Adult education's mission is a critical one. It seeks to provide the large and diverse population of adults who lack basic skills, a high school credential, or English language skills with the competencies they need to be productive workers, family members, and citizens. Federally funded adult education serves learners in three types of programs:…

Title II of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 directs the federal government to conduct a national assessment of adult education, including activities to understand the extent to which adult education strategies positively affect learners. A systematic review of the research on the effectiveness of particular strategies in adult…

Shifting Gears was launched in 2007 by the Joyce Foundation, a Chicago-based organization focused on improving the quality of life of citizens residing in the Great Lakes region of the United States. The primary goal of Shifting Gears is to increase the number of low-skilled, low-income Midwestern adults who obtain college-level occupational…

The two parts of this book consider two main facets of nonformal curriculum development: theory and practice. Part I on nonformal curriculum theory has four chapters. Chapter 1 addresses the origins, meaning, purpose, and scope of nonformal education. Chapter 2 examines three major themes in discussions on nonformal education: nonformal education…

The Attleboro (Massachusetts) Workplace Education Program, a partnership of four area companies and Bristol Community College, is intended to provide workers with education that will improve the quality of their lives and their work. Housed in a corporate office building in the Attleboro Industrial Park, the program offers classes in English as a…

A minicourse pilot project was designed by the Massachusetts Department of Education to meet the staff training and development needs of workplace educators in the National Workplace Literacy Program. During the course, various activities and group configurations were used to help teachers apply modeled approaches to their own teaching contexts,…

An evaluation of the fifth cycle of operation of the Massachusetts Workplace Education Initiative had several purposes: (1) to identify the indicators of quality in workplace education; (2) to begin to design an evaluation system for each program; and (3) to assess the indicators of quality for workplace education programs against the national…

This guide, part of a series of workplace-developed materials for retraining factory workers, provides teaching materials for a workplace course in writing memos. The course covers recognizing the audience for a memo, identifying the topic, organizing the writing using four steps (think, write, review, correct) writing complete sentences, using…

This guide, part of a series of workplace-developed materials for retraining factory workers, provides teaching materials for a workplace course in writing accurate, sequential, and clear instructions. The course covers identifying the goal and purpose of the instructions, deciding the best method for presenting the instructions, using clear and…

This workplace literacy curriculum is based on neuropsychological brain behavior research and the principles of continuous improvement in a learning environment. Section 1 explains the choice of this model. Section 2 defines the need for this type of workplace curriculum. Sections 3 and 4 discuss the method of building the thematic units and…

This document consists of the woodyard skills handbook and an employee handbook for woodyard employees of Boise Cascade. The handbooks are products of a National Workplace Literacy project conducted by Alabama Southern Community College. The woodyard skills handbook contains information needed by employees to improve math, measurement, vocabulary,…

This guide is intended to be used as a companion to "The Competitive Edge: Sharpening Your Skills in the Workplace" curricular materials--the student editions and instructors' guides. It can also stand alone as a reference for individuals just starting to implement or beginning to plan a workplace skills enhancement program in their organization.…

This guide, part of a series of workplace-developed materials for retraining factory workers, provides teaching materials for a workplace course in report writing skills for technical staff. The course has been designed to help new engineers with all aspects of report writing. It covers the outline and structure of reports, brainstorming,…

This document explains how to conduct programs similar to the Broward County, Florida, "Reach Out for Literacy" (ROL) project aimed at providing basic skills education for undereducated adults and adults with limited English proficiency. The introduction lists the objectives for the ROL program and reports the number of adults (689 at 17…

The guidelines in this paper were developed to assist Massachusetts Private Industry Councils, social agencies, unions, businesses, and education providers in designing educational programs appropriate to the workplace. The focus is on literacy education. The paper is organized in four sections. The first section briefly examines the background of…