Good day colleagues, I hope this email finds you well.  
 
I am cross-posting the following 2 emails from the Adult Literacy
Professional Development Discussion List.  The catalyst for this
discussion was not assessment, but rather creativity and innovation in
our work.  This topic prompted the writer to share a rich and detailed
description of how the teachers in her program became centrally involved
in shaping accountability - via classroom, or formative, assessment.
This story is a great example of how a program took the top-down model,
stood it on its head, and made it a bottom-up model.  They appear to
already be reaping the many benefits of this endeavor. 
 
I'm posting it here because I think it's a very inspirational story that
is not just a story - they are doing it.  I also would like to hear what
questions you might have about any of what Bonnita writes.  I'll wager
that there are other programs out there that have done similar things,
or at least pieces of something similar - perhaps not on such a grand
scale.   Ask yourself, "could my program do something like this?  Or a
part of what is described here?"  Why or why not?
 
Let us hear from you.
 
Marie Cora
Assessment Discussion List Moderator
 
**********
 
From: professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:professionaldevelopment-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Bonnita
Solberg
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 10:56 PM
To: The Adult Literacy Professional Development Discussion List
Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 914] Re: The role of self-study in PD
 
Greetings All:

I have read with interest the discussion on this broad subject of
teacher creativity and innovation.  I find it is a not insurmountable
balance to encourage creativity/innovation while meeting the demands of
funding/accountability.  My belief is that an informed administration
can create a safe and structured space for innovation and creativity to
take root and blossom.  Here is my experience.

Ten years ago, just as research was being published on PD, we began to
hear rumblings about staff meetings and workshops.  Unaware of the
research, separately and then collectively, teachers acknowledged that
while they enjoyed conferences and spending time with colleagues from
other districts, and although they brought home exciting ideas about
methods and processes, they seldom followed through on them.  Staff
meetings were even more problematical--we were being talked at and
encouraged by example and any means at administration's disposal to
complete our paperwork, attend important meetings, be involved in more
PD where we sat and listened but did not implement what we heard. It
soon surfaced that what we wanted was to learn from our colleagues by
example and mentoring, to share ideas and try them out in the classroom,
then come together and share some more.  Administration was reluctant to
use staff meetings for anything other than hammering home our
responsibility with paperwork and deadlines, but they read the research
and were persuaded.

This year for the first time in the 31 years I have worked in Oakland,
the PD retreat weekend two weeks ago was truly run by and for teachers.
There were no outside presenters, no motivational speakers, no long
lists of important program goals.  The theme was selected by teachers at
last year's retreat--ongoing assessment in the classroom.  The
presentations were Poster Boards of our best assessments, made by our
teachers. The next three staff meetings will be devoted to piloting and
amending the assessments we chose at each level, sharing our
experiences, fine tuning them and moving toward an assessment system
program wide.

What could have been resistance to implementation of an imposed
program-wide assessment system was turned round in this safe and
structured space created by a committee of teachers with administrative
guidance in which teachers were leaders.  Creativity and innovation
blossomed.  Teachers gave their experience the highest marks in the 5
year history of OACE retreats. During pre-retreat staff meetings, at
which we broke into small groups, staff commented that at last teachers
were being heard.  And dare I say it, teachers want to attend staff
meetings; attendance is at a record high.  They are willing to take
risks presenting to their colleagues, validated by the knowledge that
their work is appreciated, that it will not be left to melt away but
will flourish in the hands of caring colleagues.

Administration is more than pleased.  Teachers are learning what
constitutes good assessment without being preached to and without the
cost of consultants.  They are being softly persuaded by fellow teachers
to incorporate assessment into their daily practice, assessments that
can be tracked and recorded, that will meet state requirements for
accountability standards that are surely coming.  We are innovators in
the data and funding game, having involved teachers in the design of an
assessment system and by having fostering the leadership skills of
teachers.

An experience of one kind of creativity and innovation as an adult ed
teacher. 

