MeetingoftheMinds2PotentialSessionTopics

From LiteracyTentWiki

This is a list of potential topics for the Meeting of the Minds II: National Adult Education Practitioner-Researcher Symposium. Please feel free to add more, simply by using the edit function of the wiki. You can also send suggestions to the LPRPDiscussion List. The address is lprpconnections*lists.scoe.net (replace the * with @).

1. Writing instruction for ABE and ESL learners

2. Professional Development - especially transfer of learning from PD into practice

3. Direct teaching of grammar to ESL learners

4. Vocabulary acquisition for ESL learners

5. The transition of adults with low to no literacy skills into the traditional adult ed world successfully (or how to best prepare these low literacy students for the adult ed world). We have students who don't make the transition even though they now have the skills.

6. What about the crossroads/intersections/tensions around experimental and qualitative research? I’m not thinking of a debate (although that might ensue, in the form of rigorous discourse..) but a real look at ‘real’ research utilizing both ends of the spectrum, as well, perhaps, as some of those lying in between. Purposes of research surely determine their methodologies – but how to move away from the Us / Them splits and really look at, on the ground, who benefits/learns from what kinds of research, who supports it and why do we think about it at all.

7. A session on how the ALE Wiki can be used to make the research to practice connection.

8. Distance learning research. What evidence do we have that either pure or blended distance learning is effective with adult basic skills learners? Are blended models more effective than pure distance learning models and if so, with what kinds of students? What do we know about the the kinds of students who are successful doing this kind of learning, about their computer comfort and competence, their level of basic skills, their motivation?