Designing, creating and reviewing learning resources for peer activities — Ascentis Occupational Qualification Teaching & Education Revision
This element focuses on the practical skills needed to design, create, and evaluate learning resources for peer-led activities within youth work. It explor
Topic Synopsis
This element focuses on the practical skills needed to design, create, and evaluate learning resources for peer-led activities within youth work. It explores how factors such as age, ability, cultural background, and learning styles influence resource design, ensuring materials are engaging, accessible, and aligned with intended learning outcomes. Learners are expected to follow a cyclical process of planning, producing, testing with peers, and refining resources to enhance their effectiveness in informal educational settings.
Key Concepts & Core Principles
- Voluntary Participation: Youth work is based on young people choosing to engage, which distinguishes it from compulsory education. Practitioners must create safe, welcoming environments that encourage attendance.
- Youth Work Values: Core values include equality, diversity, inclusion, and respect for young people's rights. These underpin all practice and are assessed through reflective accounts.
- Safeguarding: Understanding legal duties to protect young people from harm, including recognising signs of abuse and following organisational policies. This is a mandatory unit.
- Effective Communication: Using active listening, questioning, and non-verbal cues to build trust. Practitioners must adapt their style to different ages and backgrounds.
- Group Work Dynamics: Facilitating group activities that promote participation, manage conflict, and support individual development within a collective setting.
Exam Tips & Revision Strategies
- When being assessed, always explicitly link every design decision back to the learning objectives and the characteristics of the peer group. Use language like ‘I chose this format because…’ to demonstrate purposeful reasoning.
- Provide concrete evidence of the testing and review cycle: include completed feedback forms, annotated photographs of the resource in use, and a clear ‘before and after’ comparison of changes made based on feedback.
Common Misconceptions & Mistakes to Avoid
- Designing resources that are too instructor-led, failing to consider that peer activities require materials that empower young people to facilitate their own learning.
- Ignoring diversity and inclusion, such as assuming all learners have the same reading level, cultural references, or physical abilities, which can alienate participants.
- Skipping the testing stage or treating it superficially, leading to resources that are not fit for purpose because they haven’t been trialled in a real youth work setting.
- Confusing ‘review’ with just describing what they did, rather than critically analysing the resource’s effectiveness against the learning objectives and making specific, measurable improvements.
Examiner Marking Points
- Award credit for demonstrating a clear understanding of how age, developmental stage, and prior knowledge of the peer group influence the choice of format, language, and complexity of the resource.
- Look for evidence that the designed resource directly addresses the stated learning objectives, with a logical link between activities, content, and intended outcomes.
- Assess the inclusion of a robust testing phase, where the resource is piloted with a sample of peers and constructive feedback is gathered and documented.
- Evaluate the quality of the review process: credit should be given for identifying specific strengths and weaknesses, then implementing realistic improvements to the final resource.