[NLA] Are You Being Served?

[Lloyd David]

Tom,
It is difficult for me to answer all your questions. CEI was only one part
of the research project. There were 2 other sites where students were
interviewed. The purpose of the project was to determine adult learning
development in a manner other than by using standardized or other tests. The
Harvard team interviewed CEI students enrolled in the CEI Adult Diploma
Program at Polaroid. Each student was interviewed 3 or 4 times at different
stages – beginning, middle, end of their studies. Some of your questions
should be directed to the members of the research team led by Professor Bob
Kegan at robert_kegan at gse.harvard.edu.

The NCSALL report itself is pretty indigestible to people in the field,
primarily because it is so big. That's why we broke it down it to a
smaller, more bite-size chunk. Primarily, it helped us by confirming that
what we do is working. The project was not designed to be an evaluation of
the CEI Adult Diploma Program but we learned a great deal about our
methodology and how it meets needs of students from different cultures. The
study proved the value to the adult student of the classroom experience. It
also re-emphasized the importance of our focus on small-group learning and
creating a "dynamic, transitional, holding
environment" as we continue to develop distance and computer-based learning
into our programs. This emphasis on creating a holding environment in
combination with our goals of developing distance learning may or may not
increase our number of graduates and cost-efficiency. Time will tell. The
bite-size chunk of the report will hopefully help attract more clients,
thereby increasing the number of graduates.

I am including for you information a summary of the material from the NCSALL
study which we have produced for the CEI web site www.ceilearn.net. We hope
this summary will be on the web site by the end of the week.



 Harvard Researchers Praise CEI ADULT DIPLOMA PROGRAM


“Our findings teach us that the cohort and this program—its teachers,
tutors, curricula, and programmatic structures—served as consistent and
enduring sources of support and challenge as these adults made their
learning journey while balancing the demands of their roles as learners,
workers, and parents.  This dynamic, transitional, holding environment was
robust and spacious enough to support and challenge adults with
qualitatively different ways of knowing as they grew and changed. ” (Summary
and Implications, p.602)

Much of the success of the CEI Adult Diploma Program and the English as a
Working Language programs are due to CEI’s practical application of current
adult educational theory.  In August of 2001, the Harvard University
Graduate School of Education’s National Center for the Study of Adult
Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) published a Research Monograph that reports
some of the successes of the CEI Adult Diploma Program at Polaroid
Corporation.

Creating a Learning Environment

 In Toward a New Pluralism in ABE/ESOL Classrooms: Teaching to Multiple
“Cultures of Mind”, NCSALL Reports No. 19, The Adult Development Research
Group [ADRG], led by Dr. Robert Kegan, documents how CEI succeeds at
creating a supportive classroom learning community, defined as a ‘cohort’ in
the research:
    “We [ADRG] did not initially set out to examine the influence the cohort
might have on participants’ program experience, but we came to understand
that being part of a cohort mattered importantly, and in different ways, to
participants at all three sites, and especially to learners in the
Polaroid-CEI program.  We discovered that for Polaroid learners, membership
in this cohort was one of the most critical supports to their learning.”

“In Polaroid’s CEI adult diploma program, cohort members worked in
collaborative learning groups in all five of their classes; we will show how
this type of group learning among cohort members facilitated academic
development and provided psychological support through social interaction
.
The interpersonal relationships that peers developed in the cohort made a
critical difference to their academic learning, emotional and psychological
well-being, and ability to broaden their perspectives.” (P.384-385)

Teaching Excellence

Developing a supportive learning environment and a successful cohort is one
indication of CEI’s excellent program structure, professional staff and
faculty.
“The teachers in CEI’s program creatively structured their classes so that
interaction among adult learners in the cohort helped learners achieve their
educational goals.  By helping learners make good use of each other, this
program was able to provide both the challenge that encouraged learners to
grow and the support they needed to meet those challenges.” (p.387)

Customized Curriculum
Every lesson in the ADP is based on fundamental skills, or pervasive skills,
developed through review of current academic research on skills and
standards.  These skills stress communication, critical thinking, and core
knowledge.

“CEI curricula—and every course in the program—emphasize what CEI refers to
as their “pervasive standards” [also known as “pervasive skills”], which are
closely aligned with what our colleagues at Equipped for the Future refer to
as “EFF Standards” (Stein, 2000).  Sondra Stein (2000) discusesses EFF’s
standards in this way:
“The 16 Equipped for the Future Standards define the core knowledge and
skills adults need to effectively carry out their roles as parents,
citizens, and workers.  The Standards have been identified through research
on what adults need to do to meet broad areas of responsibility that define
these roles as adults. (p.17)”

“Dr. David [President of CEI] acknowledges the critical influence of EFF’s
research on his own thinking about how the CEI program can better support
the acquisition and development of skills that adults need to meet their
responsibilities as workers and learners.  Communication, problem solving,
presentation, and computer skills are a few of the pervasive standards that
infuse the CEI curriculum and program design.  Each course emphasizes these
standards as well as reading, writing, and critical thinking skills (CEI
program materials 1997, p.1).  For example, in the Writing/ English course,
students develop writing skills by engaging in various individual and group
exercises in which they have opportunities that help them learn and
practice: brainstorming, creating cluster diagrams, and developing a point
of view.  Students learn to improve their reading strategies by developing
skills in generating questions, distinguishing between fact and opinion,
making storyline, and summarizing.  In this course, students also enhance
their critical thinking strategies by improving their skills in analyzing,
classifying, evaluating texts, interpreting, and synthesizing.

