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AWAL for Adult Educators

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... College of New Caledonia, Aurora, Kwantlen, Holland, Fleming, SAIT, Mount ... Jolie Mayer-Smith. UBC Faculty of Education. 46. Why does AWAL work? ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: AWAL for Adult Educators


1
AWAL for Adult Educators
  • Group Name
  • Date
  • Facilitator Name

2
What is AWAL?
  • A deliberate play on words
  • A one-day professional development activity
  • A curriculum development process
  • A means to link what teachers teach and what
    learners will need in the world of work using the
    lens of Essential Skills

3
Have you gone AWAL?
  • AWAL helps educators connect the world of work to
    the classroom
  • Working in teams, educators visit work sites,
    interview employers and employees, and then
    develop instructional ideas based on essential
    skills in the workplace that are relevant to
    their own learners

4
AWAL Overview
  • Introduced in 1997 in BCs K-12 system
  • 2000 went national with sessions in BC, AB, SK,
    MB, ON, NB, NS, NWT, PEI
  • 2000 adult educators added
  • Database at www.awal.ca
  • 1st and longest application of HRSDCs Essential
    Skills Research Project (ESRP)

5
AWAL in Adult Education
  • Colleges
  • Malaspina University College, Camosun College,
    College of New Caledonia, Aurora, Kwantlen,
    Holland, Fleming, SAIT, Mount Royal, Vancouver
    Community College
  • Adult Education in School Districts
  • Workplace Trainers
  • AWENS, Workplace PEI
  • Literacy Practitioners
  • Project Literacy Victoria, Project Read, Ontario
    MTUC and OLC
  • Universities
  • UBC, UPEI

6
Wheres the Math?
  • Analysis of prospective teachers opportunities
    to connect subject matter with workplace
    contexts.
  • Workplace observation is not enough teachers
    need tools to make the math in work explicit, and
    to contextualize math for learners
  • Implications for teacher education and the
    support prospective teachers require in building
    networks connecting mathematics, pedagogy, and
    work.
  • Wheres the Math? Prospective Teachers Visit the
    Workplace Educational Studies in Mathematics
    Volume 50, Issue 3, 2002

7
AWAL Workplace Partners
  • Air Canada
  • BC Ferries
  • BHP Billiton Diamonds Inc
  • Boeing Canada
  • Canada Post
  • Canada Safeway
  • Casino Nova Scotia
  • Columbia Power
  • DND Fleet
  • IBM Vancouver
  • Newbridge Networks
  • Padinox Inc
  • Royal Bank
  • Tim Hortons
  • White Spot

8
Project Foundation
  • Two Ideas
  • AWAL combines an ancient idea about how we learn,
    with a more contemporary one about what it is
    possible and useful to teach

9
Confucius
  • Tell me and I forget.
  • Show me and I might remember.
  • Involve me and I learn.
  • (circa 500 BC)

10
The Independent
  • Learners who can merely obediently reiterate
    what they have been told by others will be about
    as sought after in the next few years as those
    who cannot read have been for the last few.
  • Once they can read and write, the rest of
    education must be about how to find things out,
    where to look and how to frame ideas.
  • continued

11
The Independent
  • The how ... is really far more important than
    the what. What count are the skills and processes
    that they gain or use on the way to finding out.
  • An ability in dealing with knowledge is what
    we need discovering information, making new
    things out of the information we have found.
  • The Independent(Aug 20, 1999)

12
AWAL can help you to answer
  • Why do I have to learn this?
  • When will I ever use this?
  • Why do I have to work in a group? I can do it
    faster on my own!
  • What skills? I don t have any.
  • Why skills? Im an academic.

13
Workshop Agenda
  • 830 am Welcome and Overview of the National
    AWAL Project / Introduction to Essential Skills
  • 930 am Team Preparation / Travel to Workplace 
  • 1000 am Interviews / Tour Workplace
  • 1215 pm Return from Workplace / Lunch
  • 100 pm AWAL Observations / Connection to
    Learning and Essential Skills
  • 145 pm Activity Development
  • 330 pm Next Steps
  • 400 pm Closing

14
What are Essential Skills?
  • Skills that people use in their jobs and in their
    lives every day
  • Enabling skills
  • Skills that involve levels of complexity
  • A foundation for learning other skills
  • Skills that enhance our ability to adapt to
    workplace change

15
The Velcro? Skills
  • Essential Skills are the skills that other
    skills can stick to

16
HRSDCs Essential Skills
  • Reading Text
  • Document Use
  • Writing
  • Numeracy
  • Oral Communication
  • Working with Others
  • Thinking Skills
  • Problem solving
  • Decision making
  • Critical thinking
  • Job task planning organization
  • Significant use of memory
  • Finding information
  • Computer Use
  • Continuous Learning

17
New Skill Added (2004)
  • Critical Thinking
  • The process of evaluating ideas or information,
    using a rational, logical thought process, and
    referring to objective criteria, to reach a
    rational judgment about value, or to identify
    strength and weakness
  • Skill Complexity 4-level scale
  • Skill Dimensions assessment criteria, assessment
    process, effects of critical thinking

18
Purposes for Reading
  • To scan for specific information / to locate
    information
  • To skim for overall meaning / to get the gist
  • To read the whole text to understand and to learn
  • To read the full text to critique or to evaluate

19
Connecting to the 21st Century

20
Connecting the Skills
  • Essential skills are those that, regardless of a
    learners program or discipline, are critical for
    success in the workplace, in day-to-day living,
    and for lifelong learning.

