Chartered Educational Assessor (CEA) Handbook

Contents

Contents
Foreword
Introduction to the Chartered Educational Assessor (CEA)
The role of the CEA
What this means for the education and training sectors
CEA Pilot - Overview
CEA Pilot Tools - Introduction
The Spread sheet
CEA Tools Process
Initial Audit
Action Plan
Monitoring Document
Final Audit
The Case Study
CEA Portfolio Development Outline
Summary of the CEA Portfolio Process
www.ciea.org.uk CEA resources
www.ciea.org.uk CEA (Knowledge centre)

Foreword

'Chartered Education Assessor' is both an accolade and a responsibility. It conveys the message that
the CEA is a highly experienced and knowledgeable assessment practitioner, accredited by a chartered professional body. It also carries the responsibility to work to the highest standards of professional conduct in all assessment activities.

The Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors (CIEA) is an independent professional body committed to improving the quality of assessment for the benefit of learners, assessors and society. Its mission to raise the quality and profile of assessment is an important facet of the professionalism of those carrying out assessment work, whether for awarding organisations or in schools, colleges, professional bodies or businesses. The work of CEAs is central to this task.

The CIEA is a membership organisation that represents the assessment community. I believe strongly that the professional job of assessment, which is carried out by thousands of people across many institutions and organisations, can gain in strength from the work of the CIEA and the professional recognition that it gives to its members, especially those with who reach the level of Chartered Education Assessor.

John Dunford, CIEA chair

The role of the CEA

The role of the CEA is to quality assure the assessment processes that schools, colleges or training centres use. This could be in a single school or college, across a federation of institutions, within
a workplace, or across a consortium or federation. The CEA will look to improve the processes of assessment wherever it takes place, ensuring that the preparation for assessment is effective. This means looking at the policies and procedures that are in place and how the strategy for assessment is delivered. The CEA will offer support in designing and developing effective assessments that are reliable, valid, fit for purpose, manageable and fair.

The CEA will also look to improve the way that assessments are conducted. This will involve developing effective assessment criteria and setting suitable assessment objectives as well as arriving at consistent and accurate methodologies. This includes effective standardisation and moderation procedures, as well as collecting and storing assessment information from the outcomes
of these assessments. The CEA will also look at ways of using this information to inform future teaching, training and learning programmes, as well as demonstrating the effectiveness of the assessment itself. The evidence will be used to provide feedback to learners as well as members of the assessment teams and their line managers. It will form the basis of the next teaching or training programme as well as data on which to write reports for parents or carers, for managers and for other stakeholders such as local or national government as well as local and national industry.

The CEA will also encourage teams of assessors to reflect upon their own performances by using information to help them to plan their own professional development.

Introduction to the Chartered Educational Assessor (CEA)
Finally the CEA will look at how this development process is effected across a team of assessors
within the same subject discipline or domain, across multiple subject domains or even across institutions. Importantly, this needs to take account of how assessments achieve consistency across different groups of learners over time.

What this means for the education and training sectors
All of this means that the assessment process within any place of learning will become professional, consistent, reliable and validated by a professional person working to professional standards. Instead of the quality control procedures that affect institutions currently, driven by bureaucratic procedures and processes, the CEA could lead to a system that relies on quality assurance and professional judgements borne from the skills and capabilities of those closest to learners.

It also means that teaching and training become more focused and effective, and learning becomes more meaningful and better understood by the learner. It will reinforce the virtuous cycle of effective assessment leading to more focused teaching and more focused and personalised learning.

The CEA will follow the process shown below. It is important that each CEA takes the same approach to the role though it is recognised that some elements (e.g. the Action Plan) might be personalised.

CEA Case-study
CEA Training Event
Links with establishment
Initial visit
Initial audit
Action Plan
Monitoring of Action Plan
Final audit
Case Study

1. The prospective CEA will attend a CIEA training and assessment event.
2. Establish a link with a suitable educational establishment.
3. Make first visit to the establishment in order to meet staff and let staff get to know you. This visit is very important as it may well set the tone of the whole interaction. As a CEA you are there to help, not inspect, and you should make that clear. Let us know that you will be making a visit and that it has taken place.
4. Initial audit. Using the CEA audit tool. On your next visit you can used the CEA audit tool to record your impressions of the assessment expertise at the establishment. It is important not to share your views with staff at this stage. The initial audit is taken so that the CEA can suggest areas for action planning and so that you have something to compare with at the end of the process.
5. Action Plan. The CEA will devise an action plan with the establishment. This will be collaborative so that staff will feel that they have ownership of the actions. The action plan should contain clear and achievable goals and definite timetables. Please note that the CEA should not carry out any actions on behalf of the establishment.
6. Monitoring. The action plan will need to be monitored closely so that the proposed deadlines are not missed.
7. Final audit. At the end of the action planning cycle the CEA will conduct a second audit. Again this
should be low key and for the use of the CEA (and the CIEA) only.
8. Produce a case study outlining how the CEA has worked with the establishment.

