#1 - Andrew Atkin 2007-07-15 09:18 - (Reply)

Hello John, One point I want to make with trades-training, is that I think it's very important to not create an assessment regime that is too "intrusive". In America, they are progressively introducing a form of education called *Mastery Learning*. From what I understand, Matery Learning works by reducing the learned material to an explicity specified sequence of broken-down components, that the students must directly conform to (ML is also called Direct-Instructional learning) and to a point where you can say goodbye to natural reflective-thinking in your students [with Mastery Learning, student A's thought process is virtually *identical* to student B's; that's how extreme it specifies learning!]. The students have to demonstrate exact "mastery" in every sub-component before they can move on to the next component. I know that there is a lot of controversy in these learning systems - apparently they produce appalling academic outcomes, yet ML still seems to be being pushed for "questionable" reasons (I'll stop there!). Obviously the government (well, MOE) must specify demonstrated-outcomes for a student to win a qualification, but I do not believe that they should specify the method; or, more to the point, specify outcomes in a way so that the 'outcomes' effectively control the learning method in themselves - that's my concern here (which is what ML systems do). In my opinion, the MOE should operate a traditional exam-type system for the trade-skills (and virtually everything else for that matter), for as much as they practically can. Maybe they already intend on doing this? I'm just making my point in case. I would hate to see students being forced to conform to a monkey-see/monkey-do mode of learning that doesn't allow them to develop a natural comprehensive grip on what they're doing. Food for thought!?