Volunteering gives you an opportunity to gain valuable learning – your educational institution may recognize that learning if it is relevant within your programme of study. This platform will help you to identify and document your learning in a format that might be suitable to apply for validation.
Validation is a possibility, upon the wish of an individual, to explain and confirm the competences gained in non-formal and informal contexts like in volunteering, to better use them for further purposes like career choices or educational pathways. Through validation, carried out by an authorised body, the individual competence development is mostly measured against the standards used in formal education. As a result, a partial or a full qualification can be acquired. Source: https://www.youthpass.eu/en/recognition/validation/
When seeking validation, having identified the learning relevant to the field of study; the stages of documentation and assessment work together in deciding what should form part of an application. Usually these stages are undertaken in light of the particular field of study, destination award sought or an individual module content. A fifth stage has been identified when moving from the documentation phase to the assessment phase, referred to as the conversion phase indicated by the red line in the diagram below. This additional phase is the transfer of learning from volunteering into formal education.
Learning is not restricted and limited for use within the context in which it was gained. It can often be relevant and applied in other unrelated contexts. This means that students can be granted credits and/or exemptions from modules on courses where they can show that they have achieved sufficient prior learning from an unrelated context but relevant to their area of study.
The first step is to identify what you learnt while volunteering which is related to the curriculum content of your course or qualification, and may thus be valued.
Look at the subjects and modules of your Study Programme and the Learning Outcomes (LO) of each subject and module. When comparing your learning from volunteering you consider it in the context of an entire module or subject and not just elements completed.
For each module/subject LO, you will need to reflect on which volunteering situations/activities enabled you to achieve such learning.
Write in this tool every LO you have identified related to previous learning from volunteering and provide, in the section Learning Achieved, a clear explanation of how your learning from volunteering matches that of every LO. You can download the tool in editable format by clicking on the File menu placed on the top left and then click on Download .
Now that you have identified the transferable learning gained through your volunteering, the next step in the process is to find and collect evidence that supports your learning.
In the same tool you used at stage 1, for each LO, please fill in the section Evidence.
If your voluntary organisation is not aware of a potential procedure to adequately document your learning through volunteering, there is some guidance for them available here.
The learning from volunteering is often prepared in a portfolio for assessment. A portfolio is a collection of information and documentation which supports an application for validation and provides evidence of the learning relevant to an individual course subject or module.
It is highly recommended that you discuss an application for validation with the appropriate academic staff before preparing your portfolio because different colleges and universities will have varying processes and requirements. The information you provide and the format you have to follow may also vary depending on the validation you are looking for.
The format of the portfolio is dependent on the basis of the claim and will vary from applicant to applicant and also from Institution to Institution. There are usually three main sections in a learning portfolio:
The CV is the first part. This outlines your education, training, work and life experience to date. You should include your volunteer work in this section providing detail as to the roles and responsibilities you have undertaken.
The second part is the Learning Achieved section. This is where you must show the learning you have achieved through your volunteering experiences against the learning outcomes of the module for which you are seeking validation. The tool presented in the stages 1 and 2 above will help you fill in this section.
The third part is the Portfolio Inventory. This section provides evidence to support your learning included in sections 1 and 2 of the learning portfolio.
Here you can see an example of a Portfolio. You can also download this Portfolio template in editable format here.
If your educational institution is not aware of a potential procedure to adequately assess or judge your prior learning there is some guidance for them available here.