Reflections from Action Research Discussion

From LiteracyTentWiki

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 600] Reflections
From: Taylor, Jackie jataylor at utk.edu
Date: Fri Oct 6 16:38:45 EDT 2006

PD List Colleagues:
We've had an energizing week of list discussions. I know many of you travel, and your plates are full with work. I intentionally built-in the weekend as an option available to you for discussion so that if you'd like, you could read and reflect on the messages posted this week, and still contribute to the discussions. I feel it is important that we all have the opportunity to contribute to the dialogue in our field.

Question: What thoughts did this week's discussion raise for you about our field, about adult literacy professional development, or about the supports practitioners need to do their jobs well? What has stirred your reflections? What is prompting you to action? I encourage you to post any reflections to this list through Monday, October 9th, after which we will officially end the discussion.

As for my own speech today: As the world speeds up, don't sacrifice our wonderful, human capacity for conversation. Claim the time to contribute to the dialogue in our field.

Best wishes for a long and restful holiday weekend, Jackie

Jackie Taylor, List Moderator, Adult Literacy Professional Development, jataylor at utk.edu

"Nobody will give you time to think about what you want to change..You will have to claim it for yourself. Noone will give it to you because thinking is dangerous to the status quo. Those benefiting from the present system have no interest in new ideas."

-- Margaret Wheatley

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 602] Re: Implications for Action Research
From: Shifferraw, Maigenet mshifferraw at udc.edu
Date: Fri Oct 6 16:19:42 EDT 2006

Thank you, Jackie, for giving us this opportunity to reflect on the benefits of this research to the university, to university researchers and other implications.

First, the University of the District of Columbia is a land-grant urban institution that has the function of teaching, research and public service to the urban Washington, DC community.  About 37% of DC adult residents have low-level literacy (are not functionally literate).  The State Education Agency, Adult Education (SEA) and the different adult education programs are engaged in a challenging but rewarding work to improve the literacy level of adult residents in DC.  Through this AR project, the university is involved in working with SEA and the adult education community in improving literacy level of adult learners in the DC.

Second, the Graduate Certificate Program in Adult Education is benefiting from this research by getting research-based information about learners’ acquisition of literacy skills, issues in participation in adult basic education, different strategies and techniques that teachers use in adult basic education classes.

Personally, in the last three years, I had the opportunity to observe teachers increase their interest in research and improve their own practices through the reflection and action process. 

There were some issues that were raised in this discussion – whether we should call what the teachers are doing AR or something else.  I am comfortable to call what we do in DC as Action Research.  It is a university guided action research since we, at the university, assist teacher-researchers in understanding the fundamental elements of research in general and Action Research in particular.  As Patricia indicated earlier, we also help them focus their research and we visit them at their workplaces to give them feedback if they have questions.  We provide several workshops on the different aspects of action research (from framing research question to writing the final report).  The teachers are the actual researchers.  They document every step of the process they used and gather data and analyze the data they collected and share their experiences. For too long, teachers and practitioners are often far removed from the research done about them and “for” them.  Using the AR process, they can have the ownership of the research they are doing in their own classrooms or other settings.

To have a wider ramification of the action research done so far, we are encouraging other teachers in DC to use some of the promising practices identified by our teacher-researchers. Dr. Burton’s work on participation should be interesting to all of us.

Through our discussion this week, we also discussed the issue of time and support for teachers.  We need to explore these issues further and continue sharing our ideas and experiences.  We will be writing our experiences in guiding action research and will share our work with you in the field who might be interested.

Overall, this was an exciting week for all of us here.  I thank Jackie for moderating this discussion.  She did an excellent job.  I also thank Stacey (our team member) for arranging this online discussion with Jackie.  I want to thank our teacher-researchers for participating in the discussion.

For all of you who are in the PD listserv and who participated in the discussion, I am grateful for taking your time and sharing your experiences.  We will keep you informed on our continuous work with AR in the District of Columbia.  Please contact us if you need further information or want to continue to share your experiences.

Best to all,

Maigenet

Maigenet Shifferraw, P.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Education
University of the District of Columbia
Telephone: 202-274-5333
Email:  mshifferraw@udc.edu

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 601] FW: What changes adult literacy education?
From: Taylor, Jackie jataylor at utk.edu
Date: Fri Oct 6 16:43:59 EDT 2006

PD List Colleagues:
Tom Sticht has posted the following reflection to the AAACE-NLA List, and with his permission I am cross-posting it here.

