Literacy Basics - Community Literacy of Ontario

Demonstrations

Demonstrations are used by LBS agencies as a formal method of both ongoing and exit assessment. They provide the learner with the opportunity to apply several skills at one time to accomplish a real life task. Demonstration activities must be grounded in the needs, goals and priorities of learners. (MTCU, Working with Learning Outcomes). Demonstrations are different than learning activities because they include an assessment component and require students to be able to transfer learning to other tasks.

Demonstrations are an excellent way to both conduct and document ongoing assessment. These activities should resemble, as closely as possible, a real-life application of skills as they relate to the learner’s goals. You can find a number of sample demonstrations at the recently-revised Demonstrations Ontario website (http://demonstrations.alphaplus.ca). Not only does the site allow you to search through sample demonstrations at all five levels, but it also provides general information about assessment and tools and resources to help you create your own demonstrations.

The Demonstrations Ontario site also highlights the difference between learning activities and demonstration activities:

Learning activities and demonstration activities are often confused because they share many of the same features, e.g.,

• instructions to learners,
• questions to be answered,
• tasks to be accomplished and
• methods to determine attainment of skills.

Learning activities, like demonstration activities may use authentic text. At higher levels, learning activities may integrate more than one skill as they prepare learners for increasingly complex demonstrations.

In form, then, learning activities and demonstration activities may be quite similar. In purpose, however, they are fundamentally different. Learning activities are used to develop and support learning, whereas demonstration activities are used to assess learning and show that the learner can apply skills - beyond the learning activity - to a real life situation. This is why the demonstration cannot be a copy of the learning activity that preceded it. An understanding of purpose may help explain other distinctions such as focus, emphasis and structure.

In 2005, a number of MTCU and NLS funded projects developed demonstrations, and these will be added to the website as they become available. For example, Literacy Network Northeast (http://www.literacynet.ca/) has a series of workforce-related demonstrations available on its website. Literacy Link Eastern Ontario (LLEO) (http://www.lleo.ca) has developed a product that includes demonstrations directly tied to four specific occupations. Each demonstration has been articulated to LBS levels and the essential skills of the occupation. These should be available in September 2005 and will be distributed to all provincial literacy networks.

In 2000, Lindsay Kennedy wrote an excellent resource for Community Literacy of Ontario on demonstrations called On the Level that was distributed to community-based agencies across the province. This excellent resource is available for purchase from CLO (http://www.nald.ca/clo). It includes model demonstrations at Levels One and Two as well as a variety of tools and resources. Kennedy states that demonstrations should:

• Be meaningful and integrated. They should incorporate learners’ goals, interests, skills and knowledge. Successful completion of these demonstrations should make learners enthusiastic about completing future ones!
• Be reliable and valuable. They should give an accurate reading of a learner’s ability to apply skills gained in one setting to another setting.
• Have clear and simple expectations. Instructions should be clear and simple. Procedures and expected results should be clearly communicated.
• Be timely and realistic. Demonstrations should not be attempted until the learner has a good grasp of the skills being assessed. They should accurately reflect the learner’s abilities based on individual progress, not on artificial timelines.

Laubach Literacy Ontario (http://www.laubach-on.ca) as well as the College (http://www.collegeupgradingon.ca) and School Board Sectors (http://www.cesba.com) also produced model demonstrations. Please contact each of these organizations directly if you are interested in obtaining more information.

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