[AAACE-NLA] FW: AAACE-NLA Digest, Vol 37, Issue 37

Tue Jun 27 10:21:54 EDT 2006

 The following message is sent on behalf of Lloyd David
(lloyd_david at creativeworkplacelearning.org).

David C.

-----Original Message-----
From: Lloyd David [mailto:lloyd_david at creativeworkplacelearning.org] 
Subject: RE: AAACE-NLA Digest, Vol 37, Issue 37

In August 2001 NCSALL published a Research Monograph "Towards a New
Pluralism in ABE/ESOL Classrooms: Teaching to Multiple "Cultures of Mind"
completed by the Adult Development Research Group at Harvard Graduate School
of Education headed by Robert Kagan. This study was built on Kagan's theory
of learning. I do not believe that many people have seen or read this
monograph since it was advertised as MCSALL Reports No.19. 
The research focused on 3 groups of learners - ESOL class in a Community
College, an Even Start program; and a workplace education program at
Polaroid Corp. I am very familiar with the Polaroid study since the Harvard
team of researchers selected the students in the CWL Adult Diploma Program
as the sample. Briefly the study called for each student to be interviewed
at least 3 times during the program - before classes began, in the middle
and at the end of the program which lasted more than 1 year. They found that
the changes in students' lives resulting from the ADP went beyond
improvements in basic skill development in the following key ways:
1. increased self-efficacy, confidence and self sufficiency at work 2.
improved growth in maturity and development of a flexibility in learning
styles 3. increased participation in meetings and communication in general
which resulted in better relationships at work.
Fifty percent of the students were found to have become self-directed
learners according to the scale developed by Dr. Kagan.

The head of the Harvard team at Polaroid, Eleanor Drago-Severson, wrote a
book , "On Becoming Adult Learners" based on the research done there. 

Last year I used this methodology to evaluate an ESOL program we had at a
distribution center. We interviewed each student, the CFO of the company,
the plant manager, 2 supervisors and the foreman. We also looked at data
which showed improved attendance as compared to a comparative group of
workers who had not attended the classes, and a reduction in errors. The
students expressed ways in which the classes had helped them deal with
everyday situations - with doctors, teachers, bus drivers, etc. Most
important to a company that experiences a 40% turnover each year, none of
the workers who took part in the program had left their jobs 12 months after
the program ended. I called the study "Value of Workplace Education and it
can be found on our web site www.creativeworkplacelearning.org  

I really believe that we have to set up and evaluation process in every
program we run to demonstrate the worth and value of what we do. Then write
it up so that we have something to show our funders.  

Lloyd David, EdD.
Creative Workplace Learning
311 Washington Street
Brighton, MA 02135
Tel :  617-746-1260
FAX: 617-782-0136
-----Original Message-----
From: aaace-nla-request at lists.literacytent.org
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Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 12:00 PM
To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
Subject: AAACE-NLA Digest, Vol 37, Issue 37

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re:  FW: Toward Theory-Driven R & D (Catherine B. King)
   2.   NIFL LINCS has achieved major accomplishments (tsticht at znet.com)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 09:42:41 -0500
From: "Catherine B. King" <cb.king at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] FW: Toward Theory-Driven R & D
To: "National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE"
	<aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Message-ID: <008801c696d3$4ba92540$53c2193f at ReflectionPool>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1;
	reply-type=original

Hello Jon, et al:

Though Tom's interest is clearly in support of adult education, I have often
suggested to him (with no response) that his apparent adherence to
post-positivist methods, and those **alone,** puts adult education in a
precarious position precisely because of what you suggest in your note--the
fullness of human data, and of what it means to be literate and/or educated,
and that this full human data does not respond in every way to the limits
and restrictions, or to the expectations of outcomes, that are drawn from
the post-positivist paradigm of research.

This kind of research is essential to education and to many other fields,
but it does not and cannot tell us everything scientific or objective that
we need to know about human beings.  And some things, we cannot know,
precisely because we and our data are human and, thus, historical.

But Tom is not alone in this argument.  The No Child Left Behind Act refers
to "scientific" and "objective" research over 100 times.

However, this leaves the question open:  What do they mean by "scientific"
and "objective"?  Certainly, those thinking out of the post-positivist
tradition mean one thing, like Tom, I am suggesting.

However, those thinking out of other research paradigms/methods, e.g., the
constructivist/and/transformative, and mixed methods research, are quite
adamant that those two powerful terms are not to be co-opted or "owned" by
only one kind of research, or its concomitant non-historical expectations of
the data.  And this is not merely a conceptual exercise, but a regard for
the not-so- subtle politics at work in education today.

So I'd like to applaud Tom for his solid commitment and desire to support
adult education; however, I think his critique and expectations of the field
and its work over the past is wrong-headed, and even corrosive at its core,
to the whole idea of education, for adults or for children (not to mention
the contemptuous air surrounding his narrative, but that may be just my take
on it).

Now I haven't offered a solution.  But that cannot be done in this venue.  I
would suggest, however, that Tom's note, and other correspondence lately and
in the past here, continues to point to our need to rethink our field
starting with sorting out the underlying philosophical viewpoints that
inform our research and that cause the great difference between (1) what Tom
said and (2) what Jon said in what I think makes an excellent point
excellently.

