Episode 19 - The Importance of Assessment in Astrology Training
When you are choosing and Astrologer, what are the minimum requirements you would like them to have demonstrated competence of?
When you're learning Astrology, how do you know that you know what you know?
As the famous quote goes …
"Tell me, and I will forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand."
In this episode, I share all the ways I involve my Certification Pathway students in the knowledge, practice, skills and techniques of Vedic Astrology.
The Asheville Vedic Astrology Apprenticeship Program on teachable.com
The Asheville Vedic Astrology Website to see the graduates of the program and to choose an Astrologer who is right for you
Here are links to essays written by previous students ...
The Symbolism of Signs 3, 4 and 5 (Gemini, Cancer and Leo)
The Evolutionary beginnings of the Zodiac (Aries, Taurus and Gemini)
Calculating Planetary Dignity and its Usefulness
Exploring the 4th, 10th and 11th Houses of a Horoscope
Chapters
0:00 Introduction and Overview
3:21 Why is Assessment Important?
8:15 Outline of the Assessments on the Asheville Vedic Astrology Apprenticeship Program
9:35 Generic Assessment Criteria for Essays on the Asheville Vedic Apprenticeship Program
10:27 Why is 'word limit' important?
12:27 Why is 'content' important?
14:07 Why is 'grammar' important?
19:45 Why are 'references' important?
22:44 Competency Based Assessment
24:15 Update on the Certification Pathway
26:58 What is an Assessment Feedback Session?
29:02 My background in Assessment
32:15 Minimum requirements that clients can expect from their Astrologer
33:00 The Practicum
36:36 Conclusion
For more information, contact me at and use this link to to enrol in The Asheville Vedic Astrology Apprenticeship Program on teachable.com
The Vedic Astrology Podcast Show Notes
Episode 19
The Importance of Assessment in Astrology Training – How do we know that we know what we know?
0:00 Overview
· Many things make Asheville Vedic Astrology Apprenticeship Program unique
o Ryan’s style
o Laying and building sequentially on a foundation
o Systematic approach to reading
o 8 days
o The Apprenticeship involves assessment
§ Knowledge
§ Skills / techniques
§ Application
3:21 Why is assessment important?
· Knowing that you know what you know
· Whatever program you are studying (and we’ve had many great teachers on this podcast already, so this is not which program is better or not etc.) there is a lot of value in being assessed
· It’s not often as an adult that another adult takes the time to assess your work
· Usually, we do our accredited learning as a child and young adult
· Then, after that, we read books, we research things, we apply things ourselves – but how often does someone with expertise, take the time to invest their attention in what you are learning, thinking about and applying?
“Tell me, and I will forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I will understand.” Confucius, circa 450BC
· How easy is it to watch a youtube video on astrology, or read a book and be like “that was interesting”, “that made sense” – but do we actually retain it?
· I think one of the things we all enjoy in the video lectures of the Asheville Vedic Astrology Apprenticeship Program is when Ryan opens a chart and starts reading it to demonstrate a particular technique. This is so valuable because one is seeing someone integrate the components we have been learning in a dynamic and spontaneous way
· But it is one thing to what it, it is another thing to replicate it on a novel chart!
· And this is where the assessments on the Asheville Vedic Astrology Apprenticeship Program come in – they as the student to demonstrate their application of the knowledge
· I think those of us who have completed any of the assessments can share that it is a completely different level of ‘knowing’ when you have to be the one to write it or explain it or demonstrate it etc.
8:15 So, what sort of Assessments do we have in the Asheville Vedic Astrology Apprenticeship Program?
· Quizzes
· Essays
· Case Studies
· Videos
· Practical exam
· Supervised readings
9:35 Assessment criteria for Essays …
· Word limit
· Content – Astrological knowledge
· Grammar
· References
10:27 Word limit
· Why have a word limit, isn’t that a bit picky?
· What the word limit is all about is about being able to express astrological ideas succinctly
· Astrology is a subject where it’s easy to waffle!
