Sample Letter Sent to Programs before Focus Group Session

To:
From:
Date:
Re:

ABC Literacy
Vicki Trottier
July 4, 2001
Focus Group Sessions

Further to our phone calls today, we will try to set up Focus Group sessions with your volunteers (and staff are also welcome) to discuss the volunteer’s role in the assessment process. Hopefully, we can arrange for a session at 9:00 a.m. in Yourtown on Wednesday, September 12 followed by an evening or late afternoon session in Othertown the same day.

Here is the information that you can share with potential focus group members. The definitions and project description are in a separate attachment. And of course, you can also remind them about Tutor Bulletins #1 and #2.

The overall goal of the project is to gather information about the role of volunteers in the assessment process so that CLO can produce a resource that will be of use to all of us working in the field.

We will meet for approximately one hour, although I can certainly stay longer if we get into some really interesting discussions!

The session will have four parts:

First, we’ll start with a discussion of assessment. I am enclosing a sheet with MTCU definitions.

Then, we’ll discuss the role your volunteers currently play in assessment — initial, ongoing and exit. Hopefully, I’ll hear about how you find out information about the learners, how you record it and what you do with the information (i.e. how it affects decisions about demonstrations, moving on to next steps, etc.) If you have certain forms or documented procedures, etc., I’d love to see them; hopefully, you’ll also give me permission to use them in the resource manual that will be written at the end of the project.

Next, we will talk about how you might use volunteers in different ways. In a perfect world, what would the role of volunteers be in the assessment process? If that’s different from what you do now, why is it different (e.g. time constraints, training considerations, etc.)

Finally, we’ll talk a bit about CLO. How can CLO support your program both within the scope of this project and in other areas? I’m not making any promises here — just gathering information.

If you have any questions, please give me a call. I hope that we are able to arrange the focus groups; they have gone well in other areas and they provide me with a lot of information that I’ll be using in the resource manual.