Integrating Unit Standards - Good concept, hard work
We've noticed a change in the way a number of our clients are approaching the issue of creating learning resources for Unit Standards. There is a growing desire to provide learning packages that integrate a number of Unit Standards. The motivations include:
• More flexibility in creating innovative, engaging learning resources
• Reduced duplication of assessment across multiple units
• A more coherent learning pathway than simply serving up content Unit by Unit.
Some of these drivers also sit behind the Government's recently announced decision to limit the extent to which students can be re-assessed against competency standards they have not achieved.
In the past some clients have been reluctantant to tackle these issues because:
• There was a need to allow learners to be assessed and sign off on individual units
• The task of aggregating content for multiple Elements and PCs was seen as too complex
• The task of writing integrated assessments for multiple Elements and PCs was also seen as too complex, particulary given the downside of multiple range statements being aggregated.
The heart of the problem is that while aggregated Units are great for learners, assessment and adminstration processes still need to manage content on a Unit Standard basis for recognition.
Our approach to this issue is to template a process that:
• Creates a matrix of aggregated P.C.s that define new topic structures but still leave transparent the Units they relate to
• Generates a matrix of assessment questions that maps aggregated P.C.s to assessment tools and keeps the linkages transparent.
That has taken us to the point where are able to provide to the development teams a coherent roadmap detailing how the content needs to be written. The next challenge is that creating integrated content resouces that meet these requirements is more complex that writing for single Units. More about that in a subsequent post....
Posted by PhilGaring at July 9, 2009 12:42 PM