21
Do soft skills matter?
  • We are hired for our qualifications.
  • We are promoted for our performance.
  • We are fired for our lack of interpersonal
    skills.

22
Your Task
  • Using the information you gather from your
    interviews, you will create an activity suitable
    for YOUR learners that will provide practice in
    one of the transferable skills you learned was
    essential to that job.
  • The activity will not necessarily prepare the
    learners to do that specific job.

23
AWAL Website Database
  • www.awal.ca

24
Using the AWAL Forms
  • Form 1 Management/Human Resources Interview (use
    with the employer)
  • Form 2 Employee Interview
  • Form 7 Workplace Feedback

25
Break

26
What do we already know?
  • What do we know about learning?

27
Learning is . . .
  • about making connections between the known and
    the unknown.
  • It is a highly reflective activity that is about
    personal and continuous improvement.
  • John Abbott
  • Battery Hens or Free Range Chickens
  • What kind of education for what kind of world?
  • www.21learn.org

28
Learning is also . . .
  • a collaborative, problem-solving, activity that
    occurs through progressive construction of
    individual knowledge.
  • Information transfer is only a limited part of
    learning.
  • The Science of Learning
  • www.21learn.org

29
Adult Learners Knowles
  • Learners should know why they are studying
    something
  • Instruction should be task-oriented, taking into
    account the wide range of different backgrounds
    of learners
  • Learners should be able to relate what is being
    studied to their personal/professional
    experiences
  • Learners should be motivated and ready to learn
  • Learners should be involved in the planning and
    evaluation of their instruction
  • Instruction should be problem-centred rather than
    content-oriented

30
Problem-based learning
  • Problems are learning opportunities in disguise.
  • Pam Kuhns,
  • Implementing Problem-Based Learning
  • in Leadership Development and Problem-Based
    Learning for Administrators (1992)

31
Appreciative Inquiry (AI)
  • Appreciative Inquiry asks us to pay special
    attention to the best of the past and present
  • in order to ignite the collective imagination of
    what might be.
  • Dr. David L. Cooperrider
  • Case Western Reserve University

32
The Brain
  • The brain tends to discard information for which
    it finds no connection or meaning, or for which
    the meaning is obscure.
  • Dale Parnell
  • Cerebral Context
  • American Vocational Association, 1996

33
Brain Scan 1

34
Brain Scan 2

35
Brain Scan 3

36
Brain Scan 4

37
Experience and Learning

38
Your Activity
What does an instructor need to know to
successfully use your activity?
  • Evaluation / assessment
  • Alternatives
  • Expansion
  • Other?
  • Outcomes
  • Directions
  • Grouping strategy
  • Resources

39
AWAL Forms and Resources
  • www.awal.ca/resources.asp

40
Why Skills? Why Now?
  • Skills are HOT!
  • In the private sector CSTD Conference 2004
    workplace literacy is an essential dimension of
    training and development. WL includes not only
    reading, writing and numeracy, but also document
    use, critical thinking, problem solving and
    computer skills
  • In Government Increasingly, federal and
    provincial throne speeches and programming
    emphasize the need for enhanced Essential Skills

41
Canadas Workplace Skills Strategy
  • Announced in the 2004 Throne Speech
  • Goal to better understand the types of skills
    needed in the present and the future for todays
    workers and employers and includes
  • literacy training and essential skills upgrading
    for workers
  • measures to encourage apprenticeships in skilled
    trades
  • employer-based training

42
Workplace Skills Strategy
  • A learning approach to resolving employment
    issues.

43
ES and Workplace Literacy Initiative
  • Launched April 2004
  • Goal to enhance the skill levels of Canadians
    who are entering -or are already in - the
    workforce by
  • increasing awareness and understanding of
    Essential Skills
  • supporting the development of tools and
    applications, building on existing research
  • working with other Government of Canada programs.

44
Knowledge Matters
  • The Knowledge Matters milestones include
  • 100 of high school graduates will have the
    opportunity to participate in some from of
    post-secondary education ES are key to that
    opportunity
  • Over the next decade, the number of apprentices
    completing certification doubles ES will help
    ensure a solid return on this training investment
  • Over 5 years increase the number of adults
    pursuing learning opportunities by one million
    without ES their efforts will risk failure

45
Knowledge . . .
  • is a product of a learners processing and
    making connections between new information
    received and knowledge previously constructed.
  • Jolie Mayer-Smith
  • UBC Faculty of Education

46
Why does AWAL work?
  • AWAL provides a natural place for the education
    system and the employment systems to connect
  • Its a win-win-win

47
AWAL Makes Connections
  • The need to find meaning is a strong motivational
    force in the life of each of us. If teachers can
    consistently help learners connect subject matter
    content with the context of application, I
    believe we may be astonished at the significant
    increase in learning.
  • Dale Parnell, Cerebral Context
  • American Vocational Association, 1996

48
So What?
  • So what next?
  • Your ideas?

49
To Learn More . . .
  • www.awal.ca
  • Activity database
  • The Big Picture (student AWAL activities)
  • The AWAL Guide Handbook for Facilitators
  • AWAL Workshop forms and resources
  • www.towes.com
  • www.measureup.towes.com

50
Thank you for going AWAL!
  • Contact
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