Professional Wisdom in 2013

Submitted by David Rosen on Wed, 12/26/2012 - 15:39
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Colleagues,

A neglected part of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) definition of evidence-based practices is "professional wisdom". According to its widely-promulgated definition, the Department expects practitioners to base their decisions about classroom practices on research and/or professional wisdom.

There is limited research in our field, even less experimental design research, and almost no gold standard experimental research. I infer that this lack of research led to taking adult education out of the Department's official What Works data base a few years ago.

If adult education practitioners have so little research to base their decisions on why isn't our field paying more attention to the profession wisdom side of this definition?

What is professional wisdom?

As far as I know ED hasn't defined it, so it's up to our field to define this. Perhaps there are those in this CoP who would like to be part of a defining process. Having a good definition would be a good first step.

Here are my thoughts:
- Professional wisdom (PW) is not just one teacher's knowledge, even if gained from years of experience and reflection on it: it is the collective wisdom of many experienced, capable adult education teachers
-  PW is often very specific to a set of skills, or kind or area of knowledge gained by a specific kind of student (age, gender, first language, education level, etc.)
- professional wisdom might begin with reviews of what practitioners have already written about in international, national, state or local  adult education journals, the kinds of articles that give particulars about what was taught to whom and how. Perhaps there are some professional wisdom trends that we might become aware of from meta-studies of these articles

Am I alone in wanting to move forward our field's professional wisdom? If you are interested in working on this let me know, and if interest is sufficiently great, I might form an online work group.

David J. Rosen
Djrosen123@gmail.com
 

Comments

David: I have reexamined a discussion which you and John Comings initiated on the aaace-nla discussion list in 2008 about professional wisdom. At that time John noted that the USED/IES had defined professional wisdom as: quote: the judgment that practitioners acquire through experience, consensus views, and the effective identification and incorporation of local circumstances into instruction (

http://www.ed.gov/nclb/methods/whatworks/eb/edlite-slide004.html).end quote

 

You have stated what you believe about PW as:

 

quote:- Professional wisdom (PW) is not just one teacher's knowledge, even if gained from years of experience and reflection on it: it is the collective wisdom of many experienced, capable adult education teachers.end quote

 

You go on to add: quote: - professional wisdom might begin with reviews of what practitioners have already written about in international, national, state or local adult education journals, the kinds of articles that give particulars about what was taught to whom and how. Perhaps there are some professional wisdom trends that we might become aware of from meta-studies of these articles.end quote

 

In the 2008 discussion I summarized one professional wisdom trend related to what I call Functional Context Education. Since then I have reported on additiional support for Functional Context Education from the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council report titled Improving Adult Literacy Instruction and there have been additional indications of both professional wisdom and silver standard research supporting integrated and contextualized instruction for adults as given in the principles of Functional Context Education. For those interested, in my 2008 note I stated:

 

quote:Colleagues: For an example of how professional wisdom confirmed by empirical research can be synthesized see the research on what I have called Functional Context Education which is summarized in my workshop on Functional Context Education (FCE). This includes historical research on a hundred years of professional wisdom supporting FCE concepts and principles. It then reviews a body of quasi-experimental research ("silver standard" - i.e., experimental versus comparison group, without random assignments) that provides evidence for FCE principles. This includes research in the military context, including both Army and Navy research using teachers, texts, computers and peers, research in vocational ESL in a community college context, research on "what works" in ESL, research on entry level workplace basic skills education in the Federal Reserve bank in Boston, and research in numerous programs of "embedded instruction" in theUnited Kingdom that follow the FCE principles, particularly the one that states, "Integrate instruction in basic skills (reading, math) into programs as the course poses demands for these skills that potential students may not possess." All of the foregoing studies use treatment and comparison group designs.

 

Compiling this body of professional wisdom and empirical research has taken many years of library research, the design and conduct of curriculum development projects with embedded research of a quasi-experimental nature, and surveying numerous reports from adult research centers in several nations. It has been incremental - finding a report here, a study there, etc. I'm not certain a "jury" system like David and John envision would accomplish this type of work. For more about FCE and this body of professional wisdom and quasi-experimental, "silver standard" research see the following:

For professional wisdom and scientific research on Functional Context Education go to www.nald.ca/fulltext/fce/cover.htm and see Functional Context Education: Making Learning Relevant in the 21st Century.

Casey, H. et. al (2006, November). "You wouldn't expect a maths teacher to teach plastering " online at www.nrdc.org.uk.

Condelli, L. & Wrigley, H. (2004) Real World Research: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Research for Adult ESL. Paper presented at the National Research and Development Centre (NRDC) Second International Conference for Adult Literacy and Numeracy, Loughborough, England.Downloaded from the internet April 3, 2007 from

http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/professionaldevelopment/attachments/20070401/dea5b0a7/attachment-0002.doc

 

Sticht, T., McDonald, B., & Erickson, P. (1998). Passports to Paradise: The Struggle To Teach and To Learn on the Margins of Adult Education. El Cajon, CA: Applied Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, Inc.

Sticht, T., Armstrong, W., Hickey, D., & Caylor, J. (1987). Cast-off youth: policies and training methods from the military experience. NY: Praeger.

In my upcoming 2013 free workshop entitled Intergenerational Workforce Literacy Development I bring up-to-date the professional wisdom and scientific, empirical, “silver standard” research supporting the efficacy of Functional Context Education principles as guidelines for developing adult education programs.

I would be interested in knowing about other professional wisdom and empirically-based instructional principles and practices upon which the field of adult education can be developed.

 

Tom Sticht

 

　

 

　

 

　

 

　

 

　

 

　

 

　

 

　

 

　

 


 

 

Thanks, Tom. This is exactly the kind of thoughtfulness that I was hoping for when I posted my question. I hope to hear from others who may be interested in advancing the professional wisdom part of evidence-based practices.

I had forgotten that John Comings had pointed out a USED definition of professional wisdom in our conversation.

• the judgment that practitioners acquire through experience,

• consensus views, and

• the effective identification and incorporation of local circumstances into instruction

http://www.ed.gov/nclb/methods/whatworks/eb/edlite-slide004.html

I wonder if this definition has been embraced by OVAE at the Department of Education. Perhaps someone from OVAE could let us all know.


David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

David and all: I have discussed the professional wisdom and scientific research establishing the efficacy of Functional Context Education. I wonder, David, if you or some other list members would cite some evidence for other professional wisdom and/or scientific research establishing the efficacy of some other educational principles or  practices in adult education.

Tom Sticht