiarism, trainees must provide examples from their own work practice. When trainees provide an example of their practice, we see them applying what they have learned. This can be an acceptable demonstration of knowledge.

If we ask for a definition, we will accept a direct quote if this is referenced. An appropriate reference allows you (or anyone else) to find exactly where that information came from.

When marking and assessing, you should always use the assessor guide. The assessor guides typically use the same wording as the learning material. As part of good practice, you should also be familiar with the learning material. If the trainee has copied an answer it should be easily detected when using the assessor guide.

Do not mark plagiarised work as correct. Seek more information from the trainee. You can have a conversation and note down the key points of the discussion on the assessment. You and your trainee should both sign the notes to confirm that the notes are a correct record of the discussion.