Professional development for educators on Learning Progressions has been a key step in successfully rolling out the Literacy and Numeracy for Adults Assessment Tool at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT).
Diana Law, Foundation Manager, recommends getting someone who understands the organisation’s administration systems and a literacy and numeracy expert who can work with educators, to act as the Organisation Administrator(s) for the Assessment Tool.
Niki Hannan (Assessment Tool Educator) and Heather Taege (Foundation Co-ordinator) have worked together to set the Assessment Tool, taking advantage of Heather’s knowledge of CPIT’s student management system and Niki’s involvement in the embedding of literacy and numeracy in vocational training at levels 1-3.
Niki and Heather have developed a system for uploading Learners, Groups and Educators into the Assessment Tool and have made decisions about when and how to assess their students. The Foundation team have also established an internal professional development programme for educators using the Assessment Tool.
When asked for advice for other organisations starting out, Diana recommended allowing plenty of time to get the administration side completed. CPIT found the Assessment Tool Service Desk very valuable during the set up process.
Educators really like the Group Summary reports, which provide overview information about how many Learners in the group are at each progression step.
Niki said “having used the Learning Progressions for some time the educators were very excited by the Assessment Tool once they saw how closely it’s aligned to the Progressions. The Assessment Tool is providing more detail about what learners’ real needs are in terms of reading, numeracy and vocabulary and educators are beginning to use the strand charts when talking with learners.”
In introducing the Assessment Tool to learners, CPIT educators have explained:
“The Assessment Tool will assess your literacy and numeracy skills and knowledge so that your tutors can adapt the teaching and learning programme to meet your needs.”