The "So What" of PIAAC for Professional Development

Jackie and others,

if Americans are concerned about our level of basic skills and our competitiveness among our peer nations, the PIAAC results should wake-up our country. The PIAAC results should mean for preK-12 and adult basic education what the Russians' launch of the Sputnik satellite in the 1950's meant to K-12 and university science education -- an infusion of public resources to address how Americans learn science and math so we could catch up to the Russians in space exploration. As researcher and author Michael Holzman put it in the title of a recent Huffington Post blog commentary, "Improving Adult Education Will help the U.S. Catch Up with Slovakia and Estonia." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-cooper/improving-adult-education_b_5051818.html If we use the PIAAC results to help mobilize the American public to strengthen adult education -- as Holzman puts it, "Unfortunately, adult education in this country is vastly underfunded. That must change." -- then we may see significant change. If those of us who are aware of the PIAAC results do not succeed in bringing about major new support of adult basic education, then I am not optimistic about the impact for the estimated 36 million Americans who especially need strengthened literacy, numeracy or problem solving skills using technology, and I am not optimistic about significant changes in adult literacy education professional development.

As I interpret the PIAAC results, with new resources to make this possible, here's what we need for professional development,:

1. In every state a significant expansion of professional development is needed to help teachers teach digital literacy and problem solving skills using technology. This implies that every adult education teacher will have regular daily access at home and work to a computer, a smart phone and an electronic tablet. Every teacher needs to be comfortable and competent in using these devices. In addition, in every classroom there must be broadband wireless access, and every student needs to have (his her own, or a program-provided) computer, and/or other Internet accessible device. Most teachers will also need an electronic whiteboard and a multimedia projector. With ready access to tools such as these for adult education teachers and students, in-depth and ongoing professional development will be needed to help teachers learn -- and practice -- how to use these tools well, and how to help students be comfortable and competent in using these tools. This would result in digital literacy for teachers as well as students.

Teaching teachers and students how to use these tools should not begin with the tools, but rather with the context of problems that the tool(s) can solve. There are many possible starting places, but for most teachers it will be the curriculum, the content, skills, attitudes and approaches that students need to learn to be successful. For some teachers it will also be the students' articulated learning goals or objectives. Technology is an important part of the set of tools for solving learning problems but, of course, not the whole set. Reading, writing, numeracy, critical thinking, problem-solving, and "non-cognitive" skills such as persistence, are also essential.

Digital literacy skills are the foundation of more advanced skills like problem solving using technology. To address this kind of problem solving, teachers and their students will need to learn how to take information and frame a problem, in this case a problem in a "technology-rich environment" that has arisen because of the availability of technology and that must be solved using electronic tools. Teachers and students will need to know to how to develop a plan for solving the problem, how to select the right digital tools to solve the problem, how then to solve the problem, and how to evaluate their solution. This is new. Before PIAAC we have not tested adults for these kinds of skills in the United States. We also have not taught teachers how to help students learn these skills. This is a very important new area for adult education professional development.

2. For literacy and numeracy, fortunately, we do have some well-designed national and state professional development efforts, but these reach a small fraction of teachers who need these skills. We especially need an infusion of resources to support sustained professional development in numeracy. We also need more full-time, qualified teachers of numeracy. This problem is not unique to adult basic education, of course. We also need improvement in how we teach math in K-12.

3. If we significantly improve professional development, and as a result, the overall quality of adult basic education teaching we have the even greater problem that our current publicly-funded adult education system in the United States reaches such a small percentage (somewhere between 3% and 10%) of the adults who need basic skills. This problem, of course, is much larger than what can be addressed through professional development, but if this problem is addressed, then we will also need more qualified (and especially more full-time qualified) adult education teachers, and the role of professional development will need to be scaled up too.

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

Thanks for initiating this thread, Jackie. Like David, I too would like more of my colleagues involved and reacting to the PIAAC report. It should be a game changer but we need some concerted effort if we want true collective impact. I feel that, if teachers have not heard about PIAAC and considered its implications, we are not doing our jobs as administrators, professional developers, instructional leaders, and colleagues.

