Please visit this discussion from June 5-9, 2023 to hear about promising practices identified by Kathy Tracey from Illinois. You are welcome to add your own questions and comments as well.
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Kathy Olesen-Tracey, Ed.D is the Senior Director for Adult Education & Literacy at Illinois Community College Board /Illinois State Director for AEFL and a LINCS Community Moderator for the Program Management Group. She has over two decades of experience in adult education and has worn many different hats. Outside of her work in adult education, she is an avid reader and her hobbies include community involvement with socially relevant causes such as the Habitat for Humanity and working in animal rescue related activities.
This week, Kathy will be sharing some promising practices she has identified that are happening in Illinois to help adult learners transition to postsecondary education and training. Please feel free to add any questions to the discussion that you would like Kathy (or other group members) to answer.
Thanks Chrissie,
To begin this promising practice, I'd like to start with discussing the focus on content standards. It's the 'what' to teach that will prepare students for transtions to higher education or training. Illinois has created a training series for both ABE/ASE and ESL instructors.
These pathways begin with teachers learning about the Illinois Adult Education content standards.
I invite you to review the following resources and let me know what questions you have.
I look forward to learnign about how you've approached standards based instructoin as a tool to connecting students to postsecondary education or training.
Kathy
Colleagues,
Standards in Action is a key strategy in preparing learners to advance their education beyond Adult Basic Education into postsecondary education or training.
Standards define the academic skills, soft skills, and background knowledge a students must obtain to be prepared their transtions. However, preparing students academically with limited experience in higher education is only a part of a solid transtion plan.
In Illinois, we have a significant number of our programs offering College and Career Bridge Programming. This programming is designed to provide the academic development in conjunction with contextualized instruction as it relates to college (what is a syllabus, how do you enroll, what are the career choices, what does financail aid look like).
The combination of academic skill development and preparation for college helps seemlessly transtion learners.
I'd love to hear how other programs are using Bridge programming or standards based instruction to transiton students.
Sincerely,
Kathy Tracey
Wondering who's around ;)
I'm in Champaign and doing my best at Parkland College to support our adult ed folks. (Hmmm. Now I'm wondering if they know about LINCS...) We're trying to put something together for basic numeracy. The "test prep" options usually are too scrambled and fast but we've got a little time left on our grant-funded IXL and so I can take a topic they need to know from their GED prep materials and find good support in IXL 'cause it seems aligned well with standards.
We have so many new people in the field of adult educaiton, so it is important to share more about LINCS with them. LINCS has discussion groups, courses, a resources center, and a learner center. I would definitely cross-post your question in both the Math and Numeracy group and the Integrating Technology group on LINCS. To start a discussion in a group you do need to log into your LINCS account AND join the group.
Susan,
Great idea about working towards numeracy! Math is often considered a gateway skill and when a student struggles in this content area, it can be a challenge to successfully completing a postsecondary degree.
Seeking additional supports through technology is a great solution. When integrated well through alignment with standards, you can assist in remediating or excellerating math learning. I'd love to hear more about what you are doing for basic numeracy.
Kathy
Colleagues,
Our first strategy for postsecondary transitions was utilizing standards based instruction. We then discussed instructional courses that provided students an overview of college and career exploration.
Today, I'd l ike to share Illinois' approach to a statewide plan for Ability to Benefit. You can find information here: https://www2.iccb.org/adult_ed/provider-resources/
Do your states have an ability to benefit state defined process?
Kathy
Thanks for sharing Illinois' approach to ATB. Here is a discussion on the basics on ATB and Financial Aid. It is important to see how your state approaches ATB before sharing information with adult learners.
Thank you Kathy for sharing promising practices from Illinois. I encourage everyone to check out the upcoming live events happening through LINCS and to subscribe to the Program Management LINCS Community Group and join in on more discussions with Kathy.