Self-Assessment

Paul Trunnel

This article focuses on self-assessment and the activation of the learner. A major assumption behind self-assessment is that learners are capable of evaluating themselves, that they have explicit goals, and that a process of self- evaluation will make them more motivated and aware of their own learning process. This process can make learning more meaningful and encourage learners to become active in shaping their own learning environment.

The Context

The Harborside Community Center, in East Boston, provides free ABE and ESL classes to an increasingly diverse population, including Latinos, Cambodians, Vietnamese, Jamaicans, Cape Verdeans, and native born North Amet:icans (many of Italian descent).

The ABE 2 class that I teach has about sixteen students and serves as the pre-GED and pre-EDP course. About half the students are native English speakers. The class meets three times a week to study reading, writing, and math. The diversity of skill levels in the class makes it a kind of one-room schoolhouse: a few students have reading difficul- ties; many of the students have language issues specific to learning English as a second language; a few students will soon be taking their GED's or enrolling in theEDP class. Students stay in my class anywhere from three to 18 months.

Much of the assessment that takes place at Harborside falls into the "alternative" category . At the school's Open House, prospective ABE students place themselves in classes. Learning questionnaires, a self-evaluatory math sheet, self- selected reading and writing activities, and discussions with teaching staff help learners through this process. In the ABE 2 classroom we use goals surveys and activities, learning behavior questionnaires, learning contracts, and regular conferences to assess needs and determine progress.

All of the different assessment tools that we use have developed through a process of trial and error. My goal has always been to fit the activity to the learning needs and styles of the students, and also to my own teaching style. I think this process of experimentation is vital. The manner in which we assess ourselves and the questions which we ask strongly influence what we study and how we study. The activities that I discuss in this article--the skills evaluation sheet and the learning log --are two of the first alternative assessment activities that I tried in my class. Their development exemplifies this process of experimentation.

Developing the Skills Evaluation Sheet

The skills evaluation activity evolved while I was looking for an ongoing assessment tool I could use with the whole class. At the time, I didn't have anything other than some goals-oriented activities which seemed too individualized to do as a class. Using the suggestions of Nunan (1988) and Auerbach (1990) as my guides, I sketched out several differ- ent sheets, with successively fewer and fewer instructions because my class was impatient with long-winded explanations.

The final form was an almost blank piece of paper with just enough information, I hoped, to point an uncertain learner in the right direction. The inspiration had come from the forms and ideas of Nunan and Auerbach, but the final version was tailor-made for my class.

My goal was to keep the form and the activity from being "top-heavy ." This seems to be the case with many of the forms and activities that I have read in alternative assessment literature. This is not meant to be a mark against these forms; I simply mean that learner centered education needs to be student and context specific. For me this means that much of the material on the forms that have inspired me seems irrelevant to my ABE 2 class and its members.

Using the Skills Evaluation Sheet

When I first handed out the skills evaluation sheet, I explained what the columns were for. The skills column, I said, is for making a list of all the different skills and activities we have done since the last time we evaluated. These may include fractions, subtraction, learning how to use commas, writing essays on learning, a trip to the library , etc. Much of what is included in this column may be specialized because of the individual leaming projects of many students. Then, as a class, we made a list on the board, covering as specifically as possible (e.g., "fraction reducing" or "fraction subtraction" instead of just "fractions") all the skills and activities we had done.

The second evaluation column, I explained, is to put what students think about the different activities and skills we have covered. I usually need to explain what I mean by evaluation. For starters, we talk about different systems or words we can use to evaluate. For example, a 1 -5 best to worst listing; or, I learned it/I need more; or more specialized responses, such as "I liked it but I don't remember it too much. " I leave this up to the student, rather than providing the system or the words, because I am interested in individualized answers. Also, each student has the opportunity to choose a different system, which empowers them and gives them the opportunity to explore evaluation methods that best suit them.

Then, we proceed to the back page. I ask the learners, now that they've listed and commented on all of these items, to identify a few that they feel they have learned and/or they still want to study.

Also, I tell them to include other subjects they might want to touch on in the future.

Throughout the activity of fIlling out the sheets, we discuss, as a group, the different skills, activities, and systems that we come up with. This ussually leads us to conclude with a good, affirming sense of what we've accomplished, as well as a less muddled vision of what we are going to continue studying and where we will go next.

Some students, particularly those who advocate more traditional methods of assessment and learning, have write very little; but, the class discussion seems to involve them effectively. A few students surprised me in their comments about areas they hoped to review-areas I thought they had a firm grasp on. Overall it seemed that the form accom- plished the goal of focusing the class for the remainder of the cycle.

After the exercise, I asked students what they thought of it. In general, they liked it. One student suggested we do it every month; other students agreed. I suggested that we do it once a week, but the students thought that would be too often. Another student, said, "You already know what I know. What's the use?" I explained that I didn't know all he knew; and particularly, I had no idea about how he thought he was doing. I told him that was important to me.

All in all, the sheet seems effective in assessing group progress and encouraging students to reflect on their individual progress. It allows me to see what was effective, popular, or not and works very well in telling us where we need to go next.

This device is intensive and comprehensive enough that we will use it maybe once every four to six weeks, as a good grounding activity for the class. In the future, I might have learners use their progress portfolios as a means to inspire the list, instead of prompting. This way, as well, a more personalized list may develop.

Developing the Learning Log

While the skills evaluation sheet was a helpful tool for seeing progress over a month or six weeks, I still wanted an activity for more frequent self- assessment. I adapted an idea for a weekly learning log from the weekly progress sheets suggested by Nunan and Auerbach and the weekly reviews suggested by Lawson. A learning log is a good example of immediate self-assessment. Students are asked, at certain intervals--daily or weekly--to reflect and record in writing what they have learned. Learning logs can serve many purposes.