Each of us will focus on a different concern arising from the PIAAC report. To me, these are three big challenges:

• First, while, according to the report, our adults are below average in terms of basic skills (numeracy, literacy and problem solving using technology) at the same time we have the second highest percentage of available jobs requiring post-secondary education or higher. That is, the skill gap is bigger for adults in the USA than in most other countries in the sample. So, unless we do something urgently, we cannot hope to come out of the recession any time soon and cannot hope to recover our competitive edge in the global economy.
• Second, in 1993, the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) drew attention to the fact that over 20% of the adult population was functionally illiterate and fully 90 million adults in America performed at the lowest two literacy levels in the survey. It is worth considering the PIAAC results indicate, twenty years later, that the situation has not improved and may have actually worsened slightly.
• In addition, we are, as a nation, not doing as well as other countries educating our young. A separate OECD report on the skills of in-school 15 year olds (3) shows that our youth score below their international counterparts in literacy and numeracy. When coupled with our national drop-out problem, the outlook for the future is not good unless adult education is prepared to help these young adults who learn in a manner very different than what most of us are used to

The fact that we haven’t improved the skill situation for our adults in the last 20 or 30 years shows that adult education is woefully underfunded (as we know) but it also may indicate that we need to change what we have been doing and how. On the other front, in 1983 A Nation at Risk raised the alarm in terms of the shape of public education and, in spite of a public education system that is much better funded than adult education, 30 years later many of the concerns raised by that report are still haunting our schools. Perhaps our attempts to fix the problem have been consistently focused on the wrong solutions. I believe whether it is in the K-12 system or in adult education, our challenge is addressing the underlying causes of the problem and not just the presenting symptoms.

So, to the question of what this means to professional development (and to David’s three questions regarding what we are doing), my take is that if we are serious about responding to PIAAC we need to be serious about challenging the status quo in education at multiple fronts (K-12, adult education, developmental education, and college/training programs.) We need to relate different not only to education but to knowledge itself. We still have school policies that keep smart phones and tablets out of the hands of students in K-12 and teachers and administrators in adult education who feel uncomfortable with the technology and who, in the 21st century still insist on a teaching/learning transaction that mirrors the way we learned 30, 40 or 50 years ago. Our PD efforts need to be redesigned to focus much of our attention on teaching each other how to use technology realizing that access to information and our relation to knowledge are very different today than in the past.

We need to make our reaction to this report a priority of our PD efforts in the near future. We need to raise awareness first, yes, but then we must do something with that awareness. We need to see professional developers talking everywhere about the implications of this report to PD. We need to support teachers talking to each other within their programs but also in wider professional networks about the changes needed in their classrooms, approaches, materials, use of technology, etc.

I cannot speak to what Texas will do because the PD system in our state is in transition, but I have been talking about PIAAC in Texas and elsewhere where I have had a forum challenging adult educators to make a concerted effort to find collective solutions. I have written an article to raise awareness that will publish next month in Texas and hope to publish through a couple of national organizations.

I would love to engage others in this conversation.

Thanks,

Thank you, Jackie, David and Federico for this valuable discussion.  I coordinate PD for adult educators in Colorado and we too are striving to address the notable gaps PIACC defines by adapting and improving PD support to instructors to meet students’ learning needs. 

To Jackie’s initial question about professional learning that has the greatest impact, we are seeking meaningful technology-enhanced delivery methods that offer more of a framework for sustained, job-embedded and collaborative activities.  Colorado has participated in national PD initiatives (e.g., learning disabilities, numeracy, college and career readiness and standards-based instruction).  These facilitated PD events are well-received, and instructors consistently indicate that they would like more guidance in these and other areas.  Some express interest in wikis and blogs which I see benefit in, but also have experienced as underutilized tools.  It is apparent that innovations must include more local application and more support.  Increased access and commitment to longer-term professional learning activities is a target to improve consistent integration of PD objectives. 

To address David’s questions about improving PD for basic literacy, numeracy, digital literacy and problem-solving with technology, we are looking for ways to create opportunity for continual engagement with these topics.  I am in early discussion with colleagues regarding a state model in which participants access most PD projects as a hybrid learning event that invites accountability and may culminate in a digital badge.  This way, all are part of a professional learning community that is not confined to location and schedule and builds digital literacy skills as they are necessary and helpful.  Webinars, online modules, in-person workshops or conference sessions may be a part of a project, but no longer the main passive event.  Ideally, projects begin with background discovery of teaching strategies and related research that includes relevant technology.  Time is spent in discussion and exploration of tools as well as local student needs and related content standards.  Additional resources are identified and application activities are developed, i.e., lessons are improved to be carried-out and reflected upon.  Lessons are observed and/or recorded so that peers can offer feedback.  If professional learning cycles of continuous improvement can become a norm many promising practices may take hold in a structured yet organic manner.

I see our many barriers in adult education, and I also see this as an exciting time to work together in new ways.  I hope to read more comments from other states.  Are others using online and hybrid learning environments and web 2.0 tools successfully?

Many thanks,

Chelsea