Theme 2: Measuring Progress

1
Theme 2 Measuring Progress

• Individual Learner Progress vs. Programme
  Performance Targets

2
Adults with basic skill needs

• Who are they?
• Early school leavers no education beyond grade
  9 or 10
• How many are they?
• App. 16 of the age group 20-64
• But (only)
• App. 10 of the youngest age group

3
The Tripartee committee

• Excerpt from challenges facing present
  initiatives in Denmark
• Increasing the motivation and demand for adult
  education qand supplementary eduation and
  training
• Providing the individual with better
  opportunities for professional, personal and
  career development
• Ensuring the provision of courses and programmes
  that enable everyone to raise their
  qualaifications to a new formal level

4
Preparatory Adult Education

• Provision
• Danish (literacy)
• Math (numeracy)
• English
• IT
• Level
• From ? to Level of School Leaving Certificate
  (grade 9)
• But not the full programme

5
Formative assessment and measuring progress

• The teacher measures and keep records the
  students do not
• The teacher shares information
• Why?
• The students dont like the paperwork and all
  these papers about them

6
Tools

• Individual student checklists
• supplement Assignments with corrections
• Assessment form used during various classroom
  exercises
• Questions for teacher and student conversation
  about learning styles and learning environment
• Informal conversations
• Assignments for SLC

7
(Missing) tools

• Portfolio
• Log book
• Remarkable, at least the log book is recommended
  by MOE

8
Formative assessment and summative evaluation

• A mixed age group class The minority sit for the
  Level 1 examination however they prepare for it
• The Youth Class The students want to prepare
  for SLC but it seems as the majority of them
  face great difficulties in going for it

9
The Trailer Class

• The student motives are differentiated but no
  student has included studying for SLC in their
  motivation
• Formative evaluation tools are not visible for
  students but the teacher keeps record for each
  of them
• Transferral to other levels is carried out very
  informal

10
Tensions

• The three very different cases reveal the
  students personal motivation
• The Trailer case reveals that carreer motivation
  for different reasons for example the possibily
  to move to another position with higher demands
  on reading or to be able to function better as a
  representative for the collegues inside the
  workplace and in collaboration among workplaces
  or companies

11
Tensions (2)

• The elder paticipants dont reveal interest in
  improving formal competencies
• They can sit for a test and recieve a certificate
  if they pass or they can get a certificate
  based on an informal assessment
• The certificate is private the employer has no
  right to see it

12
Tensions (3)

• However the final level tests of Preparatory
  Adult Education is the same as SLC the tests do
  not give access to the general adult education
• The combination of the lack of formal merit, the
  absence of personal motivation, absence of
  demands for sitting for testing is not in line
  with the actual policy

13
Tensions (4)

• These tensions may decrease if demands on
  students to document their skills were increased
• It could be presentation of test results
• But it could also be portfolios and/or log books

14
Tensions (5)

• For the young students the situation is
  different
• The majority of them cannot do, what they really
  want to!
• They know that they need to pass SLC, they have
  very low skills in how to learn and how to study.

15
Tensions (6)

• The teachers track the work and progress
• The issue is, what will enable the students to
  increase their abilities to do so?
• They need to be able to set up steps that will
  lead to the final goal of course in
  collaboration with the teachers!

16
Tensions (7)

• The Youth class is an innovation programme
• It has been successful to motivate the students
  to attend their classes
• It has been successful to establish a positive
  relation between student and teacher
• However, it looks as if it is not possible for
  many of the students to pass the SLC examination

17
Tensions (8)

• The problem could be a matter of time maybe a 2
  year programme instead of 1 year
• For sure this could be a problem for some of the
  students motivation!!
• Focus on documentation of processes may improve
  the skills for some students

18
What to do?

• Examine the legal texts aiming at ia new balance
  between the policy and the personal student needs
• Launching innovation programmes for development
  of tools aiming at monitoring and tracking
  processes and progress
• The Young learners are familiar with
  IT-technologies, video games, cellular phones
  etc. Could these communication tools bring new
  perspectives on documentation and formative
  assessment?