Evaluation that Looks at Achievement Realistically

Marie F. Hassett, Ph.D.
Action for Boston CommunityDevelopment (ABCD), Boston, MA

Every teacher tells stories about the students whose spectacular successes or gut-wrenching defeats help us to define what we do. Less easy
to articulate are the stories of the students whose experiences we return to again and again, wondering, “What if?” or “If only…” as we try to figure out how we could have helped them more.

This is especially true for adult educators. The structure of our work and the needs of our students force us to focuson the end result: passing the GED exam, moving into a higher level class, becoming a U.S. citizen. But as we all know, the dedication and hard work of students and teachers do not always lead to the achievement of these goals. Inadequate child care, medical problems, housing crises, and other real-life challenges can undermine the progress of even the most determined students, in the classroom of the most supportive teacher.

After facing this problem in my own classrooms, I began searching for a tool that would allow me to deal with the stop-in, stop-out nature of adult education more productively. I wanted an evaluative tool that would allow me to quantify the progress made by students who left before passing the GED exam or increasing their skills by a grade level; address more specifically the kinds of qualitative learning that do not appear in an English or a social studies curriculum; and give students a way to see that they have learned, even if they have not yet reached their target goals.

In the course of reading and research, I found a framework by Herbert Kohl. Kohl’s teaching career began in the Harlem public schools in 1962; his first book, 36 Children, is an account of his work with that first class. During his career as a teacher, he has worked in a wide variety of traditional and non-traditional settings, with students who range in age from kindergarteners to adults. As a prolific writer and researcher, Kohl has focused primarily on the ways that schools sometimes hamper, rather than enhance, the learning process of many students, and suggests a variety of ways for teachers to help students who are, in his words, “creatively maladjusted” to a system that has been a source of frustration and humiliation. In his most recent book, The Discipline of Hope: Learning from a Lifetime of Teaching, Kohl declares that “there are at least six basic skills, which encompass all the trivial mechanical skills that people want obedient and passive [students] to acquire” and which, if used as a framework for curriculum and evaluation, “respects the intelligence and moral sensibility” of students (1998, 234-35). It is this framework which I have adopted for my classes, and which I believe has allowed me not only to measure more accurately the genuine achievements of my students, but has also helped me to think more carefully about course content and structure. The rest of this article will outline the six skills Kohl has identified, the ways that I have used them with my students, and suggestions for implementation in others’ classrooms.

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Herbert Kohl’s Six Basic Skills
Skill 1: The ability to use language well and thoughtfully.

This skill has obvious application for teachers whose work focuses largely on literacy, but it also presents opportunities for re-thinking our methods and goals. We have all done what we could to help students use language well, but I think I am not the only teacher whose classes have been, on occasion, less than thoughtful. But if we think of literacy skills as encompassing what are often referred to as the four language arts—reading, writing, speaking, and listening—this first skill can help us to look at our work more closely.

Some of the questions I’ve used for evaluating the development of language use include:

• Has the student’s vocabulary increased?

• Does the student read more willingly, from a wider variety of materials? Have I helped the student to see reading as a source of information and pleasure, and not just as another requirement?

• Has the student’s writing become a more accurate reflection of what he/she intended to say? Has the number of mechanical errors decreased? Is the student more comfortable as a writer?

• Has the student’s skill in oral discussion/debate improved? Can he/she construct an argument that relies on logic more than opinion or volume?

None of the lists of questions presented here are exhaustive or authoritative; one of the real strengths of Kohl’s framework lies in its flexibility. These are the kinds of questions I use when I evaluate my GED and Basics II classes. An ESOL teacher will probably come up with different ways of looking at this skill. This particular way of looking at skills has value only when teachers tailor it to the strengths and challenges of their individual students and classes.

Skill 2: The ability to think through a problem and experiment with solutions.

This may be one of the most difficult skills for students to master, and one of the most important. Frequently, students who lack confidence about their ability become nervous and flustered when problems are presented in new ways. Because it is impossible to predict the form of every problem, question, or assignment they will face in their educational careers, it is important to help them make connections between diverse problems and let them see that they have the ability to take on new challenges. This is also the skill that helps students see the application of various class-based skills in real life situations. The person who can estimate while working on math problems can estimate in the grocery store. A person who can write a 200-word essay can write a cover letter for a job application.