Your comments, please. Best, Jackie Taylor

Aaace-nla Colleagues: On the NIFL Professional Development list there is a discussion about action research as a means of professional development to change (improve?) adult literacy education. Allan Quigley has said that he thinks that this is a means of changing adult literacy from within. This led me to wonder what has changed this field of practice and how much comes from within and how much from outside the field. Here are some things I thought of: Technology: Computers, Internet, Overhead Projectors & Screens all of which came from outside the field, not within. Also, the National Reporting System has brought about considerable change in the field in the U.S. and this results from acts of Congress with accountability demands coming from outside the field and makes extensive demands for standardized testing which again is a technology coming from outside the field. The contemporary approaches to workplace literacy, stimulated by the National Workplace Literacy Program came from outside the field. The Even Start program of family literacy came from Congress (Congressman Goodling) informed by statistics and ideas about the intergenerational transfer of literacy from parents to children that came (mostly) from outside the field. The current push for content standards came from the standards movement in education which was outside the field.

Any ideas about how the field has been changed from within? Or just what this might mean?

Tom Sticht

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 607] Re: What changes adult literacy education?
From: Chenniah Randolph cr0792a at american.edu
Date: Sun Oct 8 12:20:33 EDT 2006

Again, I have been away at the ProLiteracy Conference and I agree that change is needed on a national, state and local level. Interesting enough, there was a state that did the same research that I did with comparing the CASAS with the GED practice test. Even though their project cost more money and took more people, we both came to the same conclusion which was the CASAS and GED practice test and instructional materials assess different types of reading skills. In short, about 60% of the CASAS questions are look and find types of items, where as the GED questions were 60% inferences, main idea and summarizing. Therefore, on a nation wide level there needs to be a pre and post test assessment instrument specifically geared toward the GED test taking population. TABE and CASAS are great tools of assessment for ABE and ESL students but not for GED. The GED practice test assess more on content of a subject matter but not really "reading skills"

The research at the conference was not action research, and students were not included in their overall outcomes. The benefit of action research is that I could ID the problem better and begin creating solutions for them. This made me realize that if all this research is being conducted, on any level, students and teachers and volunteers all need to be a part of it so we can really find productive solutions to many of our issues and concerns.

Also, there is so much research on adult education throughout the nation. BUT - once the research is completed something much is done with it. WHY - because that takes more money. There is so much great research out there already than can help everyone be better at what we do but limited funding impedes the sharing of this research and developing next steps to put the outcome of the data into good use. I don't want us to do research just of the sake of research. I want to see dynamic change and shifts in this field as a result of all the hard work, great ideas and excellent research we have done.

Here's my wish list

1) professional development for volunteers, tutors and instructors that meets the needs of the students and teachers
2) funders that actually know what's going on in adult education and standards that work for and not against the students and our programs
3) for the results of our research to be used for change in our field in the near future
4) more diversified assessment tests to measure students' progress and areas they'll need improvement (appropriate mateiral that lends itself to helping students with those trouble areas)


Thanks!
Chenniah Randolph
ABE Program Director
M/DALC
Washington DC

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 609] Re: What changes adult literacy education?
From: Patricia DeFerrari patricia at aohdc.org
Date: Mon Oct 9 16:30:05 EDT 2006

As we discuss standards and performance measurements in adult education, I think it important to recognize that adults often make educational gains and achieve educational goals in time periods that extend well beyond the fiscal year, not uncommonly to years. In both of our most recent graduations (September 2006 and November 2005), we counted among our graduates students who spent six years studying to earn their high school credentials. Every term we welcome back students who attended Academy of Hope in a previous term or year or even decade. If we extended our time-frame for measuring educational gain to two or three years, we might gain a better perspective on successes in the field.

Patricia DeFerrari
Academy of Hope
patricia at aohdc.org

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 614] Re: What changes adult literacy education?
From: David Rosen djrosen at comcast.net
Date: Tue Oct 10 18:29:19 EDT 2006

Patricia and others,

If we had to pick a period of time during which to measure student achievement, I think almost no one would pick one year. Some would pick six-nine months (September to June), some would pick annually over three-five years, and some might pick annually over ten years. We have one year performance measurements because that is the way Congress -- and states -- appropriate funds, a year at a time.

But if, as you suggest, one year is not enough time to measure progress for adult learners, if as a field we agree that this is the wrong timeframe, I believe we could unhitch assessment from one-year funding cycles, just as K-12 and higher education do. I believe we could persuade Congress -- and could then re-design the NRS to capture a student's learning over multiple years. After all, that would provide greater, not less accountability. However, then we would have a new set of problems: follow-up.

This may not be the forum to discuss this, but I wanted to say that I think that you have put your finger on an extremely important problem. I'll cross post this to the AAACE-NLA discussion list to see if anyone is interested in discussing it there -- those who are interested here can log-in over there to see what happens. [Go to aaace.org and select AAACE-NLA )

David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net

Retrieved from "http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/Reflections_from_Action_Research_Discussion"