Hi Nancy, In response to your request about learning more about assessing learner needs, it depends on what you want to assess. If you want assess the academic competencies of incoming students I would suggest you talk with your local adult literacy council. They have excellence assessments that can give you an accurate picture of where the students are at in reading comprehensive, and math. There is an assessment called "Talent Key" that assesses the dominate intelligences from among the 7 intelligences identified in Howard Gardner's work with Multiple Intelligences. The website for that assessment is MICubed.com. By knowing the three dominate intelligences instructor can target their delivery to engage the learners through those intelligence channels. Any other questions please let me know. Gary