Theme 2: Measuring Progress Individual Learner Progress vs. Programme Performance Targets

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 But (only) App. 10% of the youngest age group

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

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

Formative assessment and measuring progress The teacher ”measures” and keep records – the students do not The teacher shares information Why? The students don’t like the paperwork and all these papers about them

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

(Missing) tools Portfolio Log book Remarkable, at least the log book is recommended by MOE

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

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

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

Tensions (2) The elder paticipants don’t 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

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

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

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.

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!

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

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

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?