Addressing Rural Challenges
Submitted By: David Castillo
West Hills Community College District
Type of Practice: Program Development / Curriculum / Classroom
Program Area(s): ABE / ASE, ESL / EL Civics / Citizenship
Region: Central Valley
Consortia Involved: West Hills College Consortium
Program Overview
Rural challenges may of language and internet access for testing.
The Challenge
The West Hills College Adult Education Consortium (WHAEC) members have been challenged with providing an efficient and effective pre and post-testing for ESL, ABE/HSD/HSE adult ed learners. Some challenges included insufficient access to the internet, out dated chrome books/laptops and professional development in the CASAS assessment process. In addition, many of our adult ed learners are computer illiterate and monolingual in languages other than English.
The Solution
The WHAEC evaluated the needs of the members and addressed the following: Additional training in administering CASAS e-testing throughout the region for both WHAEC consortium level support staff, member support staff, and member instructional staffing. Much of the trainings included consortium level staff going to individual member sites that included bi-lingual staff. Additional trainings included attendance at the CASAS Summer Institutes, attending both local and regional data trainings, the re-location of testing sites to locations with accessible internet, and some members purchasing chrome books/laptops adequate for CASAS e-testing.
The Outcome
The data and accountability funds were vital to the implementation of our student assessment and tracking student progress in TOPSpro Enterprise. Technology was purchased for our rural sites to improve electronic registration of students and monitoring of adult education programs. All WHAEC staff are on board with the pre and post-testing process resulting in data consistency and integrity.
The Data
The outcomes of the many trainings and purchases of equipment for pre and post-testing has ensured all our students enrolled in ESL, ABE/HSD/HSE for more than 40 hours are pre and post-tested as required by CAEP. WHAEC support staff have additionally provided CASAS pre-post-testing trainings to new consortium staff. WHAEC staff continue to receive CASAS assessment training on a regular basis to integrate any new changes.