The questions I use for evaluating this skill include:

• Has the student’s tolerance for ambiguity increased? Can he/she stick with a problem until it becomes clear, or does he/she give up easily?

• Can the student see points of commonality between and among different things?

• Can the student understand the difference between the problem and the way the problem has been presented?

• Can the student judge the relative merit of several different solutions to the same problem?

• Does the student see how context and culture affect our ideas about what the right answer is to a given question?

This is often the most difficult part of student’s learning to assess. Many teachers have been trained, or have received their own education, in an environment that emphasizes coverage of content over comprehension of process. Assessing this skill requires teachers to spend more time listening than talking, more time following students’ ideas than presenting information. Class discussions provide an opportunity for developing this flexibility of thinking, as they allow exposure to a variety of viewpoints, and may demonstrate more clearly than any lecture that there is often more than one way to approach a problem. Students who can be flexible in their approach to problems are more likely to achieve greater success than their less-flexible classmates; it is in their best interests that we all find ways to help them develop this skill.

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Skill 3: The ability to understand scientific and technological ideas and to use tools.

This skill has more, and more vocal, proponents across the educational spectrum than any other on this list, but again, it is the way that Kohl has framed the skill that makes it so valuable. We may cover a variety of scientific/technological topics in class, but we do not always provide opportunities for experimentation, practice and reflection. Many students use sophisticated technologies without a second thought—VCRs, beepers, cell phones, ATMs, and video games—but few of them have reflected on the ways that those technologies relate to the kinds of scientific and technological material we cover in our classes. By linking understanding and use, Kohl invites teachers to make explicit connections between the classroom and the real world. It should also lead teachers to reflect on their own relationships with, and values concerning, science and technology as they are a part of daily life.

Good questions about this skill might include:

• What is the student’s comfort level with computers?

• Does the student understand how technology affects his/her daily life?

• Can the student understand essays/articles in the popular press about science and technology issues?

• Does the student recognize the ways that science has changed our ideas about the quality and length of human life?

The questions a teacher chooses for this skill will vary widely according to the goals and backgrounds of students. Particularly with respect to medical technology, discussions of these topics address not only science, but values and ethics. I have found that pursuing questions like this often creates natural, powerful links between the different skills and content areas students are trying to master; these are excellent issues to write and debate about.

Skill 4: The ability to use the imagination.

Using one’s imagination is a little addressed but crucial element of academic success. Students who can use their imaginations constructively are at a real advantage in their reading, their writing, and their ability to understand new material. Like the ability to think through problems and experiment with solutions (Skill 2), the ability to use one’s imagination creates a necessary level of flexibility. Without it, much of literature, film, science, and mathematics will be beyond reach. But this is also a skill that most teachers, consciously or not, attempt to develop in every class. Each time we begin with “Let’s suppose,” “Hypothetically,” or “Could you suggest
a situation where . . .” we are helping students learn to imagine in specific and useful ways.

Some of the questions I’ve used for this skill are as follows:
• Can the student empathize with another person or fictional character?
• Can the student come up with alternate endings to a story?
• Does the student believe that he/she has the ability to transcend current limitations?
• Does the student understand the use of metaphor and symbol in film, fiction, etc.?
• Can the student come up with innovative solutions to problems?
• Does the student think through potential situations before they occur, in order to plan how to respond?

Most of us, of course, do all these things without thinking about them. But making these skills explicit and concrete for students helps them see how the skills they’ve learned in their day-to-day lives can be of value to them in the classroom, and vice versa.

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Skill 5: The ability to understand how people function in groups.

Many students in adult education classes lack formal and informal experience with structures and institutions that teachers take for granted. Much of their experience with formal institutions may, in fact, be negative, whether the institutions in question are schools, medical facilities, or social service agencies. If they are not working, and are living alone with children, students may feel isolated, and rarely have chances outside our classrooms to develop the social and interpersonal skills that they will need in the workplace or in higher education. Every time we ask students to follow class rules, to debate with each other according to certain guidelines, or open up discussion about social science topics like psychology or sociology, we are helping students to develop this very important skill.

Questions for evaluating students’ knowledge/skill in this area may include:

• Does the student understand the difference between group membership and individual identity? Does he/she see how those two roles may conflict?

• Can the student identify causes of harmony or discord among groups of people?

• Does the student understand the differences that may surface between group interactions and one-to-one interactions among the members of a group?