We will supply each CEA with the following tools:
1. An excel spread sheet containing the documents for: initial audit, action planning, monitoring and final audit.
2. A template for the case study.

CEA Case-study Tools - Introduction

Initial Audit
Action Plan
Final Audit
Monitoring
Document

CEA Pilot Tools Process

Initial Audit
The first of the spread sheets is the Initial Audit. This is set up in Excel so that all you need to do is to enter the name of the centre, your name and then five numbers. The numbers should go in the correct cell and must be entered as numbers as this will give the candidate a good general idea of the level of competence. If you think the centre is a 5 for Preparing for Assessment then enter a number 5 in the appropriate cell.

Once the Initial Audit is completed it should be sent by email to the CIEA. Include in the subject line:
. your name
. the type of document, i.e. Intial Audit

Action Plan

The next tab on the excel spread sheet contains the outline of the Action Plan. The CIEA recommends that you focus on two areas for improvement. That's two areas in total - not per framework section. The Action Plan can be drafted using the excel tool but the establishment might prefer to have it on headed notepaper. This is fine. Use the excel tool for an initial outline only then produce the Action Plan proper is MSWord. Send all versions to the CIEA as soon as they are complete. (Your name and clear subject refs in the subject line of the e-mail please.)

The Action Plan should be SMART i.e. it should contain actions which are:
Specific clearly defined
Measurable observed objectively
Achievable not too far reaching
Relevant related to the matter
Time related over a defined period

Monitoring Document
The Monitoring Document is for the CEA to use in order to track the progress of the Action Plan.
It is essentially the Action Planning document with two extra columns added. Once the Monitoring Document is completed it should be sent by email to the CIEA. Include in the subject line:
. your name
. the type of document, i.e. Monitoring Document

Final Audit
The Final Audit is in exactly the same form as the Initial Audit. It is completed in the same way -
a number in each of five columns - as before. The numbers may well be different from those in the Initial Audit - but only if a real change has been observed. Once the Final Audit is completed it should be sent by email to the CIEA. Include in the subject line:
. your name
. the type of document, i.e. Final Audit

The Case Study

The final part of the CEA process is the writing up of your experiences in a case study. Write the case study. (You will have been sent an electronic version of the template with the CEA spread sheet tools.)

Some points to bear in mind

Language
You should write in clear English, avoiding jargon where possible. If the establishment you have been
working in has particular terminology that has to be used then this should be clearly explained or referenced where necessary. Equally, if there are acronyms which are common to the centre then it's a good idea to spell them out. You should write objectively and avoid overly personal words and phrases. The CEA should remember that the establishment might eventually see the case study and that the CIEA might well decide to publish case studies on the website.

Audience
The CEA should assume a general audience with an interest in education and assessment. Potential readers include the CIEA, teachers, awarding organisation staff and parents.

Chartered Educational Assessor (CEA)Portfolio Development Outline

Institution Context
A brief paragraph on the background to the institution, including its name, the type of institution, its geographical setting and so on the area that the CEA and the institution agreed to look at - a department, a subject area, an age range or similar subsection your view of the assessment awareness of the staff with whom you worked and the structures that the institution had in place

Complete your first audit using the CEA audit tool (enter one number in each column) schedule of meetings including the date, a brief description of the activities and any notes that you may wish to make comment on any of the CIEA tools you have used from the knowledge centre such as the Insights package, the Assessment Policy, the Toolkits the Assessment Skills Gap Analysis (ASGA)tool for example

Outline the processes that you went through in order to draw up the action plan,
a copy of the agreed action plan. This could be in Excel - using the CEA template - or a word document as appropriate
a summary of the monitoring document using the CIEA tools in Excel. It can be written on institution paper if so required your own view of the achievements within the given time frame:
a critical evaluation of your work. This is the key to the entire portfolio
a view of the achievements from the perspective of the institution. The institution may well offer its views using a pro forma available from CIEA

Summary of the CEA Process

CEA Training Event
Links with establishment
Initial visit
Initial audit
Action Plan
Monitoring of Action Plan
Final audit
Case Study

Resources

There are numerous resources on the CIEA website that the CEA can:
. use to brush up on personal skills and knowledge
. direct centres to in order for staff to train themselves
Among the CIEA resources you will find in the Knowledge centre Insights on:
preparing for assessment
conducting assessment
feeding back on assessment
question setting
technology in assessment
data handling
In addition, the members' area contains detailed additional research material on each of these areas.

www.ciea.org.uk (Knowledge centre)

The Knowledge centre also contains an interactive Assessment Policy - this can be used by a centre to build a policy from scratch or to develop an existing policy.
There is a Toolkit for Assessors - this allows visitors to mark English, maths and science papers live on screen and receive instant feedback on the accuracy of the marking.
A very useful resource in the CEA Training area is the archive of previous case-studies produced by successful CEAs, covering most types of educational establishment.