Student Success

Achieving Student Success

by Ton

ya L. Creasy

Jumpstarting your adult education program includes having a re- alistic understanding of what the needs of your students are. The very foundation of program development and design includes the identification of specific remediation that will contribute to each stu- dent’s success. For administrators, teachers and learners, the assessment process is an ongoing process for gathering and analyzing data to use for makingeducationaldecisions. Thereareseveral purposes forlearneras- sessment: proper placement, identification of skillstrengths, identifica- tion of individual goals, measurement of progress, program evaluation, and, not least, accountability. Proper identification of studentneeds is instrumental in decision making for programming, curriculum design, andinstructional methods. Thefoundation for success of our students is in identifying exactly what skills, and at what level, need to be taught in the classroom.

Determining ABE/GED® students’ needs is the role of formal assessment. The Test for Adult Basic Education (TABE) is an assessment tool generally used in Virginia to determine adult skill level in the field of adult education. The TABE Locator provides the assessor with an indicator of what level TABE to ad- minister. The TABE assessment provides a grade level for each student in the sub- jects being tested. This information is es- sential to course and level assignments. However, more information is needed to identify exactly what skill sets need to be taught and at what level within each course.

Focusing on student success is taking this assessment process to the next level. The diagnostics step in the TABE assess- ment process is the key and is essential to student success. This diagnostic is critical to understanding what skills need reme- diation. It is the vital student informa- tion for determining proper course level and appropriate curriculum for the stu- dents.

In 2005-2006, the Northern Neck Regional Adult Education Program initi- ated a pilot course to determine how to better meet the needs of our students. The math class we used had nine active students. All of them were given first the TABE Locator to determine the appro- priateTABE test level to administer. Fol- lowing that, we used both individual and group TABE diagnostics to determine the TABE Complete Battery, we could identify the skill level in each area. We knew exactly what skills each stduent needed to develop. By having this over- view of the entire class, we were able to develop a lesson plan. Students worked individually for part of the time, and Continued on page 15 ...

curriculum and instruction.The students “bought into” their learning – each stu- dent purchased his own text book. Stu- dents were in class four months before the post-test was given. To guide us in selecting the appropriate AchievingTABE Success lessons/pages for class instruction, we used Focusing Instruction for NRS Gain. (McDowell, M. Focusing instruc- tion for NRS Gain. Contemporary.)

A combination of activities taken from Achieving TABE Success was used in this multi-level class. Since we had given the Individual Diagnostic Profile from

One step at a time, each student can now visualize reachinghisorher longtermgoal...

Connection

Now available to Virginia’s Cox and Comcast ON DEMAND digital cable subscribers! 1 Choose the Get local folder from your

ON DEMAND menu. 2 Then, choose GED Connection.

1 Go to your Channel 1 ON DEMAND and choose Free Zone. 2 Select Education from the list of options. 3 Then, choose GED.