I coordinate and teach in a family literacy program called Families Learning Together. I am employed by the local adult education center but our program meets at Johnson Elementary School in Charlottesville. The school provides classroom space, a computer lab, cafeteria, library, a playground for the preschool children who attend, and staff support. It is an environment that welcomes parents and families.

This is my fifth year at Johnson. I work 18 hours per week. My job includes 8 hours in the classroom, as well as time for lesson planning, coordinating transportation and child care, hiring and supervising child care providers, recruitment and retention, report and grant writing, in-service training, staff meetings, interagency group meetings, and referrals.

This year our day program includes an adult education class, a parent discussion group, and a monthly family dinner with a family activity. The adult education class meets 2 days each week for 2 1/2 hours per day. Parents are preparing for the GED, improving reading, writing, and math skills in order to help their children with homework, practicing keyboarding to increase their job opportunities, and discussing employability skills. Three retired volunteers help with the class. A tutor from Literacy Volunteers of America works with individual students who are new readers and with small groups. A semi-retired professor of chemical engineering helps students with math. Sometimes he works with one student, and he also works with small groups. The third volunteer worked in the New York City schools as a teacher, guidance counselor, and school administrator. She is the facilitator for our parent discussion group, which meets once a week for an hour. This year the group is discussing the importance of a positive self-image.

An evening program for the family meets 2 times each week; it has 7 adults and 15 children participating. The school age children have tutoring; preschool children have child care; and parents have an adult education program and a monthly family activity. In addition to the three volunteers, my staff includes a part-time Title I teacher, 3 child-care providers, and 12 volunteers for the evening program.

The parents in the group are diverse. There are 10 parents who attend, and ages range from 19-45. They come for different reasons: they want to increase skills to get better jobs, help their children learn, get a GED so that they can attend vocational or college classes, or they are attending as part of a Department of Social Services work experience program.

Any parent in the city is welcome in the class as long as there is space and child care. Referrals come from local community agencies and friends and family of students in the class. Transportation assistance and on-site child care are needed by most of the parents in the group and are provided by the program.

This year our program funding came from several different sources including local government and schools, Central Fidelity ATutors for Success@ program, the Regional Literacy Coordinating Council, a civic club, and a private donation. We just received a grant from the Junior League for our summer program.

Assessments

When a student begins class, I do both an informal and formal assessment. We talk privately about their educational goals, present and future, and any adult education classes they have attended. We also discuss choices each student has about working individually or in a small group. I think the most important part of the interview is making sure the new student knows that this is her class, and the goal is to meet her needs. The student completes an information sheet required by the adult education center that includes reasons for attending, health problems, special needs, and emergency contacts. For reading and math, I use the SRA assessment that is also used by our adult education center. Before the student begins the assessment, I explain that it is used to determine where to begin reading and math lessons and not graded pass or fail. This tool gives a level for beginning lessons. After the student has attended class for about 3 weeks and seems comfortable in class, I give the Test for Adult Basic Education (TABE) for a more accurate reading and math level. I have concerns that the TABE is intimidating for some students and that is my reason for waiting to administer it.

Time for Assessments

Since formal assessments are used to identify skill levels, plan lessons, evaluate progress, and build student confidence, they need to be given with clear instructions. Time needs to be taken to explain the assessment tool, score the test, plan lessons, and provide on-going evaluation of progress. As a part time teacher, I need more time to assess students' progress.

Making assessments a priority is easy in planning. But actually finding the time to spend on assessments is difficult. Our class meets 5 hours a week; how much of that time can be spent on assessments without limiting other responsibilities or completing necessary work at home on my own time? Since this is a family literacy program, I would like time to use assessments to evaluate whether parents are more involved with their children's education after attending the program, if they are more confident in their parenting skills, and if learning is becoming a family involvement. Again finding the time is an issue.

Reflections

In addition to focusing on our study group's research questions, other questions have come up during the course of this study:

What other formal assessments are available and how are they used?
Am I just assessing whether students are able to pass the GED or also assessing whether they are learning to solve problems?
Does our class encourage students to evaluate their own progress?

Since joining this study group, I have learned about different formal assessment that are being used. Some of these tests might be useful to the students I work with, and I would like to know more about them. I need more information about what assessments are available, what they are used for, and how to use them. I am concerned about the effect of formal testing on a new student who may be very anxious about coming back to school. Is it better to do a shorter, less intimidating test when a student first comes to class and wait to do the TABE until the student is settled in class? Even though some assessments may not be as accurate in assessing skill levels, are they accurate enough to get a student started? Do we lose students because they are intimidated by the assessment?

Formal assessments provide information about progress in specific learning skills—information that is needed to plan lessons—but communication skills, self-confidence, attitudes, and barriers to progress also need to be evaluated. Informal assessment goes on all the time. The students in our class use journals each day of class. They write about what they learned that day, factors that affected their learning, what they liked and didn't like about class, what feelings they had and what they wish they learned or knew more about. The journals provide on-going evaluation for meeting goals; they also provide writing practice. Sometimes our students write essays about what it takes to feel confident, how to communicate with people at work, or why learning is important. I would like to know more about what other teachers use for informal assessments.

When students first come to class, we talk about their goals. They almost always say they want to get a GED, and they seldom express any other goals. Sometimes when we are talking about employability skills or parenting issues, someone will say, AWill this be on the GED?@ I want to use assessments to evaluate whether lessons are helping students acquire skills to meet future goals as well as the skills needed to pass the GED. What assessments can I use for this kind of evaluation?

Students in our class wanted to plan their own schedules. Some of the parents were very concerned that they learn as much as possible in the 5 hours a week they are in class and asked me to work out a class schedule with them. The result was very ambitious and included a lot of different subjects in each week. But they agreed to try it for 2 weeks and evaluate whether it was working. We actually tried the schedule for 4 weeks, and they found that there were too many subjects each day. They cut back, and the new schedule was satisfactory. As a result of this experience, they are planning other activities for the summer program. I hope they will continue to take this kind of interest in class, and I would really like to have a way to assess what students are learning from these kinds of experiences.

Additional Questions

Additional questions that I have about assessment are as follows:
1. Is there a way to standardize assessment instruments for all classroom settings (learning centers, correction facilities, family programs, ESL classes) so that we can all be trained in what the tools are and how to use them?
2. Does class setting determine which assessments are used? For example, do we use different assessments for family programs than a correctional facility would use?
3. Is there a way to evaluate whether the assessments being done in our classroom are effective?
4. How can teachers effectively share their assessment ideas with others?