hi all, i have just been told at the last standisation meeting that we have to start using professional disscussions, i have tried i few, and i just seem to be asking questions and getting answers, not really dicussioning? any tips please!
thank you

I find that it is best not to tell the candidate that your are going to do a professional discussion. As you have found it ends up in a question and answer session, the candidate clams up and waits for your lead. In a tutorial you can introduce a topic and just chat about it you will find that they are far more forthcoming. Don't ask too many questions, say things like ' I find that training helps' and the candidate will usually agree and give you a history of their experiences. It's up to you to pick out the useful dialogue and write it up.

Hope that helps

Interesting idea, Aunty Sue, but be careful. All assessments must be planned and the candidate must have prior knowledge of what is to be assessed and how.
My approach is to agree that we will have a professional discussion about a specific topic and encourage the candidate to think about his/her evidence beforehand, making notes to prompt them in the discussion.
It is true that candidates do find professional discussions difficult, especially at level 2, so I do find myself having to prompt the candidate.

Persevere, it will become easier.

Dave

Hi Dave,
You are quite right, I meant to say that when you plan your professional discussion for a particular session you don't say 'Right let's start' you just slide into it.

We are about to introduce our assessors to the idea of tape recording direct observations and possibly professional discussions. They can then be downloaded to the computer, cross referenced and presented on discs. Have you any experience of this?

Aunty Sue

Hi Aunty Sue

As it happens, we've just acquired a few digital voice recorders for that purpose. I have some school crossing patrols doing customer service and it's not easy writing down an observation in the wind and rain! We had a bad experience where an assessor had used an old type of tape recorder and then left the organisation leaving us to hunt round to find a machine to play the tapes back for the IV and EV.

When you say "downloaded" are you intending to use voice recognition software or just record the spoken word? Not having actually cross referenced this sort of evidence, I think it may be quite labourious to work your way through it, especially if the evidence covers more than one unit - in customer service it could be seven at level 2!

Keep us posted on your progress.

Dave

Hi Dave,

Yes, I too have tried the old fashioned tape recorder on an Early Years programme but found I preferred writing notes. All I could hear was the voices of four year olds asking 'Wot ya doin'?'

My college wants our Care team to join its drive to encourage the use of ICT in all departments. What I could gather from our not very technically minded coordinator is that we will be given dictaphones with a 'thingy' so that you can 'plug it into the computer' and make a disc using some software.

I think that you would need to know the standards pretty well to record a direct obs that can be easily cross-referenced and I'm not sure how I feel as an IV. However, we shall see, I'm quite keen to see how it works. Apparently the assessors at a training centre in Leeds think its great.

I'll keep you posted!

Aunty Sue




You can't fight progress!

Hi
I have recorded both Observations and Prof discussions using a dictaphone and then used the Dragon naturally speaking software to transcribe into the written word,it does take a while to train the software to your voice and edit the finished article but well worth the effort in the long run! Saves soo much time.