Excavating Experience to Reveal Learning: Practical Approaches to Facilitating Experiential Learning Claims for Accreditation

Abstract

This article will discuss the facilitation and assessment of Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL) as part of a work based learning program of studies in the UK.  It will outline how Middlesex University’s (MU) work based learning framework uses APEL as a starting point for degrees and post graduate programmes, and will offer some structured approaches to constructing accreditation claims. It will consider the use of different sized generic project modules as a framework for accrediting work based learning. It discusses the skills required by facilitator when supporting claimants in constructing an accreditation claim and suggests providing a ‘scaffold’ (Lipscomb et al 2004) to assist with the process of constructing a claim. Factors that facilitate an APEL claim from the facilitator’s perspective and some characteristics of a good claim are presented as outcomes from Workman’s (2007) research into facilitation and assessment of APEL.