Hello colleagues, I want to invite a discussion about the standardized tests adult education programs across the country are using with English language learners. How is the test (or tests) you are using working for you for different levels of learners. For instance, how are they working for learners at the literacy level, especially for learners with limited formal schooling? How are the tests working with English learners who have recently transitioned to the Adult Basic Education level? Do you see any interesting patterns in learning gains based on learners' levels? As you see it, what are the pros and cons of your testing instruments? What lessons learned can you pass along to your colleagues? Do you have burning questions?
Looking forward to hearing some words of wisdom on this issue!
Cheers, Susan Finn Miller
Moderator, Assessment & AELL CoPs
Comments
Which things stand out from the PP?
I love the idea of giving them those frequent successes so that they feel motivated by their own progress. And giving them choices is strong. This is much better than the old-style holidays and "where's the bank?" activities.
As far as how our program helps implement these things, I think we have a ways to go. We are moving away from the survival mode, and with new leadership, we will move in the right direction, but we have yet to talk about any of this.
I am huge on sharing student success's with them. It has a strong motivational impact on the students.
I examined the PowerPoint presentation by Rob Jenkins and Maricel Santos and what stood out to me was how they advised the teachers to motivate the students to continue with the program through assisting them to achieve work/school/home life balance. This was essential to increasing participation rates and in turn, MSG and HSE rates.
Charles Johnson
In our program, we have worked hard to improve learner persistence. We reach out to the students on a consistent basis to assist them with achieving the work/school/home life balance. This increases their willingness to persist through whatever barriers hinder them from completing their HISET Diploma.
Charles Johnson
Hello, In my experience it is helpful to identify barriers to success and identify solutions. we offered a 40-week course and attendance became a big barrier to success. We had an alternate way to make up the sessions but that became a very easy out. The learner missed out on the peer learning and struggled to complete the course.
I like the idea of making each session a stand alone session.
I like the concept presented by one of the instructors: "To make this class a high priority." This phrase speaks volumes about the importance of reaching towards your goal without the obstacles suffocating your dream.
Ok
Our staff has brainstormed to generate ideas that will encourage students to come to class. One example of this was by identifying barriers to attendance and trying to reduce or eliminate those barriers.
I work for an organization that has many branches, some of which are able to help students with gas money and other barriers that hinder their attendance. Some of these students are very diligent in their attendance. For some students, feeling these types of burdens being eased can make a big difference in their motivation factor, allowing them to be more persistent in their studies.
Goals are probably the most difficult for me. Determining goals for each student in a multi level class proves to be a challenge. Positive feedback is the easiest since I feel that is a strength of mine.
Our program does not currently have many ESL students. However, I do think that the ideas put forth in this course are relative to all students. I think we could benefit from helping students set appropriate goals.
Teachers in my program work together to provide the students with the correct materials to study for the test as well as information about career opportunities and goal setting.
Our program is an independent study high school diploma program for adult students. When students enroll, they are often nervous and unsure about their ability to be successful in the program, but just as often they are excited for the opportunity to be back in school working towards a diploma. For many of our students that initial excitement and determination gets replaced by discouragement as life gets in the way. This course is helping me reflect on how we can help our students set appropriate near-term goals, find value in the course material they are working through, and have success early in the process. Because our program is an independent-study model, students rarely collaborated with each other, so I work hard to be seen as someone my students can collaborate with as they negotiate the diploma program curriculum and requirements. Students now have multiple ways to contact me (texting, phone calls, email, online meetings, classroom hours, and even the occasional meet-up in a parking lot) to contact me and get the support they need.
I highly believe in addressing my students as my "peer" and not my 'student'. Thus, I simply ask that they let me know if they cannot attend class via text message, email, etc. No explanation is needed, just an "I can't attend tonight or today." I let my students know that they are important to me....whether in class or not. I believe it develops a relationship between peers and, hopefully, they feel invested in the classes.
I observed the teacher using a variety of modalities to engage students. She read aloud, they repeated, and then there was discussion of the vocab. She reinforced the connection between words on the page with spoken language by having students follow along with their finger tracing the words on the page while she read. Students remained active and engaged.
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We use Burlington English for a curriculum and I love it! The only thing that is a challenge to teach online is pronunciation. I would love some more tools on pronunciation to help my students.
Thank you Susan, Karen, Liz, Nisha, and Michele for keeping the conversation going and sharing ways in which to celebrate milestones and encourage and motivate learners. Great conversation!
I am just getting started with my program, so I haven't had a chance to see how this is occurring at our location yet.
As a former secondary education teacher at an alternative school, however, I found that including the real-world application of what we were learning to be very effective. I also saw increased motivation of students who were able to see small successes that eventually grew into larger successes in class.
Hi, I am new to the Adult Education field, I have had a Master's in Education for two years from an accredited online university. I am able to assess a lot of skills but I do not know about the formal testing of skills. I'm entering the teaching field and am excited. I have done some of this site's classes and plan to do more in the future. I have read a lot about ABE, ESL, and Secondary and Post-secondary education, along with job training counseling and aid. I'm considering starting at a local community college teaching. Nice to meet the group/site. Will be posting more, especially if people are not annoyed by my lack of professional experience and training in the US as an educator. I am self-educating these days after college and have become a life learner, and I always want to learn new things in the future.
Sean Murphy
The thing that most stood out for me in these activities is trying to find out what students want. I will implement a survey. My students have very stable lives and are very competent. Their motivations for learning vary. I hope to ask them more directly, now that I've gotten to know them better. I want to tailor my teaching to their needs. I think it's a great idea to survey them in a simple, non-technical way.
