'Going Out there': Assessing community engagement learning

Dallas Wingrove and Amaya Alvarez
RMIT University

Keywords: assessing non-traditional learning

Assessment sends a message to our students, and all stakeholders, about what is valued and about what matters.

This paper analyses and explores our experiences of developing an elective out of an existing non-assessed program, and the kinds of issues, challenges and questions that have arisen concerning framing the assessment for such learning.

The paper focuses on the challenges of developing assessment for learning which:

• seeks to enhance both preparation for professional practice and the social and civic dimensions of learning;
• engages students in non traditional learning experiences outside the formal classroom setting; and
• represents a shift from a content-driven didactic approach to teaching and learning to a student-centred one.

Integrating and applying assessment practice in ways which promotes and enhances students' learning has far reaching implications for educators in higher education, university processes and structures, and for competing educational agendas. Instead of assessment focusing on student's individual success (or not), this paper explores the challenges of assessing students in ways that enhances student's experience of learning and which supports our reflective practice as teachers.

In doing so, the paper will explore the following questions.

• How do you assess learning that involves students in a program whose approach and delivery lies outside their disciplinary learning?
• How do you assess learning that is based on on-the-ground experience outside a campus learning environment?
• How do you assess student's engagement with authentic and diverse learning experiences in ways which promotes and deepens learning?

The paper relates to the conference themes through its exploration of a case study that illustrates the integration of learning, teaching and assessment and the story it tells about the challenges of developing and applying formative assessment to promote student learning.