GOOD MORNING.  DAVID HAS PROVIDED A SET OF QUESTIONS. SINCE THERE ARE SEVERAL
QUESTIONS, I'LL START OUT WITH JUST A FEW OF THE MOST BASIC QUESTIONS TO GET
THE DISCUSSION STARTED, AND WILL GO INTO MORE DEPTH AS THE DISCUSSION
PROCEEDS.

QUESTION 1. WHAT IS THE OECD AND WHAT DOES IT DO?


The OECD (the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), which
was established in 1961, might be described as an international "think tank".
It provides statistics, economic and social data; analyzes and forecasts
economic developments; seeks answers to common problems; and identifies good
practices.  There are 30 member countries -  including the United States (for
the complete list, see "About OECD" at www.oecd.org).  OECD headquarters is
located in Paris, France.

While the OECD is not necessarily well-known in the United States, those
participating in this Special Topics discussion group may be familiar with
some of its large-scale surveys.  They include:

*	the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a test of
15 year- olds' problem-solving skills
*	The International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), conducted between
1994 and 1998 as a joint project of the OECD and Statistics Canada. 
*	The Adult Literacy and LifeSkills (ALL) Survey of 2005 and ongoing,
also conducted as a joint project of the OECD and Statistics Canada 
*	The Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies
(PIAAC) which will begin in the next two to three years, will include more on
literacy in the information age.

But the OECD is also involved in other kinds of research, including studies
developed to compare policy experiences, to seek answers to common problems,
and to identify good practices.

More information on the Education Directorate can be found at
www.oecd.org/edu.  

The website for the study about we're discussing this week, Teaching,
Learning and Assessment for Adults: Improving Foundation Skills, can be found
at  www.oecd.org/edu/whatworks and www.oecd.org/edu/whatworks/feb2008meeting


QUESTION 2. What led up to the OECD What Works study, Teaching, Learning and
Assessment for Adults: Improving Foundation Skills? Why is OECD   interested
in teaching, learning and assessment, especially in   formative assessment
for adults who need basic skills?

I'LL ANSWER THIS QUESTION IN TWO PARTS - FIRST, WHY FOCUS ON CLASSROOM
PRACTICE, AND SECOND, WHAT IS FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT AND WHY IS IT SUCH SO
SIGNFICANT?

The OECD international surveys on adult literacy have been extremely
important for identifying the prevalence of adults with foundation skill
needs across countries.  For example, the IALS showed that in the majority of
the 23 countries participating in the survey, between 14 and 23 % of adults
were able to meet only the lowest standards of literacy and numeracy
proficiency. Other publications have focused on questions of improving access
to adult foundation skill learning  [for example, Beyond Rhetoric (OECD,
2003) and Promoting Adult Learning (OECD, 2005)].  

The just published OECD study, Teaching, Learning and Assessment for Adults:
Improving Foundation Skills  (OECD, 2008) is the first study to focus on
improving the quality of provision and outcomes for adult learners.   

Until recently, it has been rare for a policy organization such as the OECD
to focus on what happens inside classrooms.  However, there is increasing
awareness that:

*	We cannot effectively support goals for equity and efficiency in
education without paying attention to quality.
*	It is not enough to set outcome goals and targets for learning and
then expect programs to meet them.  Teaching, learning and assessment are
highly complex tasks, and instructors also need support if they are to help
learners achieve high-quality outcomes.   To provide appropriate support,
policy-makers also need to understand the steps of the learning process. 
*	And, with an understanding of "what works" in practice, policy-makers
are also be able to provide more effective leadership, to ensure that the
elements of the system are aligned, and to make better investments.

THE SECOND PART OF DAVID'S QUESTION IS WHY WE CHOSE to FOCUS ON "FORMATIVE
ASSESSMENT"?  

FIRST, WHAT IS FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT? For those who are unfamiliar with the
term, "formative assessment" refers to frequent assessments of learner
progress and understanding to identify learning needs and shape teaching.
Formative assessment is sometimes referred to as assessment for learning,
distinct from assessment of learning (tests and examinations).  In another
definition, Black et al. (2005) propose that:

"Assessment for learning is any assessment for which the first priority in
its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting students'
learning... An assessment activity can help learning if it provides
information to be used as feedback, by teachers, and by their students, in
assessing themselves and each other, to modify the teaching and learning
activities in which they are engaged. Such assessment becomes 'formative
assessment' when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching work to
meet learning needs." (SEE REFERENCE FOR BLACK, ET AL., 2005) AT THE END.

While formative assessment is really a global approach to teaching and
learning , it might be useful to give a few concrete examples of techniques ,
such as "feedback", questioning and scaffolding.

*	Feedback with specific suggestions on how to improve performance
helps learners to meet learning goals.
*	Effective questioning can help to draw learners into active dialogue
and debate, joint enquiry, and/or reveal whether learners have understood a
new concept. Questioning may help to establish common understandings within
heterogeneous groups. Questions that push learners to reflect and/or explain
are more useful (for example, ""how?", "why?", "are you sure?", "are you
happy with that?", "show me", and other questions which cannot be answered
with a "yes" or "no").
*	Scaffolding means that instructors pitch the level of lessons and
learning material so that learners get as much or as little challenge as they
can handle at any given point.  


These are just a few specific techniques....I'll have more to say about how
formative assessment changes the overall approach to teaching and learning
later in the discussion.

WHY IS FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT SUCH AN IMPORTANT AREA FOR EDUCATIN RESEARCH?  

The English researchers Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam describe achievement
gains associated with formative assessment as among the largest ever reported
for educational interventions - based on their 1998 review of the English
language literature  ecologically valid controlled studies on formative
assessment practices.  Formative assessment has also been found to have an
even greater impact for low achieving students, and helps build students'
skills for learning-to-learn. These effects are consistent across different
age groups (school-age and university learners), subjects and in the
different countries included in major reviews. Yet there have been few
efforts to date to study the impact or implementation of formative assessment
in the context of adult foundation skill learning.

I should note that we also focused on the subject of formative assessment in
our 2005 publication, Formative Assessment:  Improving Learning in Secondary
Classrooms (OECD, 2005).  Based on this study and other research, we were
convinced that formative assessment would have important implications for
adult foundation skill learners, and so set out to learn more about the state
of the art in this sector.

[REFs: Black, P., C. Harrison, C. Lee, B. Marshall and D. Wiliam (2005),
Assessment for Learning: Putting it into Practice, Open University Press,
Buckingham.

Black, P. and D. Wiliam (1998), "Assessment and Classroom Learning",
Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, CARFAX,
Oxfordshire, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 7-74.]

QUESTION 3. Could you say a bit about the research of Black and Wiliam in the
U.K. , their "black box" model, and why their elementary and secondary
education and higher education research is so significant for those
interested in the quality of instruction and in education outcomes?

Following on their 1998 review of the literature, Black and Wiliam turned to
the question of how to promote formative assessment practices in regular
classrooms.  They first applied the term "black box" to the classroom -
noting that policy makers tend to focus on "inputs" and "outputs", with
little attention as to how results are achieved.  We found this metaphor to
be very useful for the adult foundation skill classroom, as well.


QUESTION 4. What countries were involved in the study?

Ten countries were involved in the current OECD study.  These countries
identified exemplary practices for case study development and/or background
reports on the policy environment for adult foundation skill learning:

Australia
Belgium (Flemish Community)
Denmark 
England
France
New Zealand
Norway
Scotland 
Spain, and
the United States

MORE AS THE DISCUSSION GETS STARTED....



David J. Rosen
Special Topics Discussion Moderator
djrosen at comcast.net


David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net



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