As dialogue journals: Students who are less comfortable with writing are given a purpose and encouragement to put their thoughts into words in a less threatening manner. The writing can be treated as a dialogue, meaning that what students write down will be responded to.

As classroom ritual: Once every week or two weeks, or after particular events, students can count on this method as a means of evaluating their experience. By making it a regular event, it becomes endowed with greater authority , and in this instance, that authority is bestowed on learners , reflections. In this way, the learning logs become a respected means of evaluation, in place of an exam or paper.

As a review: Students may write about specific ideas or terms they have learned. Again this may substitute for a quiz, or be used as a study notebook for one. Often adult students are not in the habit of keeping notebooks or organizing their learning materials. Journals can help sort things out. Also, at least in my class, the learning we do is often extemporaneous: a student might ask, "What is area?" and a twenty minute lesson in area will follow. Learning logs can be the place to record some of those concepts.

As a question-and-answer period: Students may choose to ask their teacher questions in the log about a subject, or about the class in general, that they might not have time to ask in class. The reverse is true: I can ask the students questions about whether or not they understand something. I may not have had time during the lesson to find out where everyone was; or I may just prefer a more private means of communication.

Again, I changed the format to fit my teaching style and the needs of the class. The ESL-oriented questions, for example, "what new words have I learned this week? " seemed inappropriate for the level of my class. In fact, I chose to eliminate all the questions: I still wanted to explore the possibilities of a loosely-directed task, rather than a more structured task like a questionnaire. It was my hope that, by simply giving them a book and asking them to write about their learning, their entries would be more self-exploratory and therefore more valuable to the students and to me.

Using the Learning Log

I began using learning logs at the end of math class. I asked students to record in a little blue exam book what work they had done and if they had any questions. The purpose was two-fold : first, I wanted a specific record of the work they had been doing; second, I wanted to start using this as a learning logl dialogue journal. The entries varied in interest and information provided:

"Number Power 2, pg. 34 "

"Today I worked on my multiplying and carrying."

"I done OK some of them. "

"I worked on fractions page 84 (book) Building Basic Skills in Math. I am doing alright But I need some help to get going.

"I started today, doing integers. I understand it pretty much. While I was Brushing up on them, I had some trouble in doing the fractions. I would like to start learning the fractions next week. I will need some great deal of help on them. Thanks."

Only the last two learners seem to be fully engaged in the idea of the learning log. However, there is value in even the abbreviated responses. Obviously, for some students, the process of writ- ing in the log was language practice. For others, it at least met the first goal of the exercise: creating a record of the work they had done.

The second time I passed the little blue books out, I asked everyone to take a moment and reflect on the learning they had done in the previous week. The entries, I said, could be anywhere from a sentence to whatever length they felt necessary .We took a few minutes to discuss the purpose of the logs. In the discussion, learners brought up issues they had with this approach to assessment: "What do you want us to write? Why? We haven't learned anything. This is a waste of my time. " I tried to explain that this was a way of recording progress, and an opportunity to start a dialogue on learning. Yes, it is true that over the last week we have not done much in the way of skills exercises. But, what about the trip to the library? What about the class discussion we had about AIDS?

The journals were filled out and turned in mostly with short, unreflective entries such as:

"We learned about the Constitution about Civil Rights. "

But, another student had this to say:

" As you can tell, it's a bit confusing with integers. But I do understand the basics, as long as it relates to money. Anyhow, during the past week I have been learning on my own, on fractions. I think so far I'm doing good considering I had no clue what was going on with fractions. The workbook you have let me borrow (Number Power 2) is quite helpful and easy to understand step by step. Ifl need your help I'll let you know. "

Later, I had a conversation with the student who wrote only one sentence. We talked about how limited class hours were and how there was only so much-skills-related or otherwise-that we could cover. She felt the class discussions we had had about the constitution, about drugs, and about AIDS were not learning. I took this as a cue that I should connect our discussions more firmly with the skills she wants and needs to achieve her GED. But she also acknowledged her impatience as a source of frustration and told me that she took an hour or two at home every night to do work in her work- book. In the following class, she made a suggestion pertaining to math class that was helpful and thoughtful, and which we put into immediate use. Finally, a few days later, when she was having difficulty with her math, she said, "Give me my learning log, I'm having a hard time. " So, even her frustration-and my frustration with her frustration had a silver lining.

In the future, I hope to make using learning logs a regular "ritual " in the classroom as Lawson (1988) and Auerbach (1990) have recommended. At the end of every week, or even every day, we could take five or ten minutes to reflect on the learning we have done over the week. At the end of the week we might take a few minutes to plan out some goals for the week to come. Also, since some students had difficulty with the lack of structure of the assignment, I might reintroduce some of the questions provided by Auerbach, Lawson, and Nunan.

Paul Trunnel teaches at the Harborside Community School in East Boston.

References

Auerbach, E. Making Meaning, Making Change (Boston: University of Massachusetts, 1990).

Germanowski, Martha. "The Education Goals Assessment Packet", Adventures in Assessment, Volume 1 (Boston: SABES, 1991)

Lawson L. Record Keeping in Adult Education, "Current Issues in ESL, " Nicholas, S. and Hoadley- Maidment, E., eds. (New York: E. Arnold, 1988)

Nunan, David.The Learner-Centered Curriculum, esp. p. 190 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

Originally published in Adventures in Assessment, Volume 2 (May 1992),
SABES/World Education, Boston, MA, Copyright 2003.

Funding support for the publication of this document on the Web provided in part by the Ohio State Literacy Resource Center as part of the LINCS Assessment Special Collection.