Pre-assessment

These resources can help you develop a plan to assess the current competencies of workers and the competencies required for the job.

Work-Based Learning Toolkit

This set of tools includes workplace audit interview questions to determine how students currently learn, a tool for writing good learning objectives, and a tool for developing the work-based learning plan, among other tools that may be useful in development a work-based learning project.

Quality Work-Based Learning Toolkit

New Ways to Work developed this guide for the Kansas City, Kansas, school system to assist employers and participants in creating learning objectives, evaluating performance, and using work-based learning plans to structure learning in the workplace. The guide contains definitions and examples of learning objectives, sample work-based learning plans, and templates for evaluation based on SCANS skill sets. While the toolkit is oriented to school-to-work internships, many of its tools could be easily adapted to adult work-based learning experiences.

Assessing Learning, by Susan Simosko and Associates, Center for Adult Experiential Learning

This handbook is designed to help faculty learn to assess prior learning. It covers a wide range of topics from the history and philosophy of experiential learning to the development of current assessment practices.

Prior Learning Assessment: A Guidebook to American Institutional Practices, by Brian J. Zucker, Chantell C. Johnson, and Thomas A. Flint, Center for Adult Experiential Learning

The results of this CAEL survey document the use and acceptance of various prior learning assessment (PLA) methodologies in postsecondary institutions throughout the United States. This survey looks at PLA via portfolio, a CAEL signature method, and other types of assessment such as standardized exams, challenge exams, the formal assessment of non-college programs by ACE and local institutions, and assessment of nationally-recognized certificates of achievement.