[AAACE-NLA] FCE and Workforce Development

[Debbie Yoho]

I am convinced of the power of FCE and appreciate Tom Sticht's essay
offered on this list.   But at least in the US, a great deal of adult
illiteracy has been addressed not by the public systems, but by secular
non-profits and churches.  Indeed, here in SC the adult ed system as well
as the technical college system usually refer the lowest-level adult
learners who need beginning reading skills to the non-profit literacy
programs, and we have no relationship with vocational education.  
Question:  what programs in the US or elsewhere have integrated the private
sector into  full partnership with public adult vocational education
programs for service delivery?  I'm looking for a model and someone I can
talk to who goes beyond just making reading instruction relevant to the
learner's work life.    Presently, we conduct "workforce development
programs" for employers, but do not use an FCE curriculum; the classes are
just reading instruction at the work site.  The content we study is
work-related, but does not advance specific marketable vocational skills.  
Thanks, Debbie Yoho


> [Original Message]
> From: <tsticht at znet.com>
> To: <aaace-nla at lists.literacytent.org>
> Date: 2/24/2007 2:47:17 PM
> Subject: [AAACE-NLA] FCE and Workforce Development
>
> February 16, 2007
>
> Functional Context Education for Workforce Development
>
> Tom Sticht
> International Consultant in Adult Education
>
> In the hills and hollows of rural Kentucky in 1911 there were no lights
> to help the night-time traveler find the way to a distant school. So the
> schools operated only on nights when the moon was out. For this reason
> they became known as the Moonlight schools of Kentucky.
>
> Started by Cora Wilson Stewart, Superintendent of Schools in Rowan
> County, the Moonlight schools aimed at teaching literacy to the
> illiterate adults in the county. However there were no readers in print
> for teaching adult illiterates, and Stewart thought it inappropriate to
> use the same readers and texts for adults as were used for children in
> the day school. So she developed the Rowan County Messenger as a
> newspaper which could be used to teach reading and writing using news
> about which the adults were interested.
>
> Later Stewart wrote a series of texts for adult literacy learners called
> the Country Life Readers. In these texts she once again placed the
> teaching of reading and writing within content areas of interest to the
> rural populations of Kentucky such as farm improvement, good roads,
> horticulture, sanitation and so forth. She said, "...each lesson
> accomplished a double purpose, the primary one of teaching the pupil to
> read, and at the same time that of imparting instruction in the things
> that vitally affected him in his daily life" (Stewart, 1922, p. 71).
>
> Jumping ahead almost a century, today in the industrialized nations of
> the world there is an urgent concern for up-skilling the literacy,
> language and numeracy (LLN) and vocational skills of under-skilled
> workforces.
> International adult literacy surveys showing one- to two-fifths of a
> nation's workforce with lower than expected LLN skills and an emergent
> globalization of work with jobs being sent to lower wage nations have
> heightened the need for effective and efficient ways to help adults
> up-skill, re-skill and cross-train as jobs shift globally and
> technologically.
>
> Fortunately, since Cora Wilson Stewart's pioneering work showing how to
> accomplish "a double purpose" in literacy education, there have been a
> number of studies that have demonstrated how to apply the same approach
> to integrate basic skills with vocational skills training. A review of
> 50 years of research in the U. S. Department of Defense on how to
> re-design both vocational programs and literacy programs to accommodate
> less skilled personnel and provide them with job-related knowledge,
> skills, and literacy was conducted by Sticht, et al. (1987). They found
> one project showing that in an integrated basic skills and job knowledge
> program, students made as much or more gain in "general" literacy as was
> made in general literacy programs that were not job-related. Importantly
> however, the integrated program made over three to five times the amount
> of gain in job-related reading as achieved by the general literacy
> program.
>
> The foregoing review lead to the formulation of Functional Context
> Education with several principles for creating integrated vocational
> and basic skills courses that facilitate learning on entry into the
> course, learning throughout the course, and transfer into the contexts
> for which the learning is meant to apply. To accomplish these
> objectives, courses should be developed that:
>
> oExplain what the students are to learn and why in such a way that they
> can always understand both the immediate and long term usefulness of the
> course content (facilitates entry into the course; motivates learning).
>
> oConsider the old knowledge that students bring with them to the course,
> and build new knowledge on the basis of this old knowledge (facilitates
> entry
> learning)
>
> oSequence each new lesson so that it builds on prior knowledge gained in
> the previous lessons (facilitates in-course learning).
>
> oIntegrate instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, and problem
> solving into vocational or technical training programs as the content of
> the course poses requirements for these skills that many potential
> students may not possess; avoid decontextualized basic skills "remedial"
> programs (facilitates in-course learning; motivates basic skills
> learning; reduces instruction time; develops "learning to learn" ability
> ).
>
> oDerive objectives from careful analysis of the explicit and tacit
> knowledge and skill needed in the technical training, or employment
> context for which the learner is preparing (facilitates transfer).
>
> oUse, to the extent possible, learning contexts, tasks, materials, and
> procedures taken from the future situation in which the learner will be
> functioning (facilitates transfer).
>
> Since the appearance of the review describing the research basis for
> Functional Context Education (FCE), large-scale efforts to develop FCE
> courses that integrate vocational and LLN (variously referred to as
> integrated, embedded, or contextualized programs) have taken place in
> Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the
> United States. In the UK, FCE integrating vocational and LLN is referred
> to as embedded LLN. Recent research in the UK has shown that the
> greater the extent of embedding of literacy into vocational training,
> the greater the completion rates, achievements of qualifications, and
> other important outcomes for both literacy and vocational qualifications
> (Casey, et. al, 2006).
>
> Numerous documents for developing integrated LLN and vocational
> education are now available on the internet in the industrialized
> nations identified above. For information about many of these various
> FCE reports go to www.nald.ca/fulltext/fce/cover.htm and see Functional
> Context Education:
> Making Learning Relevant in the 21st Century. Chapter 2 in this report
> provides information about the FCE programs in the nations identified
> above.
>
> The many projects integrating vocational and LLN demonstrate that it is
> not necessary that adults with low basic skills first raise these skills
> to a level thought necessary to succeed in a vocational course. Instead,
> by integrating the vocational and LLN education, it is possible to
> achieve what Cora Wilson Stewart called "a double purpose", adults can
> improve their basic skills while also acquiring much-needed vocational
> education.
>
> References
>
> Casey, H. et. al (2006, November). "You wouldn't expect a maths teacher
> to teach plastering..." online at www.nrdc.org.uk.
>
> Stewart, C. (1922). Moonlight schools. NY: E. P. Dutton & Co.
>
> Sticht, T. et. al (1987). Cast-off youth: policies and training methods
> from the military experience. NY: Praeger.
>
> Thomas G. Sticht
> International Consultant in Adult Education
> 2062 Valley View Blvd.
> El Cajon, CA 92019-2059
> Tel/fax: (619) 444-9133
> Email: tsticht at aznet.net
>
>
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