Letters

Loren McGrail
Editor
SABES Central Resource Center / World Education

To the Community Learning Center: Look at Your Strengths, Too!

As SABES’ Program Development Coordinator, I was thrilled to see Mina Reddy’s article, “Program Evaluation at the Community Learning Center,” in Volume 3 of Adventures in Assessment. The Community Learning Center’s experience demonstrates much of the flavor of SABES’ Integrated Program and Staff Development Process. The CLC took a systematic approach to assessing its needs and strengths, it involved staff and students, and it looked beyond the traditional time frame of one year.

I would like to encourage the Community Learning Center to focus more on strengths — just as it’s a good place to begin with learners, it’s a good place to begin with programs. The CLC addressed this only briefly, “typing up the separate action plans into one document and prefacing it with a statement of strengths that were identified in the process. Most responses to both evaluations were very positive, and this was not acknowledged anywhere in this process, which focused on needs and areas for development.” In SABES’ process, both individual strengths and program strengths are identified, to reflect SABES’ philosophy of working from strengths, and because we are always seeking to identify and make available to everyone the extensive expertise found in ABE in Massachusetts.

More than 30 programs across the state have been trained in the Program and Staff Development Process, and each one adapts the process to suit its philosophy and needs. The Community Learning Center provided us with a good example of how the process can be modified. The Integrated Staff and Program Development Process Training will be offered in each region again soon; programs that are interested in finding out more about the training process should contact their SABES Regional Coordinators.

Barbara Garner
Program Development Coordinator
SABES

Ms. Loren McGrail
World Education/SABES
210 Lincoln Street
Boston, MA 02111
U.S.A. December 9, 1992

Dear Loren:

You don’t probably remember me, except for the fact that you generously gave me an issue of Adventures in Assessment in your workshop presentation about “Assessment in the Learner-directed Adult ESOL class” in the TESOL Conference in Vancouver last March.
I remember having promised you some sort of feedback and a copy of possible materials that could be generated as a result of reading your material.
Congratulations on the quality and nature of your perspectives. Your publication has given us a lot of impetus to go on exploring the assessment issues. We have benefitted from materials in the Appendix as well and several workshops have been offered having as backbones your checklist and questionnaires.
I’m sending you three papers that were prepared by teachers in the workshops I mentioned. Feel free to use them if they can be of any help to you.

Sincerely yours,

Maria Elena Perera
Pedagogical Orientator
Alianza Cultural Uruguay – Estados Unidos de America

[Editor's note: The following assessment tools focus on listening skills. We encourage readers to contribute other ESL or adult learning materials on this infrequent but rich topic.]

On Portfolio Assessment
Thanks for your work on Adventures in Assessment. I have been working on a project for the U.S. Department of Education, Division of Adult and Vocational Education, on portfolio assessment for the past few months. In the course of this project, I’ve talked with people working in volunteer, adult basic education, state and federally-funded, workplace literacy, English as a Second Language, job training, grassroots community-based, public school and community college, and family literacy programs. I spoke with teachers, volunteers, staff development specialists, program administrators, and state directors. Everyone is excited about the potential of alternative and portfolio assessment, but few feel that they know how to approach it.

I talked with some people who began to implement portfolio assessment as isolated individuals because they had read about it and they were intrigued, or because they used it in their public school teaching with children. In most cases, however, I found that people experienced with portfolio assessment exist in local groups, and were introduced to portfolio assessment through some kind of organized staff development activity.

Many of those I spoke with who are engaging in portfolio assessment know of other practitioners in their local area who are also using portfolios. However, they often were surprised by my telephone call and thirsty for news of how portfolio assessment was being implemented in other parts of the country. They wanted things to read, people to talk to, and other models to look at. Many mentioned Adventures in Assessment as one of a very few things available that addresses alternative assessment in adult literacy education specifically. The literature in portfolio assessment for those who teach children is often quite applicable to adult literacy practitioners. However, it still requires some translation process, and it does not help adult literacy educators develop a sense of belonging to a larger group that is struggling with similar issues.

It is clear that we need to develop a number of mechanisms to help practitioners who are implementing portfolio and other forms of alternative assessment in adult literacy education to continue learning and to share their experiences and resources. We need materials that address alternative assessment broadly, placing portfolio assessment and other approaches within a larger theoretical framework. We need how-to’s as well as conceptual explorations. We need many more publications that examine and share practitioners’ experiences. We also need mechanisms such as computer bulletin boards that encourage active sharing.

Leadership development in relation to alternative assessment has to be a priority; the influence of those who have been providing professional development services in this area can be clearly seen.

All of us have to advocate for the incorporation of portfolio and other forms of alternative assessment into the indicators of program quality currently being developed in each state. Model Indicators of Program Quality for Adult Education Programs, released by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Adult and Vocational Education (1992), identifies portfolio assessment as a sample measure for showing educational gains (Indicator 1). However, this guide illustrates that portfolio assessment can make an important contribution to a number of other indicators as well. For example, portfolio assessment has the potential to enable practitioners’ development of a much more concrete and comprehensive knowledge of students’ goals, interests, and approaches to learning. This can assist in program planning (Indicator 3), curriculum and instruction (Indicator 4), staff development (Indicator 5), and retention (Indicator 8). An article on influencing state and national policy would be very useful.

And, finally we must continue working to improve professional support and working conditions in adult literacy education as a way of supporting innovation. Implementing portfolio and other forms of alternative assessment depends on using whole language, participatory approaches to instruction; instructors must feel comfortable with the teaching and learning process in order to integrate assessment with instruction. Teachers also must have paid preparation time, space in which to store folders and materials, and some job security so that the process of implementing portfolio assessment can be honored.

I know that these ideas are not new; however, I think we need to revisit them continually as we try to move forward. I appreciate your work on Adventures in Assessment, and I look forward to a larger continuing conversation.

Hanna Fingeret
Executive Director, Literacy South
Durham, North Carolina

Originally published in Adventures in Assessment, Volume 4 (April 1993),
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.