Description

All learners want to pass, but they are too often in the dark about how their habits and attitudes are preventing them from achieving their true potential.

By negotiating and sharing evaluation processes that value behavior and attitudes, as well as procedures and contents, learners begin to take responsibility for their own education; “What mark did she give you?” becomes “What mark did you earn?”.

Although it can seem like a complicated maze, the evaluation and assessment process is really very simple. The first stage is to envisage goals: Where would we like our learners to get to? What qualities and skills will they need to acquire in order to achieve those goals?

The course inspires you to design a set of evaluation criteria and rubrics for your own context, and implement a humanistic evaluation project in your school, which will help engage children with their education process and provide them with a road map of how to succeed, regardless of academic abilities or talents.

Learning outcomes

The course will help the participants to understand how to: 

• Implement a successful self- and peer-evaluation scheme;
• Write rubrics and criteria for formative assessment;
• Assess and evaluate ‘soft skills’;
• Use modules and weightings to modify negative classroom behavior;
• Educate and include parents in the evaluation;
• Support inclusion by valuing ethics and attitudes.

Tentative schedule

Day 1 – Course introduction & setting goals

Course introduction

• Introduction to the course, the school, and the external week activities;
• Icebreaker activities using drama for trust and ensemble building.

Setting goals

• Identification of needs and goals for each participant and relevant populations;
• Presentations of the participants’ schools;
• An overview of evaluation theory will be contrasted with the participants’ day-to-day reality. After an analysis of the language needed to talk about this area;
• We will discuss the bottom line of how to evaluate within European law.

Day 2 – Outcomes

• Using case studies and simple examples we will learn how to describe the outcomes we wish to achieve and how to start implementing them through self and peer evaluation schemes, involving children in their own assessment through games, roleplay, and tangible rewards.

Day 3 – Key competencies

• The key competencies help us to define and value the abilities a child needs to develop;
• How can we combine these with the demands of a course book and work towards external exams?

Day 4 – Communication

• All evaluative processes need to be transparent, achievable, and implemented from the outset;
• We will debate how best to share aims and processes with parents and the wider educative community, to measure progress in attitudes and procedures as well as in content knowledge.

Day 5 – Get creative

• Writing a project which applies your learning on this course to your own situation;
• Develop your own set of criteria and rubrics and take a project home for your school.

Day 6 – Course closure & cultural activities

• Course evaluation: round-up of acquired competencies, feedback, and discussion;
• Awarding of the course Certificate of Attendance;
• Excursion and other external cultural activities.