Ongoing Assessment

In this module, we will review learner retention materials to highlight how literacy can make a difference in people’s lives, encouraging learners to participate in life-long learning opportunities.

About Literacy Basics

Ongoing Assessment

Ongoing assessment, as its name implies, takes place over the time the learner is in LBS training. According to the OALCF Foundations of Assessment, ongoing assessments are used to:

monitor learner progress
identify ways to help learners develop the abilities to achieve their goals
identify any barriers to achieving their goals

The assessment should be done with the learner, not to the learner, so it allows both the instructor and the learner to examine:

progress within the literacy learning plan
what changes need to be made
how well the learner plan reflects the current situation

Ongoing assessment often involves both formal and informal tools. Informal assessment can include something as simple as asking, “How’s it going?” or an impromptu review of a learner’s work. Formal assessment includes tests and milestones.

Whatever tools you use, you will need a way to track and document learners’ progress. This can include checklists of mastered skills, anecdotal documentation of observed progress, and self-assessments completed by the learner. This approach will help you and the learners know they have made progress and have concrete evidence to prove it.

A number of programs have designed ways to track the learners’ progress. We have included an example from ALSO (Alternative Learning Styles and Outlooks) in the Sample Forms section of this module. Literacy Council York-Simcoe has taken this a step further and created sheets for all five goal paths with example tasks for each competency. We have included their Further Education Tracker in the Sample Forms section.

“Ongoing assessment has to do with [learning] activity that occurs continuously. [It] has less to do with written reports and far more to do with the interactive, dynamic roles of both teachers and learners. It has to do with responding to learners’ questions every day and with actively noting the kinds of questions learners ask, the ways in which learners respond to print and oral communications, the kinds of mistakes they make, the ways in which they go about correcting their own mistakes, and the ways in which [others] might correct them. This kind of ongoing observation and assessment is inseparable from good teaching practice.”

Janet Isserlis “What you See: Ongoing Assessment in the ESL/Literacy Classroom”

Milestones

Milestones are goal-related assessment activities that are linked to the five goal paths by using tasks that utilize documents, texts, situations and interactions drawn from employment, further education, further training and everyday life. Each milestone is directly related to one competency, task group or level within the Curriculum Framework. Through successful completion of milestones, learners demonstrate their abilities to use their literacy skills to carry out goal-related tasks.

In the MTCU Requirements section earlier in this module, we discussed the need to keep milestones secure to ensure their integrity and to use them as instructed for consistency across the LBS field. The diagram below, from the OALCF Milestones User Guide shows how milestones are used within OALCF programming. Note: only authorized individuals may access the OALCF Milestone and Culminating Task Repository to download the User Guides, Indexes and the actual milestones and culminating tasks. If you do not have access yourself, please get a copy of the guides and indexes from your program’s authorized representative or have your EOIS CaMS Service Provider Registration Authority (SPRA) apply for your access through e-channel@contactnorth.ca.

Successfully completing a selected Milestone does not necessarily mean that learners can do other tasks at the same level or task group or that they are ready for transition. Although Milestones are an indicator of learner progress, they are not intended to stand alone. They should complement other assessment methods used to monitor learner progress. Gathering information from a variety of assessment methods will develop a more accurate understanding of the learners’ progress.

Demonstrating Learning Using Integrated Tasks

Integrated Tasks can be used to demonstrate a learner’s ability to apply multiple skills to complete complex, authentic tasks. Integrated Tasks are multi-layered, linking a number of competencies, task groups and even different levels. These tasks should resemble, as closely as possible, a real-life application of skills as they relate to the learner’s goals and goal path.

Learning activities and Integrated Tasks share many of the same features. For example:

instructions to learners
questions to be answered
tasks to be accomplished
methods to determine attainment of skills

Learning activities may even use authentic text or integrate more than one skill as they prepare learners for increasingly complex tasks. However, where learning activities are used to develop and support learning, Integrated Tasks are used to assess learning and show that the learner can apply skills to a real-life situation.

For examples of Integrated Tasks for each of the goal paths and more information about Integrated Tasks, see MTCU’s Integrated Tasks by Goal Path document. An excellent source of other sample tasks, many of which are integrated, is the QUILL Network’s Task-based Activities for LBS site.

An integrated task is a complex task that incorporates two or more task groups, usually from different competencies. Integrated tasks allow learners to develop and apply their skills and knowledge across competencies in a way that reflects real-life situations (from OALCF Integrated Tasks by Goal Path).

Portfolios

Portfolios provide a way of gathering and organizing examples of learners’ work to show progress. They are not simply a binder or a box full of everything the learner has done. Rather, they are a carefully chosen selection of examples of the skills the learner has mastered over time and the tasks that the learner has performed. This includes samples of actual work the learner has completed along with assessments and any other relevant material.

