Foreword

Laura Purdom
Editor
SABES Central Resource Center / World Education

Around this time last year, just when the last leaves had fallen off the trees, Volume 1 of Adventures in Assessment was published. Hot off the photocopy machine, it landed in the hands of a group of practitioners from across the state who were participating in the first Massachusetts adult basic education annual conference, NetWork '91.

That first issue of Adventures looked at learner-centered approaches to assessment featuring tools and strategies for "getting started." Practitioners wrote about start-up activities, intake processes, and tools used to get a sense of students' interests and goals. In the spring, Volume 2 appeared, featuring writing about "ongoing" assessment procedures and the ways we document learning as it takes place, including using tools such as journals, portfo- lios, logs, and checklists.

Now, it is late fall again-time for NetWork '92 and time, also, for Volume 3 of Adventures in Assessment. In this issue we turn to the tools

and procedures used at the end of a cycle or semester when learners and teachers are "looking back" at their achievements and progress. Of course, the process doesn't end with looking back: the leaves fall, the ground freezes then thaws, the daffodils bloom and wither, the days lengthen then shorten again. Learning never stops, so this issue of Adventures also includes articles on "starting again."

This year, then, Adventures in Assessment contributors have taken you on a journey from beginning to beginning. Some of the people in that first gt:oup of readers will come back to NetWork '92 as writers as well as readers of this one year old publication. We are proud of their accomplishments and look forward to hearing from other practitioners who may never have written about and shared their ideas before.

We're pleased to introduce with this issue, three new continuing features which we hope will further extend the dialogue on assessment in adult education. "What Counts?" will keep readers up-to-date on math assessment, "Voices from the Field" will feature interviews with practitioners and learners, and "Letters" offers every reader the opportunity to respond informally to the opinions and practices they read about in this journal.

Write or call us with your thoughts, comments, and ideas. We would especially like to hear from those of you who have adapted some of the tools presented in Ad-ventures to suit your own classroom or program's needs.

Laura Purdom
Editor

Originally published in Adventures in Assessment, Volume 3 (April 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.