Self-assessment of embedded literacy and numeracy
After more than three years of embedding literacy and numeracy in tertiary organisations I increasingly heard the question from colleagues across the country: We are embedding literacy and numeracy, but how do we know we are doing it well?
The National Centre of Literacy and Numeracy for Adults contracted me to further develop ELN capability across Aotearoa/New Zealand and the above question was one we decided to address.
In line with the self-assessment culture that each non-university tertiary education organisation in Aotearoa/New Zealand is expected to develop we created a whole organisation self-assessment framework specifying good practice in ELN. This framework allows organisations to critically examine adn judge their own ELN practices and define areas for improvement. It is a whole organisation framework as it incorporates the contribution of all relevant aspects of an organisation to student development in literacy and numeracy. In addition, we developed a model to assist organisations with decision-making for ELN based on learner out come data.
The framework and model have been used in different formats with different organisations. Feedback to date from people who have worked with the framework has been extremely positive.