[AAACE-NLA] Formative Assessment in Adult Literacy Education: A Special Topics Discussion

[David Rosen]

Colleagues,

Beginning on Monday, February 25th, the Special Topics list will hold  
a discussion on formative assessment, a set of classroom practices  
that substantial research in England has shown to positively affect  
elementary and secondary level student learning outcomes. Not a term  
widely known in the U.S., formative assessment refers to what  
teachers and learners do in the classroom to assess learning  
progress.  An assessment is _formative_ when information gathered in  
the assessment process is used to modify teaching and learning  
activities.  It's an assessment _for_ learning,  not just _of_ learning.

A just-published study sponsored by the Organisation for Economic Co- 
operation and Development (OECD), Teaching, Learning and Assessment  
for Adults: Improving Foundation Skills < http://tinyurl.com/2dksn5 >  
looks at formative assessment practices in adult foundation skills  
(basic skills) classes in several countries among which were the U.S.  
and England. We will have as our guests the researchers who did the  
studies in these two countries. OECD researchers  who studied adult  
formative assessment practices in other countries may also  
participate in the discussion.

In my opinion, not an unbiased one as I was an OECD researcher in  
this study of practices in Flanders Belgium, the study could have an  
important impact on adult literacy education practices in North  
America, and formative assessment could -- as has been shown in K-12  
and higher education studies -- make an important difference for  
students' learning.

I hope you will join my esteemed guests for this discussion.

To subscribe to the discussion, go to
http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/specialtopics .
You can unsubscribe after the discussion by going to the same web  
page or, if you prefer, you can stay subscribed for the next  
discussion, Transition from Corrections to Community Education.

Formative Assessment Guest Experts

Janet Looney
Janet Looney is the project leader of the Centre for Educational  
Research and Innovation program known as What Works in Innovation in  
Education. Since 2002 its focus has been on formative assessment.   
Between 2002 and 2004, the What Works program explored formative  
assessment in lower secondary classrooms in eight international  
systems. [See Formative Assessment: Improving Learning in Secondary  
Classrooms (2005)].  OECD has just published the second study  
addressing formative assessment for adult basic skill learners, whose  
web page was provided above.
Earlier in her career Janet taught ESOL in Japan for over two years,  
and  at the YMCA in Seattle Washington.

John Benseman
John Benseman has been involved in adult education and literacy for  
over 30 years working as a practitioner and program administrator,  
but mainly as a researcher and evaluator. He started his working life  
as a primary (elementary) school teacher, but “became disillusioned  
with the task of constantly trying to motivate reluctant learners and  
became much more interested in working with adults who were much more  
motivated”. After a year of studying adult education in Sweden, he  
worked in continuing medical education, followed by seven years of  
running a community-based adult education organization and a similar  
period of self-employment as a researcher. After 12 years of teaching  
adult education at the University of Auckland, he moved last year to  
the Department of Labour to run a national workplace literacy  
project. The aim of this project is to identify best practice in  
workplace literacy by evaluating 15 diverse programs throughout New  
Zealand. They are about halfway through and should complete it late  
next year. To date they have interviewed about 250 learners and are  
just starting to get their first post-program data. They expect to  
have data on about 500-600 learners when it is finished.
John’s PhD was an analysis of New Zealand as a learning society. In  
addition to a "zillion" reports, he has edited a book on New Zealand  
adult education and two weeks ago, another one (with Alison Sutton)  
on New Zealand adult literacy. He “mainly works from home in a study  
that looks out on to beautiful native bush, including a stream and  
lots of native birds”. He says "It’s summer here, so life includes  
jaunts to the beach, enjoying family life, frustrated attempts to  
lower a very average golf handicap and riding a motorbike to beat the  
Auckland traffic. My current project also includes a lot of travel  
round the country to interview people – a duty that I am even paid to  
do…"

With John Comings, John Benseman did the formative assessment  
research in the U.S., sponsored in part by the National Institute for  
Literacy

John Comings
Dr. John Comings was director of the National Center forthe Study of  
Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) during its 11 years of funding  
from the US Department of Education. He is currently Senior Research  
Associate and lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education  
and a consultant on adult education in the U.S. and other countries.  
His research focuses on the impact of adult literacy programs and  
ways to support persistence of adult learners.

John Vorhaus
Dr John Vorhaus is Associate Director, Research, at the National  
Research and Development Centre in Adult Literacy and Numeracy (NRDC)  
at the Institute of Education. He is also Director of the Centre for  
Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning.

John has directed numerous projects on adult literacy, language and  
numeracy, many of these focused on teaching and learning practices,  
and also on disadvantaged groups such as offenders, ethnic minority  
groups and people who are not in education, training or employment.

On-going research is taken up with persons with profound and multiple  
learning difficulties and disabilities; their political status, the  
question of whether and how they are shown respect, and an  
examination of the teaching and learning practices best fitted to  
their needs and abilities.

John has taught philosophy at the Universities of Bristol and London,  
and also in prison, adult and further education, and he continues to  
publish in the areas of political philosophy, philosophy of law and  
philosophy of education.

David J. Rosen
Special Topics Discussion Moderator
djrosen at comcast.net




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.literacytent.org/pipermail/aaace-nla/attachments/20080220/573f84c8/attachment.html