Bonnita Solberg, Teacher on Special Assignment
Oakland Adult and Career Education

******
 
Good Sunny Sunday Afternoon Jackie and All!
I am happy to respond to your request andIwould like to chronicle our
experiences with this innovative PD not only for this list but for my
edification as well.

The planning for this project on assessment in the classroom began a
year ago at an ESL teachers' retreat where teachers were asked what they
wanted to focus on in PD.  28 responses (a majority) out of
approximately 65 were for assessment that would inform decisions to
promote or retain, inform the teacher if they were meeting level
standards and what, if any, adjustments to instruction were needed, and
inform students of their progress.  In focus groups, students had been
asked by outside consultants in their L1 what was working for them in
Oakland Adult and Career Education (OACE) and what could be improved.
One repeated request was to see, not just know, what their progress is
and what was required to move to the next level.  Using this OACE data
as a foundation, 3 committees were formed: Best Practices and Power
Standards run solely by teachers, and Professional Development headed by
an administrator with another administrator as consultant.

Best Practices (BP) committee investigated the best practices of other
districts to determine if there were assessments, curriculum, syllabai,
level standards, that OACE could draw on.  My first request from this
discussion list was to ask for this information from out of state
programs.  Except for a brief response from Texas, no one responded;
perhaps there were too many questions and it was too involved to do so.
We found that the programs we contacted in state had no useful
information to share; in fact, most asked if we would share with them
what we compiled because they also are interested in on going assessment
in the classroom.  I want to stop here to explain that we assess using
CASAS and EL Civics evaluations; however, we are investigating on-going
classroom assessments that evaluate if the student is meeting his/her
goals and if the teacher is teaching to the standards. These are
assessments to be used in the classroom on a daily or weekely basis and
are not required for funding at this time.  The Best Practices committee
had been formed to gather this information so we would not have to
reinvent the wheel of assessment and to guide the PD committee in its
quest to involve teachers in deciding which assessments to use at each
level.  Without any outside information to guide us, we proceeded to
"invent our own assessment wheel."

The Power Standards (PS) committee was charged with setting level
standards:  Literacy, Beginning Low, Beginning High, Intermediate Low
and High combined, and multi level classes.  PS set up an exercise
whereby teachers at each level met during the first PD day of the year
to specify what standards teachers would address at each level, and what
students could expect to be covered at the level as well specifying for
the student what would be expected of them to move to the next level.
The power standards decided upon by the teachers at each level were made
into posters and distributed to each class to reference, daily
hopefully, to guide both instruction and students.  These standards are
under constant scrutiny by teachers and will be revised as needed,
probably by the end of this school year.  The PS are informed by and
meet state standards but are different from the state's.  Each OACE
level has four standards: reading, writing, speaking and listening;
i.e., standards do not address content but language skills.

I should also explain that in Oakland we have both contracted teachers
(about 50 in ESL) and hourly, part time teachers, about 100 in ESL.
Contracted teachers are required to complete 18 hours of PD yearly for
which they are paid on the salary schedule according the numbers of
years of service and education they have.  Hourly part timers are paid a
set rate of $22.45 an hour for participation.  When contract teachers
exceed the 18 hours, they are also paid at this rate.  We do not expect
our teachers to volunteer free for these committees or for participation
in PD.

The PD committee began its work in November, meeting twice monthly for 3
hour sessions.  It took approximately 6 weeks for us to "gel" as a
committee and set up a working process: One participant takes notes on a
laptop that are projected onto the wall, working notes are approved and
changed during the meeting.  This duty is shared by 3 members.  I took
on the task of facilitator.  Teachers are released from their classes
and a substitute provided for participation on the committee, or if not
teaching during those hours, teachers are paid at $22.45 per hour.
Teachers are encouraged to attend as they find time, so although there
is a core of consistent participants, there are also teachers who drop
in as schedules allow.  This can be challenging as we must back track
and cover what we have accomplished for the drop ins, but it is an
important way to educate teachers about the process.