• Does the student see how cultures/societies affect the behavior of different groups (gender groups, religious groups, etc.)?

• Can the student talk comfortably about the difference between “nature” and “nurture”?

• Does the student recognize the different ways in which people may be grouped within a society, and some of the factors that determine that grouping?

Many teachers will find that these questions can be pursued in written work, giving students the opportunity to develop new understandings and insights more effectively than they can in discussion. Good essay topics that address these issues can be found in many adult literacy and GED prep materials. It may be especially useful to have students write about and then discuss these issues in class, thus combining their new knowledge about the ways that groups function with opportunities to put that knowledge into practice.

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Skill 6: The ability to go about learning something for yourself, and the skills and confidence to be a learner all your life.
In many ways, this last skill addresses all the others, and brings me back to the reason I went in search of this kind of assessment. Many of our students will leave our classes before achieving their goals, and it may be some time before they are able to return. The degree to which we are able to build this skill determines, more than anything else, the value of the time they spend in our classrooms. As Kohl points out, we “need to find ways to help people learn for themselves so that they can make informed decisions on major issues that affect their lives rather than shift responsibility” to people who may not have the knowledge to help, or who may not have students’ best interests at heart (1998, 151).

Most of us have forgotten the bulk of what we learned in school, and we would be unrealistic if we expected our adult students to be any different. As important as the rules of grammar, or the ability to do long division, is to the ability to continue learning, we know that a GED diploma does not guarantee success, though it is a significant achievement. As teachers, we need to see our work not as getting people over hurdles, but as equipping them to choose their own hurdles, and clear them under their own power.

Questions for this skill might include:

• Does the student know how to use a dictionary? A thesaurus? Has he/she developed the habit of using them?

• Is the student informed about current events that may affect his/her life? Where does the information come from?

• Can the student distinguish between an informed and an uninformed opinion on a given issue?

• Does the student know how to use the Internet? A library card catalogue?

• Can the student seek out knowledgeable people in situations where he/she needs assistance? How does he/she find those people?

• Is the student aware of local, state, and national resources that will help him/her to achieve further goals?

The list of possible questions for this skill is nearly endless, and depends greatly on the specific needs, abilities, and backgrounds of individual students. Many students will struggle in their attempts to become their own best resources; years of difficulty, and/or school failure, often undermine confidence, and diminish students’ willingness to take risks.

Suggestions for Use
No one approach to this framework can be considered “best.” Rather, the benefit of using these skills as a model for curriculum development, course structure, and/or assessment lies in each individual instructor’s or program’s decisions about what will benefit students. My own use of these skills as a way of thinking about student progress has proven beneficial both for my students and for my teaching, because it has given us a way to look at what should be considered progress toward educational goals.

The most significant benefit of this approach in my own classroom has been the degree of holism it allows. Thinking about skills in terms of students, rather than content areas, leads me to make better, more integrated choices about how to structure class time, and how to combine the treatment of various subject areas. Additionally, when I think in terms of students developing skills, rather than students collecting knowledge, it becomes easier to see where and when progress happens. We have not abandoned the traditional goals of adult education, but have found a richer, more nuanced context in which to place them.

Genuine education is not a matter of accumulation, but of acculturation. As we introduce concepts and academic content, we simultaneously introduce our sense of what should be valued, what counts as knowledge, and how learning should take place. Student success rests as much, or more, on their ability to follow the rules, implicit and explicit, that govern institutions. For adult learners who wish to pursue higher education, job retraining, and employment, learning accepted patterns of behavior and classroom practices is critical for success.

Looking at student development in the terms I have outlined allows me to consider what I need to do to help each individual become an educated person not necessarily in terms of a transcript or degree, but as it affects their stance, perspective, and way of approaching the world. I would suggest that mastery of the skills presented here can lead to increased academic independence, self-confidence, and reflectiveness, the qualities we say we want to see in an educated person. When we pay careful, systematic attention to the habits of mind that support learning, as Herbert Kohl urges us to do, we move a long way toward making our students’ time in our classrooms valuable, practical, and immediate.

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Originally published in Adventures in Assessment, Volume 11 (Winter 1998),
SABES/World Education, Boston, MA, Copyright 1998.

Funding support for the publication of this document on the Web provided in part by the Ohio State Literacy Resource Center as part of the LINCS Assessment Special Collection.