In my organization of teachers, we come together to work on plans for goal setting for the individual student and how best to attain that goal as a group
I find efficacy a strategy that stands out the most and one I need to be using more often.
We have a team teaching approach as well as meetings together weekly to discuss items that could be improved. We accept that Adult Learners have barriers and work by setting goals with them based on career instruction and everyday practical instruction as well as book instruction.
We have a team teaching approach as well as meetings together weekly to discuss items that could be improved. We accept that Adult Learners have barriers and work by setting goals with them based on career instruction and everyday practical instruction as well as book instruction.
I loved this video for teaching structure and observation. Andrea made things very plausible and relevant for students to care, and to grasp the material at the same time. My favorite opportunity was the fly-swater game- it will be a good fit for my students as well- especially because it's a fun way to learn phonics! Go Andrea!
I work with students who are in the Integrated Educational and Training (IET). This information has been helpful. We basically work along with the technical instructor to help students learn a trade and build on their basic skills.
The video used in Unit 1 was very enjoyable to watch and to see the best practices of using Instructional Design Strategies.
The information here is very interesting.
Working in an enclosed community setting I feel blessed with the different teachers in our state and how we collaborate with each other to motivate and share experiences and ideas with each other to share with our students. Many of our students are adults with foundational skills that were missed and we have to start over at a low grade level to fill in gaps. if we do not find age appropriate material it quickly deteriates our students motivation because they are embarrassed. So creativity is often needed to keep our students (as all others) motivated with dignity.
Students do need appropriate materials to fill in the educational gaps that may have been missed.
Will not save
Keep material relevant to student interest
I am new to my organization and have not yet seen how teachers boosted learner motivation and persistence. I look forward to seeing how it is approached.
I use many of these strategies in my classroom. They really do make a difference.
Some pretty good stuff here. I like watching the lady from Minnesota teach. I'll probably try to get my people out of their chairs more.
I loved this phrase because it's totally the truth! "If it “takes a village” to educate a child, it takes a whole adult education program to promote learner persistence!"
I think 'Empathy' is one of the keys when working with adults, and how to get things together that could be applied on real life.
In my adult education program at a community college, we reach out to students by phone, text or email after an absence. We invite the learner back and help them to solve problems and overcome barriers they may be experiencing. We allow schedule changes and class transfers at student request. We also give students free bus rides to and from school-related activities, and a limited number of Uber rides. We provide free food on site for students who need that (bag lunch). Students with good attendance/participation are given first choice of classes in the new term. We no longer drop students for having poor attendance or being late for class or leaving early. We provide students with supplies upon request, and as many learning labs and tutoring sessions as they can handle. We still have more to do, especially to help students take charge of their learning and also self-assessment.
I like the idea of students doing weekly self-assessment of listening skills, so that students can reflect and see their progress first hand. Also the idea of creating and exchanging a contact information so that students can get to know each other and perhaps even help each other out with carpooling, homework assignments, or any other barriers to attending class.
Our region used the method of pre-testing and gathering before they actual registered. This I believe has caused them to take the classes more seriously while giving them a time of bonding with other students.
I can't find the thread to which this link was supposed to lead. I'll start my own!
I watched a video of an AE teacher in Minnesota teaching low-level ESL. She chose material with an appropriate level of difficulty. They were simple sentences and words. The subject was appropriate to tenants in low-income housing. The week before, the students had a field trip to a hardware store. They had been concerned with bedbugs, broken toilets, lack of heat in their apartments, etcetera.
She used multiple and varied formats to get the vocabulary and information across. She had listening and reading along, choral repetition, word identification, sentence formation. The students stood and moved, talked with each other, practiced pronunciation, found word groups, and practiced a model dialog. They also played a noisy flyswatter game. It is effective. I've played that game before, but with minimal pairs instead of sight words. She presented her material in a clear and organized format.
She also encouraged learners to generate content in personalized activities, something I do quite often.
I agree she used multiple and varied formats to teach the vocabulary. She also used repetition which is so important for this group of learners. I also like how she was always testing what they know from listening to each student when they held up their cards to moving around to each student when reading the sentences to see if they were able to follow along with each word when reading the story.
Sometimes we will join a couple of our classes in a group Kahoot. This motivates students because they want to show the students in the other class how much they know!
Great job of using practical examples from which to illustrate. Student learning is most advanced when there is an understanding of "how will I use this in my life."
Which of the strategies shared by subject matter experts Rob Jenkins and Maricel Santos in the PowerPoint presentation stand out for you? Which would you most like to try?
I liked how the objective about what the students would be able to do by the end of class was written on the board at the beginning of each lesson. It is a visual that helps students to mentally prepare for the lesson and a checkpoint at the end of class that they can use to gauge their personal understanding. If a student must be absent, they are award of a specific goal being missed that day.
Colleagues and I have worked together to provide students with creative games and activities to promote a friendly atmosphere of cooperation that goes beyond written word exercises.
We have meetings regularly and talk about activities we have done in the classroom and successes and failures.
We are using CASAs. It works well for more advanced students, but not very well for beginning students. There is a big focus on reading and writing, but our students are just learning to speak. The Best Plus 2.0 works better for beginning students. I liked how we were assessing before. Best Plus 2.0 for beginning students and TABE or Accuplacer for more advanced students.
The teacher is using effective instruction by building their vocabulary. If they don't know what a hardware store is and what kinds of things you can buy there, teaching them to read and write those words will not be effective. The students need to know what the word represents. This teacher was effective in that instruction.