Toward defining and improving quality in adult basic education / edited by Alisa Belzer.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Belzer, Alisa.

Series:

Rutgers invitational symposium on education series

The Rutgers invitational symposium on education series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Adult education--United States.

Adult education.

Fundamental education.

United States.

Fundamental education--United States.

Physical Description:

xiii, 327 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Mahwah, N.J. : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, [2007]

Summary:

This volume revisits, problematizes, and expands the meaning of quality in the context of adult basic education. Covering a wide range of relevant topics, it includes the work of contributors from the realms of both policy and practice. It encompasses both the major instructional areas-reading, writing, and mathematics-as well as larger issues of literacy, learning, and adulthood. Each chapter focuses on how improving quality in the field might look through the particular lens of the author's work. As a whole, the broad scope of topics and ideas addressed will raise the level of discussion, knowledge, and practice with regard to quality in adult basic education.

In this book, the term adult basic education refers to the broad range of services for adults who wish to improve such literacy and language skills as beginning and intermediate writing, writing and numeracy, preGED, GED/Adult Secondary Education, and also ESL instruction that takes place in a range of contexts such as schools, community-based programs, and workplace development programs. The volume is organized around three themes: Accountability, standards, and the use of documentation and research. Program structures and instruction. Rethinking our assumptions and concepts. The arrival of Toward Defining and Improving Quality in Adult Basic Education is timely for scholars, graduate students, and professionals in the field of adult basic education, especially in this era of increased pressure to standardize, to be accountable, to improve outcomes, and when calls for evidence-based practice are fueling stakeholders' interest in the relationship between research and practice at all levels of the system.

Contents:

Introduction: Why Quality? Why Now? / Alisa Belzer 1

Part 1 Accountability, Standards, and the Use of Documentation and Research 9

1 Accountability and Program Quality: The Third Wave / Larry Condelli 11

2 Equipped for the Future and Standards-Based Educational Improvement: Achieving Results that Matter for Adult Learners / Sondra G. Stein 33

3 Tales from the Field: The Struggles and Challenges of Conducting Ethical and Quality Research in the Field of Adult Literacy / Daphne Greenberg 53

4 Professional Development and Evidence-Based Practice in Adult Education / Mary Beth Bingman, Cristine Smith 69

Part 2 Program Structures and Instruction 85

5 Quality Instruction in Adult Literacy Education / Hal Beder 87

6 Volunteer One-to-One Tutoring: Critical Factors in Providing Quality Instruction / Alisa Beker 107

7 Supporting Persistence of Adult Basic Education Students / John P. Comings, Sandra Cuban 125

8 Learning to Read as a Cultural Process / James Paul Gee 141

9 The Forgotten R: Why Adult Educators Should Care About Writing Instruction / Marilyn K. Gillespie 159

10 The EMPower Project: Connecting Curriculum Development and Research / Mary Jane Schmitt, Martha Merson 179

Part 3 Rethinking our Assumptions and Concepts 201

11 Reconceptualizing Adult Basic Education and the Digital Divide / Elisabeth Hayes 203

12 Beyond the Life Boat: Improving Language, Citizenship, and Training Services for Immigrants and Refugees / Heide Spruck Wrigley 221

13 Filling in the "Black Box" of Family Literacy: Implications of Research for Practice and Policy / Eunice N. Askov, Cathy Kassab, Elisabeth L. Grinder, Ladislaus M. Semali, Drucilla Weirauch, Eugenio Longoria Saenz, Barbara Van Horn 241

14 Giving Literacy Away, Again: New Concepts of Promising Practice / Stephen Reder 255

15 The Adult Learner in Adult and Family Literacy: Gender and its Intersections with Role and Context / Vivian L. Gadsden 277

16 Possible Selves: Literacy, Identity, and Development in Work, School, and Community / Glynda A. Hull, Mark Jury, Jessica Zacher 299.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0805855459

9780805855456

OCLC:

69792069

Online:

Publisher description