· They say a picture paints a thousand words, and Astrology is a symbolic language – so how do you distil all that richness and communicate effectively?
· Classically, there are 2 types of students on the program
o Those who find the word limit daunting because it’s sooooo many words, and
o Those who find the word limit is never enough to express all their ideas! LOL!
· When you work with clients, you need to be able to express complex and nuanced astrological insights in an effective way
12:27 Content
· Each essay has an ‘Astrological Content’ component
· We have essays on
o Zodiac signs
o Dignity
o Prosperity and Annihilation
o How planets express their energy in each house
o How a planet can be understood through its shad bala
o Describing a nodal axis, and more!
· As well as that we have essays on case studies, where the student picks a well-known person and describes the application of a technique as a way to understand the person’s chart and their life experience
· In the final portion of the course assessment, this case study is expanded to three x 10,000 word essays that explore a chart, house-by-house
14:07 Grammar
· Now, if you thought word limit was picky, what about grammar??
· The essay questions always asks students to
· Proofread their essays
· Write in full sentences and paragraphs
· Write in English
· You could say, what has this got to do with Astrology? Or being an Astrologer?
· At Asheville Vedic Astrology Apprenticeship Program, we are trying to create a generation of Vedic Astrologers who can communicate effectively about Vedic Astrology
· We want them to be submitting articles, writing blog posts, speaking at conferences
· Unfortunately, most of this is done in English – hence the focus on writing correctly in English
Tips
· I always recommend to my students that they
o Ask someone to check their essay
o If you are a native speaker, I recommend asking ‘Word’, or whatever program you use, to narrate your paper to you – this way, you can pick up errors with your ear
o For both native and non-native speakers I recommend that they use their word processing program to check the spelling and the grammar
o And then, beyond that, I recommend students drop their essays in the free ‘Grammarly’ and aim to get a score of 80% or above
§ Free Grammarly won’t fix everything for you, but it will highlight all the phrases that it considers problematic, then you can play with them on screen and see if you can fix them
Why go to all this trouble?
· My vision is to have all successful papers be at the stage where they are ready to be published
· That is the goal
· As a graduate of this program, you should be able to submit work that is ready to be published
· Not just Astrologically ready, but
· Grammatically ready
o No spelling mistakes
o Correct punctuation etc.
Reasoning
· The Essays also ask students to demonstrate their reasoning in relation to Astrological practice
· While Vedic Astrology has an intuitive component, it also has an intellectual and discerning element and the essays help students find their ‘reasoning’ voice
· This becomes very useful when working with clients because one can articulate ones reasoning for making a certain decision in terms of prediction etc.
19:45 References
· And this leads nicely to References
· Each Essay asks students to correctly acknowledge their sources
· This is important because, although one uses ones intuition in Astrology, one is also working in a field of data and conventions
· Where do those conventions come from?
· How do you know what you know?
· One of our very first essays asks students to analyse the Rasis in the context of the Yavana Jataka and the Jaimini Sutras
· Other times, students will be making observations about a well known person’s life – how does the student know that? – is it provable? – demonstrate your sources
· Another essay asks students to explain the procedure for calculating Planetary Dignity – this requires the student to refer to Brihat Parashara Hora Sashtra
· But even at the most basic level, we are encouraging our students to questions how they know what they know – if the 10th house relates to work and career – how do we know that? where is that written?
· When you take the time to understand the frameworks (that is, all the conventions and techniques), where they have come from, you know where you stand on solid ground as an Astrologer
· And you also know when you are working from intuition – which is fine, as long as you know it :)
22:44 Competency Based Assessment
· The assessment in the Asheville Vedic Astrology Apprenticeship Program are graded only in a binary way
o Yes, you have demonstrated your competency in this assessment
o No, you have not demonstrated your competency in this assessment
· So all students must pass the same standard
· There is no credit, distinction, pass etc.
