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…

This article reviews teacher professional development norms as they are shifting toward collaborative practice. It is posed that passive and individual practices are inadequate to prepare teachers to integrate the academic skills that learners need for both workforce and college readiness. Promising practices in professional development are…

As professional developers for the Adult Basic Literacy Education (ABLE) system in Ohio, the authors have focused their efforts over the last several years on more actively engaging adult basic education teachers as learners in the professional development they offer. By creating activities that engage teachers in active learning with their adult…

This newsletter, published five times a year, features articles on issues of concern to adult, family, and youth literacy practitioners, as well as recommended resources, announcements, and teaching strategies. This issue contains: (1) Using a License to Drive Improvement: Professional Development in Massachusetts (Jon Steinberg); (2) Building…

This issue of the journal, "Seeds of Innovation," focuses on the teacher as learner, on creating successful supportive learning environments for professional growth and development. It draws from experiences of Tennessee adult basic education (ABE) practitioners who participated in the 1993-94 Literacy Trainers Institutes and the 1994-95 Learner…

This literature review provides a portrait of the current state of theory, instruction, assessment, and professional development of numeracy education for Adult Basic Education (ABE) students. It addresses the following five research questions by summarizing key findings from the literature: (1) How does adult numeracy develop and how does it…

"Focus on Basics" is the quarterly publication of the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy. It presents best practices, current research on adult learning and literacy, and how research is used by adult basic education teachers, counselors, program administrators, and policymakers. "Focus on Basics" is…

Staff development continues to be an important but much-debated topic in adult basic education and adult literacy education. Some staff development professionals start with the "deficit" model, in which learners are presumed to be empty vessels to be filled with knowledge. This model ignores the rich and varied experience that practitioners bring…

This guide resulted from the Teachers Assisting Teachers (T.A.T.) Program, which was established to address specific staff development issues that were created by the implementation of the National Workplace Literacy Program. The TAT program pairs workplace literacy teachers as mentors to help both teachers improve their teaching skills. Two…

The purpose of the study was to better understand reasons why some welfare recipients in adult basic education (ABE) programs do not appear to advance their skill levels and to identify strategies to help them make progress. A questionnaire was returned by 117 ABE teachers in welfare programs, who rated the frequency of occurrence of various…

Thirty literacy practitioners participated in a free-ranging discussion of the potential and the issues arising from the rapid introduction of new technologies to literacy education (adult basic education and English language training). After an introduction, the report includes the presentations of various participants, including Peter Goulding,…

Describes how a teacher achieved professional renewal through teaching adult education class in a federal prison. Notes that it may be easier to create hospitable space and a sense of community in an inmate classroom than in any other kind. (RS)

As part of a project to improve professional development for adult basic and literacy educators in Pennsylvania, a literature review was conducted of studies of professional competencies needed by adult educators. Extensive review of previous studies showed that hundreds of competencies had been identified. Some states also had generated their own…

This study focused on the problem of deaf and hard of hearing learners who have very low English literacy levels compared to their ability levels. Participants in the study were deaf and hard of hearing adult learners in the Adult Basic Education Program of the Center on Deafness in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This mixed urban-rural population had…

An Australian project provided an inservice, team teaching program interspersed with professional development workshops for community-based practitioners in English as a Second Language (ESL) and Adult Literacy and Basic Education (ABLE). The group who participated included four ESL teachers working in community providers and four adult literacy…