[AAACE-NLA] FCE and Workforce Development

Mon Feb 26 19:11:51 EST 2007

Debbie,

Thanks for your email.  In my thinking, not Tom's, FCE = whatever the 
adult needs or wants to know--that's functional, meaning it is useful.  
  This may be too broad for some, and probably Tom, too, I expect, I 
remember a woman I interviewed for a project asking me to help her fill 
in a work application.  That's functional--motivated, specific, comes 
from the person's immediate need.  I don't know what you'd call this, 
and your email is really making a different point, but this I think is 
where it's at for learning.  (Hope this isn't too glib.)

Andrea

On Feb 26, 2007, at 3:50 PM, Debbie Yoho wrote:

> 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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