Welcome to the REAL Assessor Newsletter

All Careerforce assessors are required to participate in professional development and moderation annually. The new look Assessor and Moderation Hubs (Te Wānanga Mātauranga) will accommodate both of these requirements.

The morning session will be professional development for all assessors, which provides an opportunity to learn about different approaches to assessment, generating new ideas, and working through any issues. The afternoon session will be peer moderation. It will ensure your assessment decisions are in line with those of other assessors nationwide. This is where assessors are given the chance to compare and critique each other’s assessment skills.

This process provides a ‘community of practice’. It’s an opportunity to network and ensure all assessors are performing their role at the same high standard and are confident with assessing.

Careerforce specifies a range of unit standards for moderation each year as shown in our moderation 3 year plan. Each assessor brings along three assessment samples, the assessor guides and the NZQA unit standard.

Our 2021 schedule for the Assessor Hub and Moderation (Te Wānanga Mātauranga) workshops is on our website.

Please select a workshop in your region and register here.

Talofa lava and warm Pacific greetings to you all.

After surveying Pacific Assessors (based in Auckland) to see how Careerforce can support them better, we will be hosting our first Pacific Assessor ‘Talanoa’ (an informal conversation/networking event).

This will be held on Friday 2 July in Auckland from 1.00pm-3:30pm. Invitations will be going out in the next week. If you are interested in attending, call Laloifi Ripley on 027 886 2443 or email ifi.ripley@careerforce.org.nz for more information. We would love to see you there.

Do you have Pacific learners in your organisation that would benefit from more support? Please contact Laloifi on the email or mobile number above to discuss.

These are just some of the issues we'd like your feedback on.

We're seeking feedback on a draft report that explored preferred modes of learning for health and wellbeing programmes undertaken primarily via work-based learning. This survey is part of the consultation process to capture the thoughts, comments, and feedback from stakeholders about the findings and the core recommendations presented in the draft report. The survey should only take you about ten minutes to complete.
The report makes the following draft recommendations:

Environment Recommendations

Identify and analyse what is changing specifically for healthcare support workers in target sectors.

Training Methodologies and Material Recommendations

Agree which skills are new, need updating or are now irrelevant for the roles that relate to each targeted qualification.
Develop an integrated blended learning model for employers and employees that suits different learning styles and organisational type.
Develop cross-organisation trainee networks to improve quality, consistency, and equality of training.
Foster a culture of collaborative and continuous learning.
Introduce social influence through self-directed groups.
Use, invest and develop e-Learning platforms further.
Make all training materials accessible 24/7.
Drive and develop stackable micro-credentials for high change, high demand areas.

Employer Recommendations

Be the expert and anticipate.
Create a supportive learning culture.
Develop supportive learning cultures.
Make learning experiential for employees.

View the draft report, or visit our website for more information.

We are always looking for ways to support assessors using Aka Toi. In response to feedback or requests we have created downloadable PDF guides (or in some cases videos). Over time this has become quite a long list to scroll through. So, we’ve recently revamped our Assessor Help area.

Assessors can now quickly identify the category for the help they require, eg Online question tasks, Downloaded activity tasks or General guides, and select the link. From there, only guides related to that category will display. Don’t worry, it is easy to go back to the categories – just select ‘Back to Help’.

We’ve also added a new category – Handy resources – these are documents that aren’t really guides, but have been suggested as something that will be useful, e.g. a document listing the tasks that are marked automatically, or an infographic to help with knowing when to use iportal or just trust Aka Toi.

If you are an assessor on Aka Toi, why not have a look through what is available. Assessor Help can be accessed via the top menu; select Help, then Assessor Help. You’ll also find FAQs in this area.

If there is anything you would like included in ‘Help’ or you would like some training on using Aka Toi, please call 0800 277 486 and ask for the Aka Toi team.