Editor's note: Although Andrea's experience precedes the final revised guidelines for ABE licensure, her insights are still valuable to practitioners as they compile a portfolio documenting their practice.

Compiling a portfolio for ABE licensure wasn't as easy as I first thought it would be, but I am glad I completed it and attained my license. Documenting and presenting my years of experience in ABE provided an excellent opportunity to articulate what I believe in and to exhibit my work for critical review.

The license provides four routes, based on an applicant's years of ABE teaching experience and whether she has a Massachusetts preK-12 license. Because I have accumulated at least 2,400 classroom teaching hours in ABE, I was approved by Massachusetts DOE to pursue Route 4. Route 4 teachers have to meet eight specific standards and demonstrate their teaching. When I first looked over the standards for Route 4, I felt confident about meeting all of them with ease. After all, I had a great deal of teaching experience, coursework, and a thick file of professional development points (PDPs) from workshops I had attended or presented.

However, once I started analyzing what was needed for each standard, I realized that developing my portfolio was not going to be the quick, easy task I had imagined. The standards proved to be stricter and more thorough than I first thought. To me, though, the rigor involved made the ABE license even more worthwhile to obtain. For each standard there were two components. I not only needed evidence from a course syllabus or series of lessons; I also needed to explain how my evidence showed that I met the standard. The guidelines governing the license (www.doe.mass.edu/educators/abe.html) warn candidates to be selective rather than to submit anything and everything that might apply.

Picking and choosing documentation for my portfolio took time. I used the self-assessment worksheets that SABES had developed (see www.sabes.org/license) as I began wading through my collection of workshop agendas, course descriptions, syllabi, and old lesson and unit plans for evidentiary documentation. (See "Where You Can Get Help on Licensure" on page 6.) As I looked for documentation, I focused on the questions I had to answer in the explanatory statements: what I did to show that I met the standard, why I chose it, and how it applied.

For example, in my explanatory statement for the first standard, in answer to what developmental theory was employed I stated, "As I developed my series of lessons, I focused on the constructivist theory and the sociocultural factors of adult development. I depended on the theories and the work of Mezirow, Kegan, Belenky, Perry, Merriam, and Caffarella." (See references at end of article.) I consulted several resources to help me to define and articulate my approach.

I explained that I relied on these theories because it was helpful in explaining the transitions in identity my students were going through as immigrants and how often they had to redefine themselves in a new culture. I connected the theory to a lesson that included an activity where students were asked to define their current roles, for example, as parents, students, and workers

I fulfilled the standards in a variety of ways. I determined that I could use coursework to fulfill the second standard. I used two graduate courses: "Teaching Reading to Adults" and "The Bilingual Child with Special Needs." I used the course description and the syllabi as evidence and needed only a brief explanation of how the courses fulfilled the standards. Because my coursework was completed at the University of Massachusetts in Boston and the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, it was not difficult to obtain my course descriptions and syllabi. I was also able to use my experiences with Young Adults with Learning Disabilities (YALD). Through the YALD project, I had attended a three-day series on learning disabilities and later had presented several workshops. As evidentiary documentation, I included the PDP certificates and the agendas.

Getting the Most from Previous Lessons
To satisfy requirements for the rest of the standards, I wanted to be as economical as possible. That is, I wanted to use the same series of eight lessons and reference them in my explanatory statements. So, I searched for a series of lessons I had previously taught that could relate to all of the remaining standards. These lessons would have to include the following:

• Development of reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills
• Encouragement of learner input
• Use of technology
• Validation of learners' experiences
• Use of learners' prior knowledge
• Use of a variety of assessments
• Acknowledgment of different learning styles
• Flexibility so lessons could be modified for individual learner needs

Finding all of these characteristics in one series of lessons seemed like a tall order, but with very little adaptation, I was able to use a unit I had developed and taught several times on the topic of personal identity and diversity. This unit illustrated all of the attributes described above and satisfied the remaining standards.

Most Challenging Standard
The first standard (about adult development theory) was the most difficult for me. I had no coursework in this area, and my thoughts were really muddled about the distinction between adult development theory and adult learning theory. I knew the basic theory, but I didn't have the language to explain myself clearly. To help articulate my thoughts, I borrowed some materials from my regional SABES regional support center. The October 2001 issue of Focus on Basics (Volume 5, Issue B), published by the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL), was particularly helpful because the entire contents focused on adult development. After completing some reading, I was able to refine and express my thoughts more clearly and to make connections to my series of lessons more distinctly.

Organizing the Portfolio
It took me a while to decide how to set up the portfolio. It was a challenge to clearly reference the evidentiary materials in the explanatory statements and to decide where to place them in the portfolio so that the review panel could locate my references. The explanatory statements were a total of 10 pages long and the evidentiary material was 68 pages long. I used the same lessons for evidentiary materials for several of the standards, so it was confusing to put the evidentiary material after each explanatory statement.

I decided to put all of the explanatory statements together and then all the evidentiary materials together in an appendix. As I wrote the explanatory statements, I referenced the pages in the appendix. For example, when I cited my coursework, I noted: "See page A-1 in the appendix for the course description," or when I referred to a graphic organizer in a lesson I said, "See sample on page H-1 in the appendix." I included a table of contents with clear titles and numbered all of the pages.

Demonstration of Teaching
After I finished my written portfolio, I still had to complete a demonstration of teaching. Since I am currently a staff developer, not a classroom teacher, I had no class of adult learners of my own to use for my demonstration. "Borrowing" someone else's class was an option, but it didn't feel authentic to me. Instead, I decided to teach a mock lesson for the review panel, which is allowed in the guidelines. For consistency, I chose one of the lessons that I had included in my portfolio. I had taught this interactive lesson many times before so I was comfortable with it.

Mock Lesson: What I Learned
Before my actual demonstration, I gave all of the review panel members a handout with a brief class profile, an explanation of why I chose this particular lesson to demonstrate, an outline of the entire unit so they would understand the context of the lesson, and a copy of the lesson plan. I asked them to read it over while I was setting up my materials.

Although I was satisfied with my demonstration of teaching, I would do things differently if I were to repeat it. For example, I would give each participant (members of the review panel) a separate role card instead of the general description of the learners in my imaginary beginning ESOL class. The participants did not stay in character during the lesson, which made it difficult for me to complete the lesson. I also had little control over the setup in the room. Instead of the overhead projector I had originally planned on using, I used a laptop and a digital projector that was already set up in the room to display a graphic organizer. It was set up away from the learners so it was awkward to use. These little details threw me off and made me nervous. If other ABE practitioners choose to do a mock lesson for licensure, they might want to do a trial run before presenting it to the review panel so these little details will not get in the way.

Completing the licensure process gave me more than a professional "ticket." It also allowed me the time to reflect on my practice and articulate my experience and beliefs to a group of knowledgeable peers.

References

Knowles, Malcolm (1990). The Adult Learner, A Neglected Species, 4th ed. Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing Company.

Merriam, S., Caffarella, R. (1991). Learning in Adulthood. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (October 2001). Focus on Basics, Volume 5, Issue B. Boston: World Education.

Taylor, K., Marienau, C., Fiddler, M. (2000). Developing Adult Learners, Strategies for Teachers and Trainers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Andrea O'Brien is an experienced ESOL teacher and is currently the staff developer at the Lawrence Adult Learning Center. She is one of the first two recipients of the Massachusetts adult education license. She can be reached by e-mail at aobrien@lawrence.k12.ma.us