Mission Statement from the Transformers

Massachusetts Participatory Assessment Team

The Transformers is a newly formed group of adult literacy practitioners in Massachusetts. Many of its members come from component #3 of the Department of Education’s GOALS project which had as its mission the goal of looking at alternative assessment or learner-centered field-based assessment.

The goal of this team is to create and support systemic change from hierarchical models of education and social organization to egalitarian models, where learners and teachers are partners in education.

We will accomplish this by maintaining a dialogue within the field of adult education with a focus on participatory field-based assessment. We are dedicated to concentrating and coordinating our efforts towards broadening the understanding of adult educators, learners, administrators, and funders about participatory principles which are the basis for meaningful assessment and social change.

We are committed to developing new ways of looking at our programs, ourselves, and our communities in order to support mindful action and access to power. Our vision is to continue to build a network of interested people who will work together on projects that lead to this kind of change at the program, community, state, and national policy level.

Principles of Participatory Assessment

1. It must be program-based and learner-centered.

2. It should help the learners achieve their goals.

3. It must build on learner strengths, not deficits.

4. It must be part of the learning experience.

5. It should not be a single procedure but a variety of procedures.

6. It should provide feedback that will lead to better instruction.

Strategies

• Collaborate with other groups and individuals with whom we share common goals such as SABES, New England Literacy Resource Center, and community based organizations.
• Continue to support the development of field-based assessment practices through the Partnership Project. The Partnership Project is a mentoring project funded by DOE which allows practitioners who are interested in learning about participatory assessment to become partners with program staff who have been developing and using participatory procedures and tools.
• Disseminate the toolkit to practitioners throughout the state and the New England Region.
• Create and coordinate a pool of trainers in participatory assessment to provide training and technical assistance within our state, New England and the country.
• Maintain our connection and commitment to the journal Adventures in Assessment.
• Interpret and clarify the Massachusetts Quality Indicators with a focus on how portfolio assessment fits in to the state’s policy on assessment.

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This article was published in Adventures in Assessment, Volume 6 (Spring 1994), SABES/World Education, Boston, MA, Copyright 1994.

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.