Meeting the Challenge of Authentic Assessment

Alison Simmons
Editor
SABES Central Resource Center / World Education

One of the greatest challenges still facing adult educators today is the question of learner assessment. How will I measure the progress of my learners so it is meaningful to them, informs instruction and the curriculum, and satisfies the funders?

In the past seven volumes of Adventures in Assessment, we have heard from a variety of practitioners sharing their ideas, successes and attempts at exploring and developing learner-centered approaches to assessment and evaluation. As contributors struggled with the question of what “a learner-centered approach to assessment and evaluation” meant, they offered us a different way to assess and test our learners, and helped us think beyond the confines of standardized, commercial instruments.

In the age of education reform, unstable funding, measurable outcomes, and program accountability, we who believe in authentic assessment feel a need to defend our ways of measuring learner progress and program effectiveness to the powers that make decisions about the future of the field. We also want to “lift the burden of accountability off the backs of learners and place it on programs and funders” (Whiten, Bright Ideas, Vol. 5, #1, Summer ‘95). Within these challenges we hope to find ways to showcase the work that has already been done in authentic/alternative assessment and not return to the age of assessment that gave us the numbers and positive outcomes but told us little of program effectiveness or the personal gains our learners made as parents, citizens, and workers.

In Volume 8 of Adventures in Assessment (AiA), Johan Uvin revisits his earlier article (AiA, Volume 1) and talks about the role of authentic assessment in workplace education programs in light of education reform. Uvin states “Education reform is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future, and will have an impact on workplace education, including but not limited to learner assessment.”

While Uvin gives us the education reform perspective, Lisa Levinson talks about a statewide perspective on systemic change. In 1991, Maine decided that portfolio assessment was to replace standardized testing in Adult Education Programs. (Sandy Brawders introduced us to Maine’s portfolio in AiA, Vol 6.)

Levinson, from the Horizon Project in Maine, takes us on a chronological journey through Maine’s process of developing and implementing their State Indicators of Program Quality. She looks back over the past three years and documents the events that have led to the implementation and development of the Indicators and portfolio assessment as an integral part of Maine’s adult education system.

In the next article, Yvonne La Lyre looks at the broad question of Native Language Literacy (NLL) instruction and assessment through a review of the literature. As Native Language Literacy increasingly becomes a part of the ABE system, it impacts how and why we assess people for literacy in their native language. At the end of her article, Yvonne looks at how programs around the country are assessing their NLL learners and what resources are available for assessment and instruction. She challenges us think about how these findings impact our ESOL literacy classes and our need to assess learner progress.

Two authors address the question often raised by adult educators: “How can we get learners more involved in the assessment process?” Molly Paul Nguyen and Michele Verni explore different ways to look at involving learners in the dialogue about what assessment is and what the purposes should be.

Nguyen took the question of assessment and testing into the classroom as a lesson plan to start a discussion about assessment in the lives of her learners. This discussion prompted her to alter her assessment practices and to start thinking about other ways to involve learners in the assessment process.
Michele Verni was involved in a statewide survey of adult learners that asked how adult education programs affected their lives. She talks about her experience being part of that process and leads us to question what an “adult learner” perspective is.

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Two teachers from very different programs tackle the issue of creating a common assessment tool to measure learner progress for teachers working for the same program but at different sites or different levels. Jenny Utech talks about the challenge teachers in her program had coming up with a tool that could satisfy both ABE and ESOL classes. Jenny raises the question of whether there is a pre- and post-assessment tool or process that could satisfy the needs of both ABE and ESOL learners and teachers in the same program at the same time with not only varying goals, but also varying needs in terms of language acquisition and learning. Linda Gosselin et al tackled the same issue in their program. The Quinsigamond program’s need to streamline its assessment was motivated by transferring students from one class to another. There was no systematic way of doing this previously, so assessment on an ongoing basis and at the end of the term was not meaningful. She and her colleagues were looking for a tool flexible enough to meet the individual needs of the teachers but common enough to meet program and funding requirements.

Two authors take us into their programs and give us a glimpse of how authentic assessment is implemented. Caroline Gear discusses the need for teachers as well as learners to have developmental time for integrating authentic assessment in their classes and what support teachers need to make this happen. We have all experienced the initial reluctance of learners who are new to authentic assessment. It takes time for learners and teachers to find ways to make the process participatory and meaningful. The same time is needed for programs to work with staff who are new to authentic assessment. Caroline looks at one authentic assessment tool and talks about how this can be a beginning framework for teachers and programs new to authentic assessment.

Marti Duncan takes us quite literally on a tour of her adult education center in rural Maine where she shows us portfolio assessment is alive and well. Through several interviews we see that portfolio assessment is systemwide and can be used to measure more that just learner progress. We should look at it as a process that everyone in a program can participate in for their own assessment purposes.

In What Counts? Paula Carranza et al write about math activities that can be used as an assessment tool. The authors walk us through a few activities that they have found useful.

We reviewed two books in this volume. Sylvie O’Donell looked at Assessing Success in Family Literacy Programs, a book that looks at designing and implementing family literacy programs. Eileen Barry reviewed Whole Language for Adults: Guide to Instruction, Portfolio Assessment, Initial Assessment and Administration and Staff Development. This is a comprehensive resource for programs and has in-depth sections on initial assessment tools and a guide for the use of portfolio assessment in adult education programs.

There are a lot of ideas here — both broad and narrow — that will hopefully spark interest in others to write about their authentic assessment ideas and tools. AiA has always been one of the places where the dialogue of authentic/alternative assessment takes place. We invite you within Massachusetts and afar to share your ideas, successes, and questions as we learn from each other about authentic assessment.

Originally published in Adventures in Assessment, Volume 8 (Winter 1995),
SABES/World Education, Boston, MA, Copyright 1995.

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.