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Adult and Community Learning Services

Curriculum Update, August 2010

Useful Resources

New Online Professional Development Course on Differentiated Instruction
The course is available at ProfessionalStudiesAE.org and will also be offered in spring 2011.
Differentiated Instruction (course description ) Adult educators almost always face many different levels of learners in their classrooms, with all the attendant difficulties in teaching. In this facilitated, interactive course, you will learn how differentiated instruction can help produce effective teaching in your classes. You will learn to make the strong learning objectives required to keep multilevel instruction on target. Both research and specific strategies will be addressed. By the course end, you will produce your own lesson plan with effective learning objectives and differentiation suited to your own environment. Course dates: October 12-December 13, 2010
Course instructor: Wendy Quiñones Course fee: $249.00 (requires textbook)
Register now. Questions? E-mail literacy@worlded.org. ProfessionalStudiesAE.org is a partnership of World Education, Inc., and ProLiteracy/New Readers Press. Visit www.professionalstudiesae.org for a complete listing of available courses.

The Haitians: Their History and Culture, by Michele Burtoff Civan with Féquière Vilsaint and Gepsie Morisset-Métellus. This booklet is a basic introduction to the people, history, and culture of Haiti. It is designed primarily for service providers and others assisting refugees in their new communities in the United States. Order online from the CAL Store or Read it online.

English-Haitian Creole Phrasebook. This phrasebook was designed to supply refugees with English phrases selected for their usefulness in daily life in the United States. CAL has posted this phrasebook in PDF format at the request of HRSA the Office of Emergency Preparedness and Continuity of Operations (EPCO) division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to provide information to service providers being sent to Haiti to aid victims of the earthquake. English-Haitian Creole Phrasebook Download PDF Document
size: 6.77 MB

The LINCS Resource Collection News, from the National Institute for Literacy, features the Workforce Competitiveness Collection, which covers Workforce Education, English Language Acquisition, and Technology. Each month, Collections News features one of the three LINCS Resource Collections - Basic Skills, Program Management, and Workforce Competitiveness - and introduces research-based resources that you can use in your adult basic education and family literacy programs and classrooms. Included in the Collection:

• Resources in the Workforce Competitiveness Collection - research-based products and materials, and research papers - can help you expand and improve work-based basic skills classes offered to adults.
• Career Pathways Instructional Materials Library has workforce education resources, organized by career clusters or occupational categories. (Most of these materials are not reviewed by the Collection's external content experts; an asterisk marks those that have been externally reviewed and are also available in the Resource Collection.)
• The new Career Pathways Instructional Materials Library includes Virginia Adult Learning Center's Building Basics: ESOL Toolkit for General Construction, Landscaping, Painting, and Plumbing. This instructional package covers four topics; each contains four or five lessons and includes activities designed for different proficiency levels. Each lesson also provides a facilitator guide and materials, and student handouts. While this resource has not been externally reviewed, the Embedded Learning Portal has been externally reviewed and is included in the Workforce Education Collection.
• Under Construction: Building Web Sites as a Project-Based Learning Activity for ABE/ESOL Classes: Tips for Teachers offers some simple, user-friendly guidance on using project based instruction and technology to build a Web site with students. A project such as this would include content of interest to adult learners and help them build communication, math, and problem- solving skills.

The Asian American Civic Association's web site, Communicating At Work, has two relatively new segments on Emailing on the Job and Performance Reviews. These are in addition to several useful segments on improving communication skills with supervisors, customers and co-workers. This website, http://aaca-boston.org/caw/, has been used by over 4,000 people across the world since the site since it was launched in fall, 2009.

BuildingSkills4Work
The "Reach Higher, America" report and other research shows that nearly half of American adults lack the skills to hold 21st Century jobs. In response, the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University (which has experience working with states to implement Internet learning for low-skill workers), the Center for Literacy Studies at the University of Tennessee, and R & D Media Solutions SF have developed a website is available at no cost to learners, adult education teachers, workforce skills trainers, and the general literacy community. BuildingSkills4Work places adults in realistic workplace settings and delivers lessons (geared to adult learners able to read at a 7th grade reading level) that teach essential workplace skills. The lessons provide instruction and applied practice in important workplace skills. The website is designed to be used to support classroom instruction or as a set of stand alone, self-directed learning activities.

Users accessing the site will find an initial introduction/orientation to the website, and then be directed to a general introduction to the set of work readiness skills that are the focus of the learning modules. Each individual skill is defined, and users may choose a skill to pursue further:

• Reading at Work
• Math at Work
• Cooperate and Resolve Conflict
• Solve Problems and Make Decisions
• Listen Actively
• Observe Critically

Each skill provides a deeper, more detailed and interactive definition that explains the importance of the skill in everyday adult life and in the workplace; invites users to reflect on their prior knowledge of/experience with the skill; and includes explanation and illustration of each component of the integrated process involved in successfully applying the skill.

The Learning Modules for each skill present scenarios set in a real-life-like workplace. Through engagement in the activities and conversations of real-life-like employees, and by answering questions about what they see and hear, users learn about and apply all of the components of the integrated skill process that is the focus of instruction. Each Module is linked to a set of test-type items ("practices") that were developed to approximate the specifications of test items that might appear on the National Work Readiness Credential exam or other high risk exams. These "practices" allow users to assess their grasp of the skill while practicing test-taking of the kind they might encounter when seeking or engaging in employment. For further information: Heather McKay, Center for Women and Work, Rutgers U. (hmckay@rci.rutgers.edu)

Questions? Please contact Jane Schwerdtfeger at janes@doe.mass.edu