And if Tom is going to lead us anywhere fruitful, as he is so obviously set
up to do, it's for naught if he continues to do so from such a limited
viewpoint about research and expectations of outcomes.

I think that if there is a reluctance to answer his questions, which are
valid on some grounds, it's in part because to answer them on his
philosophical and political grounds, is to accept those grounds as
given--and I think there are many here who find that repugnant, and cannot
do so--on principle.

Regards,

Catherine B. King
Adjunct Instructor
Department of Education
National University
San Diego, CA

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Steinberg" <jons at lacnyc.org>
To: "National Literacy Advocacy List sponsored by AAACE" 
<aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 12:18 PM
Subject: Re: [AAACE-NLA] FW: Toward Theory-Driven R & D

>
> The quality of intangibles is difficult to define. Like pornography, we
> know it when we see it. Can we say that university writing programs have
> improved the quality of fiction in this country over the past 50 years?
> I suspect most readers of enduring literature would say that the natural
> geniuses, most of whom probably don't have MFAs, are producing wonderful
> novels and stories that they would have written if none of these
> programs had ever existed. But that doesn't mean these programs are
> useless. Most of the students who go through them become better writers,
> learning in class what they did not know instinctively. In what sense
> are they better writers? They have more control over how they express
> themselves. When they break rules of syntax and grammar, it is
> intentional. When they introduce non sequiturs or fail to develop a
> character, it is deliberate. These writers may never produce a
> masterpiece, but many of them will become teachers, and their students
> will be the beneficiaries of all they have learned.
>
> It would be possible to measure the success of writing programs by
> calculating the number of works per graduate accepted by major magazines
> and publishing houses. However, a broader, more inclusive definition of
> success would be the degree to which a program improves the ability of
> all of its students, and their students, to express themselves. We have
> a similar choice in judging the value of adult education research and
> development, and of adult education classes. How we make that choice
> could determine whether on our deathbed we proudly say "80 percent of my
> students improved their performance on the TABE test," or "I helped my
> students gain more control over both how they express themselves and the
> roles they play in society."
>
> Limiting our understanding of success to what is quantifiable would
> tragically diminish both our current work and our vision of what adult
> education could achieve in the future.
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> LiteracyTent: web hosting, news, community and goodies for literacy
> http://literacytent.org
> 

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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 08:10:55 -0700
From: tsticht at znet.com
Subject: [AAACE-NLA]  NIFL LINCS has achieved major accomplishments
To: aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org
Message-ID: <1151075455.449c047f827b6 at webmail.znet.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Aaace-nla Colleagues:

In an earlier posting entitled "Has the NIFL Failed Us?"
(http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/private/aaace-nla/2006/004260.html) I
stated  "One way that the NIFL may possibly have strengthened the AELS is
the development of an internet communication system that greatly increases
the ability of AELS educators and adult learners to communicate with one
another."

My conclusion was based on a report by the RMC company in September 2005 in
which the RMC, under contract with NIFL, studied NIFL?s LINCS system. The
Executive Summary states "The Literacy Information and Communications
System (LINCS) is a project of the National Institute For Literacy (NIFL).
NIFL developed LINCS in response to legislation requiring that NIFL
establish a national electronic database of resources for the adult
education/literacy community, disseminate the resources collected, and
provide assistance to other government entities and the adult literacy
field for the improvement of literacy policy and programs."

David Rosen recently posted a message on the aaace-nla list entitled "NIFL
LINCS has achieved major accomplishments".
(http://lists.literacytent.org/mailman/private/aaace-nla/2006/004272.html)
Here David notes that the RMC report concluded that "LINCS has achieved
major accomplishments in its more than ten years  of service to the adult
education/literacy field. " The report then lists some of these
accomplishments. But then, in following sections that David did not cite,
the report makes statements that led to my qualifying comment that the
LINCS "MAY possibly have strengthened the AELS." The RMC report says:

"[The] vision and direction for LINCS have evolved and are still evolving.
The organization?s goals and intentions have become unfocused and broad.
Emphasis has been on process and technology, not outcomes. Program
monitoring has not been systematic; there has been no formal evaluation.
Consequently, the value of LINCS is difficult to assess. The Special
Collections program needs specificity in purpose, goals, and standards; and
the LINCS web site architecture is not conducive to successful navigation or
searches.

NIFL needs to resolve these issues and move LINCS forward. However, RMC
believes that resolution will be facilitated by first structuring a
long-range planning effort. This effort should address the organization and
management structure of LINCS, make key decisions on the information to be
collected and disseminated, confirm the most appropriate dissemination
system, and resolve the purpose and organization of technical assistance."

Based on these comments from the RMC study, I could only speak in a
qualified manner as to the value of the LINCS in accomplishing what the
NIFL said was its purpose of the "improvement of literacy policy and
programs ".  So far, there is no evidence to conclude that the LINCS has
led to such improvements.

Tom Sticht

------------------------------

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End of AAACE-NLA Digest, Vol 37, Issue 37
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