We mounted the retreat I described in the email below and will not
reiterate that here.  During this time (Jan and Feb) we met weekly to
finalize the schedule for the weekend.  After the retreat, we realized
that although teachers want to focus on assessment, many do not know
what constitutes an assessment.  The poster board sessions described
below were actually best practice classroom activities with no way of
recording progress/results to show both students or another teacher to
whom the student may be promoted.  We focused on how to educate teachers
on what constitutes a good assessment without "an instructor" conducting
a class in which teachers listen passively and without giving them
articles to dissect and bring back to the full group as is suggested by
our state CALPRO in service training.  We found a more satisfactory way
than the traditional academic instruction:  Tomorrow at our faculty
meeeting we will break into 7 groups by level (literacy has 3 groups
because they constitute the largest number).  Each group will have a
facilitator who is a PD committee member.  Each participant will be
given a list of questions ("what do I think?") to ask themselves as they
pilot assessments during the following month.  In this manner, we are
educating teachers what constitutes a good assessment.  

I put out my request for information to this list group last weekend
before our committee meeting.  I spent hours on the internet with a lot
of guidance from this list participants and compiled two folders for the
committee members:  1.) What constitutes a good assessment and 2.)
samples of assessment forms.  I gave the full committee the folder on
samples, but not the folder on what constitutes a good assessment.  I
want to stop here to say that we had presented the state standards for
what constitutes a good assessment at the retreat weekend; it was very
academic and required using information gap type of interaction amongst
the participants.  While it guided the selection of what assessments
would be piloted, it did not accomplish the goal of having teachers
select an assessment form that could be used as a record for teacher and
student.  The ESL faculty meeting tomorrow will be solely dedicated to
this task, as will the next two faculty meetings, with a maximum of 10
minutes used for admionistration announcements.

The committee is reluctant to hand out copies of samples of assessment
forms at the faculty meeting because there are many teachers who are not
willing to "interrupt" classroom instruction by using a form to record
their assessments.  We as committee members were continually advising
teachers during their poster making sessions before the retereat (which
they also got paid for) that indeed they do assess, they simply haven't
formalized their assessments into a system and onto paper.  That hurdle
is almost history, but not quite.  Now teachers are faced with the task
of how they can assess daily/weekly without adding more paperwork to
burden their already full schedules.  But the committee is not "doing"
this for the teachers nor is administration forcing it upon them;
rather, the teachers are developing assessment tools they can use
easily.

The other folder, what constitutes a good assessment, was used by the PD
subcommittee that set up the "think it over" sheet for teachers to use
as they pilot their chosen assessments.  I did not hand out that folder
to the full committee because it seemed to overburden them with
"academics and research"; they were not that interested when I presented
it.  I believe the folder on samples of assessment tools will be used
tomorrow at the staff meeting by the facilitators if they need to refer
to them to show teachers the myriad of types of tools.  The groups are
all at different levels in their quest to develop assessment tools.
Some have gone to the heart of the problem and are setting up rubrics.
Others are still struggling with basics:  Do we have to do this?  Is it
being imposed by administration?  How will I have time to do this and
CASAS and EL Civics Evaluations on top of it?  Will the state accept our
assessment tools when it comes time to be accountable to the state, as
we have been told is coming down the road?

I must add that I was the only committee member who researched on the
web or brought this information to the committe, except for our PD
adminsitrator who brought a book on authentic assessment tools (can't
recall the title).  We did not use any research but relied on data
obtained from our faculty members and their professional wisdom to both
start the process and move it along.

Sorry Jackie!  This is longer than I expected but I don't know how to
answer your question in a shorter essay.  I will ask for permission to
post the "think it over" sheet we designed and will also list the
resources I found sometime next week.  Thanks for the words of
encouragement and for the support I have received from all of you, if
not directly, then indirectly as I read all your lists. 

Bonnita Solberg, Teacher on Special Assignment
Oakland Adult and Career Education
     


 
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