 “Significantly, CEI classes and the program curricula are oriented toward
reinforcing “teamwork concepts” (CEI Program materials, 1992, p. 4).  All
classes use collaborative group learning structures to facilitate and
enhance adult learning.  These structures, as well as other aspects of the
CEI program design discussed previously, seem to reinforce teamwork and
various forms of adult collaboration.” .[P. 398-399]

Conclusions

“The interplay between CEI’s program structure and the teacher practice of
using collaborative learning created opportunities for learners to share
experiences, form interpersonal relationships, and support one another’s
learning
.Engaging in common learning experiences over an extended period in
which learners worked together toward the same goal contributed importantly
to the formation of caring learning community in which adult learners
supported one another as they participated in this program.  For many
learners, this cohort was “like a family.” [p.466]

“All of these learners spoke about feeling more “confident” as workers
because of learning in the program.  Many reported better communication
skills as a result of their program participation. [p.576]”

“In addition to important and life-enhancing skill changes reported by
learners, we find it remarkable, given the relatively short duration of this
program, that fully one half of these cohort learners demonstrated a
qualitative change in their underlying meaning system from program start to
finish. “ (p.609)

“Development and change, as demonstrated in this group of learners, occurred
by meeting learners where they were and by carefully scaffolding them with a
variety of forms of support and challenge (e.g. concrete and relational
supports as well as access to information and opportunities for
self-reflection). Cohort relationships, collaborative learning,
teacher-learner relationships, curricula, pedagogical practices, and program
structure seemed to work synergistically to support and challenge the adult
learners across a wide range of ways of knowing.  This dynamic and
multifaceted holding environment held learners as they developed greater
capacities to manage the challenges and complexities of their lives.”
(p.610)

“Our findings teach us that the cohort and this program—its teachers,
tutors, curricula, and programmatic structures—served as consistent and
enduring sources of support and challenge as these adults made their
learning journey while balancing the demands of their roles as learners,
workers, and parents.  This dynamic, transitional, holding environment was
robust and spacious enough to support and challenge adults with
qualitatively different ways of knowing as they grew and changed. ” (Summary
and Implications, p.602)



-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Sticht <tsticht at znet.com>
To: nla at lists.literacytent.org <nla at lists.literacytent.org>
Date: Saturday, December 14, 2002 1:14 PM
Subject: [NLA] Are You Being Served?


>Lloyd David said: "It seems to me no thought is given to publicizing the
>results of these studies even though many cost a great deal of money. I
>think that there should be a marketing plan developed around every project
>which in essence advertises the results so those in the field can
>benefit."
>
>Lloyd: It has been my experience every since 1976 when I directed the
>Basic Skills Division of the National Institute for Education (the
>predecessor to OERI and the new whatever it is now being called) that
>after spending tens of millions of dollars on research, very little is
>done to disseminate it. Mostly reports are placed into the ERIC system and
>that’s about it. Also troubling is the fact that federal research monitors
>who have oversight for millions of dollars of research may also fail to
>read all the reports they get. But perhaps this is understandable when it
>is recognized that one national research center alone may produce one or
>two dozen or more of the types of reports you are talking about. And a
>federal monitor may have three or more centers to monitor, and there is a
>lot of other work to do when monitoring research besides reading the
>reports. Teachers, administrators, etc.., too, have a lot to do so they
>have a great deal of difficulty reading all the reports researchers
>produce each year.
>
>Regarding your organization’s work with the NCSALL project, do you think
>those in the field would benefit from reading the 700+ page report, and if
>so in what ways? Can you provide a quick summary of some of the most
>important results of the project that you think should be more widely
>known? In what ways did the research improve your program? Did you recruit
>better? Did you place people in programs more accurately? Did people learn
>more? Did they learn knowledge that was more relevant to their goals? Did
>people stay in the program longer (improved retention/greater
>persistence)? Did more people get GEDs or high school diplomas if that was
>the goal? Was the program made more cost-efficient – (that is one of the
>NCSALL’s stated missions – to make adult education and literacy programs
>more cost-efficient)?
>
>Was there a comparison group that participated in some sort of special
>project that was not the same as yours so that the project could control
>for the so-called "Hawthorne" effect (that is, sometimes teachers and
>others perform better in a project not because of the ideas and methods of
>the project but simply because they are participating in something
>special. So the researchers have to try to arrange their research to make
>sure that it is the effects of their ideas and methods and not simply
>special attention that leads to any observed results)?
>
>Tom Sticht
>
>
>
>
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