Return-Path: <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id i2FFE9I06733; Mon, 15 Mar 2004 10:14:29 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 10:14:29 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <4057ABDE@webmail.utk.edu> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: jataylor <jataylor@utk.edu> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-aalpd@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1168] from Tom, examining the effectiveness of PD X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Mailer: Infinite Mobile Delivery (Hydra) SMTP v3.62.01 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Status: O Content-Length: 8024 Lines: 133 (post from Tom Sticht - see below...Jackie) Jackie: I have only recently scanned the 2004 archives for the professional development NIFL list. This response is to a message of 22 January 2004 Tom Sticht Regarding the question of the effectiveness of professional development, Jackie Taylor asked, " What data collection/analysis is going on in your program, region, and/or state to examine the effectiveness of professional development?" Andres Muro responded that he does professional development for himself by studying adult literacy, going to conferences, trying out ideas he learns from these study activities, and in general developing more knowledge about the field of adult literacy education. At the end of his message he says, "Also, bringing Tom Stich (sic) into the picture, I've noticed that he does a lot of traveling (sic) to do lectures. Why does he do this? Simply to entertain people? For the $$$$? Or, does he think that people will be better at their jobs if they listen to him? Does he have any hard data to prove this? If not, why continue to do this? " I think these are very good questions. And I must say that I have been motivated in doing the lectures and workshops a little by knowing that some people find the presentations entertaining as well as informative, I do enjoy meeting and having a chance to informally discuss adult literacy issues with a wide range of folks, perhaps over a nice lunch or dinner (!) and also I used to make a little extra spending money, though for the last few years I have done most presentations with no charge, just travel expenses, and I do have some types of evidence indicating that people at least sometimes do their jobs better if they listen to me. But this evidence is of a different nature than most likely would be thought. For instance, by doing a lot of research and then writing and presentations to numerous groups some 20 years ago, I have read in U. S. government reports that the National Workplace Literacy Program of 1988 was based on the knowledge I had developed and disseminated, and which was expanded by other researchers and practitioners. This means that some $18-$20 million a year for several years was made available for adult literacy practitioners to be able to better serve adult learners in workplaces better through the development of workplace literacy programs. This way some adults received adult literacy and language education who would likely not have received this education if I and others hadn’t engaged in professional development activities to disseminate ideas about workplace literacy that adult literacy providers could then use in bringing needed services to workers on the job. Also, after I disseminated a lot of information about the intergenerational transfer of literacy from adults to their children in writings, speeches, and workshops, many adult literacy practitioners started making statements like, "The single most important predictor of children’s literacy development is mother’s (or more recently parent’s) education level." This comes from information I developed and disseminated after reading the 1980 renorming of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. This has now become almost folk lore in the field and most people who make the statement do not know where it came from. Though many other influences have been involved, this type of information helped stimulate interest in what has become known as family literacy and even contributed somewhat to the start of the Even Start program with hundreds of millions of dollars for adult literacy that might otherwise not have emerged (I recall that in 1985 both Jonathan Kozol and I testified before the U. S. Congress regarding these intergenerational benefits of adult literacy education and that same year Kozol cited my work in his book on Illiterate America). I believe this is a form of evidence that this type of professional development can provide benefits for the field. I also give speeches and workshops talking about getting lots of return on investment in adult literacy education, and I coined the slogan about getting "double duty dollars" for investments in adult literacy education. This slogan has shown up in advocacy papers and presentations by adult educators in Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the USA as part of campaigns for raising funds for adult literacy education. For the most part, now-a-days, when I give speeches or do workshops I have in mind the provision of information like that mentioned above which programs can use in advocating for funds for adult literacy education. Sometimes the people who sponsor my presentations are able to use the event as an awareness making event and they have arranged for TV, radio, and newspaper coverage to get out a message to the public about the importance of adult literacy education. At times the presentations also motivate practitioners to recommit themselves to their work, and I have often been told by participants that the information I presented affected how their teaching is done in some classrooms, though this is mostly qualitative (anecdotal) not experimental evidence. In general, I like Andres approach to professional development as knowledge development. The more knowledge practitioners have about a broad number of issues, approaches, methods, techniques, and technical knowledge such as instructional systems development, tests and measurement, theories of literacy and so on the better prepared they will be to meet the needs of the adult learners with whom they work under a variety of circumstances and in a variety of contexts: military, corrections, job corps, library, evening school, etc. Any genuinely knowledgeable research scientist would understand that the so-called "gold standard" experimental design approach to educational improvement is doomed from the outset. There are simply too many independent and dependent variables to be studied, confirmed by replication, disseminated , evaluated in follow-up studies, re-evaluated in the light of new knowledge, etc. to make this a viable approach to program improvement. Indeed, this was established empirically years ago in Department of Defense research on instructional design for less literate personnel. The more sensible approach that emerged was to establish goals for programs and then work to maximize the achievement of those goals to the extent possible at the program level within the contexts of what ever present and future constraints and benefits might appear. As of today, I am not aware of much research to demonstrate that researchers and/or professional developers have actually gone to a specific program somewhere, worked to understand its goals and objectives, and then collected the data needed to convince others that through the efforts of the researchers/developers the program was now more effective in achieving its goals and objectives. Perhaps this will happen sometime in the future as the evidence-based approach to adult literacy education moves along and is eventually turned into something reasonable like helping programs and adult learners strive to the best of their abilities to achieve desired goals. Perhaps it is this type of approach that is being pursued by the U. S. Department of Education as the striving for "continuous improvement" within the National Reporting System. If so, this type of continuous problem specifying- problem solving method strikes me as a much more sensible strategy for achieving an evidence-based adult literacy education system than an approach featuring the so-called "gold standard" approach of factorial, experimental designs in search of some sort of fixed, static, "models" for others to replicate. But now its time to hit the touring trail again. There are miles to go, hundreds of friends to see and lots of good conversations to be had out there in adult literacy land. And who knows, maybe some good will come of all this. Its all a matter of being faith-based! Tom Sticht
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Dec 23 2004 - 09:45:43 EST