· We are using Google Classroom as our platform to manage the assessments and it reflects this as 100%, which means all our students must get 100%
Rigorous
· So, as you can see, the assessment on the Asheville Vedic Astrology Apprenticeship Program is rigorous
· That is why Ryan shares that less than 10% of those who enrol in the program end up completing it
· And that is OK, you don’t have to be on the Certification Pathway
· But if you want someone to take the time to assess whether you are implementing the learning, we have that available
24:15 Certification Pathway
· The Certification Pathway has be re-instated since January 2022
· I’m delighted to report that we currently have 25 students enrolled on the pathway
· In the 4-5 months it has been available …
o 15 students have successfully demonstrated their competence in the Rasis and Signs Quiz (which asks are students to explain the basic astronomy of the zodiac)
o 6 students have been successful in their 1st Rasis and Signs Essay
o 4 students have been successful in the 2nd Rasis and Signs Essay
o And I have a handful of assessments that have been submitted and will be assessed this week
· So, people are progressing well
26:58 Assessment Feedback Sessions
· When students submit their work, they pay me for their assessment by booking a one-to-one feedback session with me
· At that feedback session on Zoom we
o go through the assessment and
o talk about any comments that I’ve made in relation to the assessment criteria
o We discuss the astrological content of the assessment as 2 colleagues i.e. what we found interesting, what we are currently contemplating etc.
o We might discuss grammar or how to present the information effectively
o Then there is usually time to answer other questions as well, so we have general discussion of how they are finding the program, any doubts they have about a particular topic etc.
· It’s a great opportunity to really connect about the student’s learning
29:02 So, how did I end up in this role?
· Way back in 2002 I received my Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Training from the Australian Government as part of their National Accreditation Framework
o As well as a strong Tertiary Education Sector, Australia has a rigorous and integrated national system of accredited training and assessment. This system is tailored to the workplace and covers practical skills that are applicable and demonstrable. It covers anything from plumbing and car mechanics to fitness instructing, massage, library studies etc.
· When one assesses in this context, it is not about grading, it is about demonstrating competency
· Some of the units covered in this qualification were …
o Not only “Plan assessment activities and processes”
o And “Assess competence”
o But “Maintain training and assessment information”
· So it covered the whole system side of assessment as well
· The minute Ryan shared his vision for putting the program on teachable.com, that assessment administrator in me just ‘clicked’ and I knew I had a role to play in the program
32:15 Minimum Client Expectations of their Astrologer
· So, now you know what I’ve been doing all April – assessing!
· But you also know how important it is to think about how your learning about Astrology is being assessed
· Because we need to know
o How we know what we know (that is the conventions and ancient texts that support our work)
o And, THAT we know what we know (i.e. by being able to demonstrate it in assessment)
· This is the minimum that a client can expect when they visit an astrologer – that the astrologer knows the framework of existing knowledge in which they are working and that they have demonstrated to experts that they know how to apply that knowledge correctly
33:00 Practicum Year
· And that is exactly what we do at Asheville Vedic Astrology Apprenticeship Program in the Practicum Year – which is the final year of program
· To gain entry to the final year, the student must read two charts set by the assessor of people they do not know and be able to answer a series of spontaneous questions asked by the assess live on a call
· This means, every student on the Practicum Year has given the same answers to questions about 2 different charts
· That already remarkable!
· Then in the Practicum Year, the student undertakes 42 supervised readings, for which
o they receive payment – demonstrating their ability to work as a professional astrologer, that they have business practices for communicating with clients, arranging appointments, collecting data accurately, channels for receiving payment etc.
o Both the client and the student submit written feedback on the quality of the session
· Separate to this, the student submits 3 x 10,000 word papers (meaning they have their first book ready to publish by the end of the Practicum) and
· They must produce 3 x 1 hour Vedic Astrology Lectures which will be published on Ryan’s YouTube Channel meaning the student has a profile to launch their professional practice from
36:36 Conclusion
· I hope you have enjoyed learning a little about how we assess Vedic Astrology Apprentices here at Asheville Vedic Astrology
· I’d love to hear how you know that you know what you know about Astrology
· And, if you are a teacher, running an Astrology School at the moment, I’d love to hear from you so we could do a follow up panel episode with several schools and their approach to assessment!