Usually the learner and the tutor or instructor work together to choose what will be included in the portfolio. Discussing and selecting work for the portfolios provides a way to involve learners in self-evaluation and reflection.

Self-Assessment

Students can become better learners and improve their skills when they deliberately reflect on what they are learning, how they are learning it and what else they need to learn. By regularly stepping back from learning activities to think about their learning strategies and progress, learners become more self-reliant and motivated. It is, therefore, worth encouraging active participation in the assessment process by allowing learners to identify and document their own progress, skills, task performance, practice and changes.

Learner self-assessment is built on four key elements:

Goal setting
Creating a plan
Guided practice with self-assessment
Assessment tools (journaling, KWL/KWHL, portfolios, mind mapping, etc.)

Self-Assessment Starts with Goal Setting

In order for learners to evaluate their progress they need targets against which to measure their performance. When we are talking about setting goals for self-assessment purposes, we are not talking about all-encompassing, long-range goals (for example, to be a carpenter). Rather, we are talking about the goals within goals – the short steps to be taken along the way – such as converting Imperial and Metric measurements. Have learners set and work toward smaller goals within their ultimate goal.

Smaller “step” goals allow them to constantly have something they can work towards, self-assessing their progress and seeing regular successes. Self-defined, and therefore relevant, learning goals for each step along the way increase learners’ motivation. Using ‘SMART’ goal planning tools can help learners develop short-term, attainable realistic goals for each learning step.

Self-Assessment Needs a Plan

Once learners have set a goal for the next step in their learning, they need to plan for success. Planning to reach learning goals is discussed in the Literacy Basics module on Learner Plan Development.

Self-Assessment Tools

The tools learners use for self-assessment need not be fancy or unique. Many programs use rubrics, journaling, checklists, questioning, etc. Tools like the KWL and its modification KWHL, have been well used in all types of learning settings.

The Ontario Association of Adult and Continuing Education School Board Administrators’ (CESBA) ESKARGO and OALCF Implementation Strategy – Resource 3 has six learner self-assessment packages, one for each goal path and another for all goal paths. These are especially useful as part of the initial assessment process.

Self-Assessment Learned through Guided Practice

Self-assessment may not come easily to learners. Self-assessment is a skill that is learned. Practice builds proficiency and self-confidence. Questions like “what made it easy or hard to learn today?” or “how have you used your new skills in the past week?” can help learners reflect on their progress and identify areas of difficulty and achievement.

One method to start learners on the self-assessment path is through instructor modelling. Using example pieces of work and an assessment tool, such as a checklist, series of questions or a rubric, the instructor reviews and assesses some examples, then learners can try the technique on other examples. Another method is having learners share their self-assessment results with peers or in a group. With both these methods, a safe, non-judgmental environment that encourages the learners to be open and honest is important. Most people are their own harshest critics, so encourage learners to focus on the positive rather than the negative. Having the learners discuss how they felt about self-assessing, how various self-assessment tools worked for them and what they might use in the future to self-assess, is also valuable.

“For formative assessment to be productive, pupils should be trained in self-assessment so that they can understand the main purposes of their learning and thereby grasp what they need to do to achieve.” Inside the Black Box, Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment, Black & Wiliam 2001, http://weaeducation.typepad.co.uk/files/blackbox-1.pdf

In “Way to Go”, the Ontario Literacy Coalition (Essential Skills Ontario) provided some tips that can help learners self-assess.

What is the purpose of this work? Does it need to be nearly perfect, or is it meant to be in draft form? Is it a formal document, such as an essay, or an informal document, such as a note to a friend?
What skills are you learning? How are they used in this piece of work?
What’s good about this work? Why is it good? (Be specific)
What needs to be improved with this work? Why does it need to be improved (again, be specific)?
Don’t just identify something as being “wrong” or bad”; think about how it could be improved.
Keep an eye out for repeated mistakes (e.g., the same word repeatedly misspelled); this can help identify patterns and possibly indicate skills to focus on.
Accept that it’s ok to make mistakes – that is how we learn!

Questions and Activities for Reflection

Give some examples of effective informal assessment activities. What makes informal assessment particularly valuable to the learners?
How could you adapt your learner progress tracking tools to incorporate self-assessment?
How can you encourage learners to self-assess?
How do you decide when it is time to conduct a formal ongoing assessment?
What revisions might you make to the learner plan because of ongoing assessment?
Choose one of the integrated tasks from the Task-Based Activities for LBS database. How do you see this fitting into your ongoing assessment?
What challenges are there, if any, to using task-based assessments?