Establishing adult career pathways is challenging, complex work. In Minnesota, a new professional development initiative provides ABE managers with a facilitated, supported, year-long cohort as they work to create or strengthen a career pathway program in collaboration with WIOA partners in their localities. In this article, the rationale, design,…

Basic education is essential if societies and economies are to thrive and become sustainable in challenging times. However, many people have never had an opportunity to benefit from education and many others leave the initial phase of education without attaining the level of proficiency in literacy and numeracy needed to participate fully in…

Teaching graduate students to conduct evaluations is typically relegated to evaluation methods courses. This approach misses an opportunity for students to collaboratively use evaluation skills to explore content. This article examines a graduate course, Issues in Adult Basic Education, in which students learned evaluation methods concurrently…

In order to meet the needs of evolving school leaders, university professors and others who provide professional development must rethink and expand their roles. Based on experiences as instructors in a leadership development program, the authors had the opportunity to explore and understand more fully how leaders grow. This article describes our…

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the impact of a word study literacy approach on the spelling ability and self-efficacy of adults in a county jail. Forty-four inmates participated in the word study intervention that provided them with hands-on learning. The word study intervention was conducted in four separate sessions (September,…

Uses Dewey's concept of growth as "the ability to learn from experience" to discuss the learning histories of three male literacy learners. From this perspective, their progress toward goals, rather than achievement, is the primary focus. (Contains 30 references.) (SK)

Based on a successful program for women conducted by Lutheran Settlement House in Philadelphia, this guide outlines step-by-step procedures for conducting educational field trips for students in adult basic education programs. The guide offers suggestions for identification of cultural, historical, and social resources that would provide valuable…

The emotional and paraconscious characteristics of an adult who is faced with the need to learn to read make the use of the suggestopedic instructional method, which operates below the level of consciousness, attractive. Among learner characteristics to which suggestopedia can be directly applied are integrative and instrumental motivation, and…

Proposes a comprehensive educational program for exceptional or deviant elderly based on special education principles and methodology. A diagnostic-prescriptive program dealing with crucial life-adjustment areas of the aged is described. The curriculum involves formal classes, an individual advising process, and guided educational experiences.…

This document makes the case for assessing prior learning and offers practical advice on how to do it within British English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and adult basic education (ABE) programs. Following an introduction, it is explained that a person's prior learning is obtained through prior study or life experiences. The next section…

This document contains a curriculum guide for teachers and a companion reading guide for adult literacy students reading at the fourth- to sixth-grade level. The curriculum guide contains three chapters: Work, Families, and Housing. The guide takes student interest as a starting point and asks students to stretch comprehension, perception, and…

Language and culture shape the meanings that are attached to experience and to text. Yet, it is often believed that literacy work can be standardized and formalized, industrialized and normalized, as if adult new readers constructed meaning differently from proficient readers. Workplace literacy programs too often teach the employer's meaning and…

A workshop for adult literacy tutors and learners was developed on the basis of the findings of a telephone survey of 45 tutors and presented to a total of 51 tutors and 48 students. The workshop, which was based on an experiential whole-language approach, was structured in a series of three 2-hour sessions. During the first session, tutors and…

Defines competency-based adult education as activities providing coping and life skills, functional literacy, mastery learning, external or alternative high school diplomas, and educational credits for life experiences. Discusses activities in relation to federally authorized Adult Basic Education, minimal testing, Adult Performance Level…

Describes use of experiential education for teaching mathematics as component of job training for single, unemployed women in Washington, D.C. Stresses value of practice-oriented curriculum, group work, and self-paced study. Concludes that student involvement fosters student reasoning and self reliance. (TES)