Return-Path: <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id f3GMBog18144; Mon, 16 Apr 2001 18:11:50 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 18:11:50 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <000701c0c6c1$f9171080$19aa2a3f@computer> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: "gdemetrion" <gdemetrion@email.msn.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-4EFF:1490] EFF/NRS Connections X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; Status: O Content-Length: 3325 Lines: 73 Colleagues: I'm sure many of you have received the latest thought provoking issue of EFF Voice that focuses on efforts to link EFF with the National reporting System (NRS). A couple things stand out. Most fundamentally at least to me is the challenge of linking the highly constructivist EFF standards with the behaviorist assumptions that ground NRS "levels--a concept that Tom Sticht and others have critiqued on the assumption (that of levels) that do not adequately or accurately reflect the rich experience of learning. Nonethelss, the challenge is out there to: a) to focus on the next generation of the NRS and thereby help to "complexify" them so that they more appropriately emulate the constructivist standards inherent with the EFF generative skills upon which the EFF standards ar based b) To draw upon an "empiricist" framework, particularly "rubrics," which preserve the quantitative meptaphor and therefore, the perception of "standardization," "uniformity," and "measurability" that intellectually grounds the NRS framework of levels within a positivistic philosophy and behaviorist psychology. Whether or not the paradigms are *inherently* incompatible or whether a convergence is possible on the grounds of *intellectual* coherence is a matter to be seen and a worthy experiment. Much is at stake here and the EFF-NRS experiement needs both wide girth, but also critical assessment both from within and outside the camp of the literacy mainstream which is seeking consensus on this emerging framework. I don't have much to say about this at this time, just to point out what I believe to be some of the important and underlying issues. Obviously there are others perspectives. On a more technical note (pp. 4-5), the following appears: "Our goal is to assure that, in the next generation of the NRS, adult learning programs and states will be able to report learning progress from level to level on all 16 Standards and to report achievement of measurable learner outcomes related to the roles of parent/family member, citizen/community member and worker." Question: Will the framework for the emerging model of measurement be based upon the process-oriented Standards, which stress, in effect, learning how to learn in varying manifestations, and are highly constructivist, or, or will the focus of measurement be based on the contextual role maps which are more easily discernable through behaviorist paradigms of of instrumentality and measurement? I raise this technical issue because I feel it, too, speaks to the tension (which may or may not be creative) *between* the paradigms of constructivism and behaviorism, between the more "open social universe of intutitive and emerging learning where beliefs, attitudes, and behavior are subtly joined, or the more sharply defined social universe of direct outcomes. I recognize the difficulty of the issue and I'm not trying to take cheap shots over matters which the field has mightily struggled with for a long time. I seek, though, to extend the discussion and to raise a set of issues that may be slightly outside the emerging consensual framework, but which is hovering closely around its periphery. The discussion is a worthy one. George Demetrion Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford Gdemetruion@msn.com Gdemetrion@lvgh.org
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