Colleagues,
"What will adult basic education in the U.S. look like in the future?" is a great question for us to consider here. What are the trends that you are seeing that you think will continue, and perhaps transform adult basic education in the future?
Here's are a few of the trends I see that could, or already are beginning to, transform adult basic education (including ESOL/ESL):
1. Blended Learning. Within the next five years I think most adult basic education programs will have web-based instruction that supplements what students do in class. For one interesting example of this, read about what the San Mateo Adult School is doing, at http://www.smdailyjournal.com/articles/lnews/2014-07-04/adult-school-in-san-mateo-goes-digital-web-videos-of-classes-help-students-boost-their-studies/1776425126069.html and look at their online video clips at http://smaceclasssclips.weebly.com/. These are videos of authentic classroom lessons made available to students online. Blended learning will enable students who have access to the Internet to: put in more time on task, review a lesson that they found difficult to understand when it was presented the first time in class, and will enable students who have missed a class to make it up with online instruction. It may enable students to progress more quickly. It will also enable teachers who wish to, to provide a range of ways to teach the same topic, some of which will work better for some students. Online lessons will include video files, audio files, simulations/games that can be accessed from mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets, texts, screen captured multimedia presentations and more.
2. Flipped Learning. A simple definition is that a teacher develops or finds suitable "homework," most often instructional videos, that students are assigned to watch before class. A class then is no longer a teacher presenting to a large group but a teacher, peer tutor, volunteer tutor or aide working with students who need one-on-one or small group help. In an ideal flipped classroom the teacher has a management information system and knows before the class who has watched the video, and if they are ready to be assigned more difficult videos, if they need more help, or need a lot more help. S/he then organizes the class to provide that help. It may be technology's best answer to the competency-based Mastery Learning model Benjamin Bloom proposed several decades ago, but until now that teachers have found difficult to achieve in their classrooms. The flipped learning concept, I believe, grew out of the use of Khan Academy videos in a middle school or junior high school classroom in California. Flipped Learning, of course, is one type of blended learning.
3. Pure Distance Learning. This is online learning with little or no face-to-face interaction. It has been around for many years in adult education, beginning before digital technology with well designed correspondence courses that were successful for example in rural areas of new York State. With the help of Project Ideal, a national consortium of many of the states that have adult distance learning, and with leadership from states such as California, pure distance learning is already a reality in adult basic education. Will it continue, and grow? I think so.
4. Mobile Learning. Adult basic education teachers who regularly survey their students to learn if they have access to the Internet through computer, and/or smart phone, and/or electronic tablet, are finding that smart phone access is a fast-growing phenomenon, especially among immigrant learners, but also among other adult learners, including a big growth trend among African American students. Smart phones are not always used for learning, but savvy teachers have designed BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) learning models, and are finding useful language learning and other adult basic education apps. This will continue to grow, but a major impediment is the lack, in many adult basic education programs and adult schools, of resources to purchase broadband wireless that can be accessed in all the classrooms.
5. Online Curricula Aligned with CCR Standards. A major change in U.S. adult basic education is that all states for the first time are using -- to one degree or another -- a set of common curriculum standards. The College and Career Readiness Standards, an adult education version of the Common Core State Standards, is now in place, and in many states programs are now expected to create curricula aligned to these standards. One logical outcome could be the development of (voluntary) state and national adult education curricula that would be widely used because they are thoughtfully developed and perhaps because they can be shown to produce good learning outcomes. We'll see.
6. Computer-based Assessment. The GED(r) 2014 exam is already offered primarily on computers, and all the high school equivalency tests are moving in this direction. I expect that we will also see more formative assessments being made available online.
Do you agree that these are important adult basic education trends that are influenced by the availability/expansion of electronic technology?
What else do you see as trends?
Comments
Colleagues,
If you are curious about the origins of the flipped classroom, as I have been, excerpts below from this Flipped classroom Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom may offer some insights, although this may not be the whole story. For example, Jon Bergmann claims that he and Aaron Sams invented the flipped classroom in 2007, http://jonbergmann.com/thebiggesthurdle/. Whoever the inventors were, the essence of flipped learning is that teachers no longer have to "deliver content" face-to-face, that this can now happen online through teacher-made or teacher-selected videos, audio files, texts, screen-captured presentations, and multimedia web pages. Teachers, volunteer tutors, aides, and peer tutors can now spend class time in small groups and one-on-one, with students who need help. Teachers can spend time to better use formative assessment so they, and their students, know how they are progressing, what they have and haven't yet learned. Perhaps most important, and Jon Bergmann notes this in his blog article, teachers can focus on one of their most important goals, helping students become adept learners. Adept learner now includes not only all the reading, writing, numeracy/math skills, various content areas knowledge, study skills, and self management skills, but also some new media skills such as how to grok and efficiently navigate online learning environments, find and judge the quality of instructional videos, and get meaning efficiently from video and audio files.
