Last week 6/11 Daphne Atkinson* joined us for a live zoom event on Strategies for Differentiated Learning. This week she’ll be hosting a follow-up discussion on Friday, 6/18 starting with differentiated learning and student persistence/retention on which we invite you to dialogue. She’ll be posting questions to the discussion board urging you to share your input and experiences using differentiated learning strategies. Please join us Friday, June 18.
*Atkinson is Managing Director of Daphne Atkinson & Associates, LLC, a consulting practice designed to serve strategic and tactical needs of the adult education community. She brings more than 20 years of experience creating content about thinking styles, learning preferences, generational characteristics, and research-based classroom strategies for administrators, trainers, and instructors.
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Can differentiated learning boost participation, retention, and persistence? If so, why haven’t more programs adapted it for wider use? What helps in implementing differentiated learning? What hinders it? Please share your experiences.
Two of the current hot topics in adult education are retention and persistence. It’s complicated because although many learners may be motivated to connect with adult education programs, learners often don’t persist. The fact that researchers observed this in the nineties (or earlier) points to an enduring issue—one which might be correlated to a need for wider adoption of differentiated learning.
First, let’s be transparent about who is in the HSE pipeline. Potentially, many learners in the pipeline want to earn secondary credentials—to learn skills that will qualify them for middle-skilled jobs--jobs that require more than a high school credential but less than a four-year degree. However, placement test results suggest that a significant percentage of adult learners are coming to adult education with middle-school skills—certainly below 8th grade and with some 6th grade or below. How do you break the news to twenty- and thirty-somethings that they will need to start as ABE students when their hearts are set on earning a HSE credential in 90 days or less? How do you reconcile skill profiles that may be inconsistent—foundational skills in reading and writing but few numeracy skills. How do you convince skeptical learners—with negative prior learning experiences—that your program offers the opportunity to focus on developing skills that are transferrable to the world of work? The answer may lie in differentiated learning—a framework that allows for experience and prior learning but also can meet learners where they are and align with their learning goals.
The connection to retention and persistence? "Differentiated instruction is an approach that enables instructors to plan strategically to meet the needs of every learner. It is rooted in the belief that there is variability among any group of learners and that instructors should adjust instruction accordingly (Tomlinson, 1999, 2001, 2003). The approach encompasses the planning and delivery of instruction, classroom management techniques, and expectations of learners’ performance that take into consideration the diversity and varied levels of readiness, interests, and learning profiles of the learners." (Source: https://lincs.ed.gov/state-resources/federal-initiatives/teal/guide/diffinstruct).
Although adult education practitioners often use the terms "retention" and "persistence" interchangeably, researchers are clear about the differences between the two. Persistence is learner-directed, purposeful behavior that allows adult learners to continue to make progress towards their goals on alternative pathways when life happens. Persistence allows learners to return to programs when the way forward is clear. Retention is a program metric driven by reporting time and activities—coursework completed and time logged. Let’s discuss how adult education can transform more learners—wherever they are starting from—into persistent lifelong learners.
In the 1940's - 80 years ago, my late father-in-law worked the assembly line at a Ford Motor plant. He had a chance to advance to a supervisor but did not have a high school diploma. He went to one class. When he came home, he told his wife, in effect, the class wasn't teaching him anything he needed to know for the job he wanted.
Until employers are able to give adult ed programs a detailed, step-by-step of the education concepts and skills a job needs, the programs don't know what to teach. It is more than saying "math" or "reading better." It is the nitty gritty: be able to English weight measurements (ounce, pound, ton); understand the fractional measurements on a number line, and use them to choose the size of pipes (for plumbing); and on. The key is "short duration, targeted learning with a clear pay-off."
When workers succeed in small steps, they are more likely to come back for the bigger, longer-term goals.
The WIOA requirements of pre-test, so many hours in class, post-test don't work for the adult learners. The learners are not going to change. The rules need to change to fit what learners really want.
Dorothea Steinke
Lafayette, Colorado
I would propose that many adult educators agree with your assessment that adult education forge partnerships with employers in providing relevant services. In fact, with the reauthorization of WIOA, there are efforts taking place that offer adult education academic instruction and occupational skills training often delivered by partners (e.g., employers, community colleges, etc.) in tandem, to accelerate learners' experience in achieving their goals. Contextualizing academic instruction (which you describe above, e.g., "size of pipes") has been identified as an effective method to help learners apply instruction - and a strategy I personally strongly support. There has been progress made in assisting learners in setting realistic goals and recognizing (and celebrating) the milestones required to achieve those goals. But our work is not done. While adult educators try to avoid over-testing, tests do inform and provide a focus for academic instruction.
That said, we very much appreciate you sharing your experience and thoughts. These comments and suggestions help to inform/support adult education practices and perpetuate efforts to continue to improve instruction for learners.