Here's the Wikipedia page excerpt:
Eric Mazur developed peer instruction in the 1990s. He found that computer-aided instruction allowed him to coach instead of lecture. Lage, Platt and Treglia published the paper "Inverting the Classroom: A Gateway to Creating an Inclusive Learning Environment" in 2000.[16] In 1993, King published "From Sage on the Stage to Guide on the Side"[17] in College Teaching, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Winter, 1993), pp. 30–35. Baker presented "The classroom flip: using web course management tools to become the guide by the side" at the 11th International Conference on College Teaching and Learning. Baker's article presents the model of classroom flipping.[18]
Starting in fall 2000, the University of Wisconsin-Madison used eTeach software to replace lectures in a computer science course with streaming video of the lecturer and coordinated slides.[19] In 2011, two centers at Wisconsin Collaboratory for Enhanced Learning[20] were built to focus on flipped and blended learning.
In 2004, Salman Khan began to record videos at the request of a younger cousin who felt that recorded lessons would let her skip parts she had mastered and replay parts that were troubling her. Khan’s model essentially provides one-to-one tutoring. Khan Academy videos are used as part of some educators' flipped teaching strategy.[21][22]
In the "The Classroom Flip" (2006), Tenneson and McGlasson presented an approach for teachers considering whether to flip their classrooms and how various approaches could enhance their teaching process, along. It also explores computer course management systems.[23]
Dr. Bill Brantley presented a flipped classroom model at the 2006 American Political Science Association's Teaching and Learning Conference [24] where he described how to use two simulations for classroom meetings while moving content delivery to an online LMS.[25]
David J. Rosen
djrosen123@gmail.com
David,
I think you've hit the nail on the head. All of this has already been happening in many tertiary institutions, and as the barrier to entry re: the price of technology lowers, it seems that adult ed and education service oriented nonprofits are starting to follow suit.
I spent the last three years working for an ESL program in a large state university, and in just the past year they've implemented nearly every teaching method you mention above.
The biggest factor is that technology is cheaper and more accessible than ever before, and it seems that this trend will continue. While previously the most significant barrier was access, now I see it as being "digitally literate". In other words, knowing how to access the materials and resources available to students and put them to good use.
Colleagues,
I still see trends 1, 4, 5 and 6 growing in adult basic skills education. I see some new trends as well.
7. Career Pathways has been given a big boost by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and, as part of that law, there is a trend for Integrated Education and Training programs of an increasing variety of kinds. Some career pathways now also include technology trends such as online, mobile and blended learning, alignment with CCR standards, and computer-based assessment.
8. Sadly, another trend is the decline in public funding at the federal level and in many states. This is at a time when all the evidence (e.g. PIAAC Survey of Adult Skills) suggest there is a high and perhaps growing need. This is particularly evident even when you look at level funding, as the costs over time rise, so level funding may result in a decline in the numbers of people that can be served or the quality of services.
9. A "revitalized" trend is competency-based/proficiency-based adult education. This was a big trend in the 1970's-1990's; perhaps because of new interest in K-12, higher education, and among employers, it is being revitalized. In vocational/occupational education it has been the dominant model in the U.S. and in many other countries for decades.
What technology integration (or other big) trends are you seeing in adult basic skills (including English for immigrants) learning?
David J. Rosen, Moderator
Integrating Technology CoP
djrosen123@gmail.com
Hello Integrating Technology colleagues,
In 2014, and again in 2017, I tried to predict the near future of Adult Basic Skills Education. You can take a look to see how I did, but before you do, ask yourself this question: How do you see adult basic skills (including ESOL/ESL) changing in the next few years?
Then please post your thoughts as a reply here. I have been thinking about this, of course, but am very open to being influenced by your thinking.
2014
https://community.lincs.ed.gov/discussion/what-will-adult-basic-education-us-look-future
2017
https://community.lincs.ed.gov/comment/reply/4076/19699
David J. Rosen
LINCS CoP Integrating Technology group