Transcript - Learning Disabilities Program Outcomes Based on Bridges to Practice - Maine's Presentation

Evelyn Beaulieu:
We [unintelligible] partnerships for adults with LD at the advisory meetings that were held in various states around New England. We had nine members of our Maine LD team participate in that New England training that we all put together and provided for the New England states. We kicked off our project at the 1999 Maine Adult Ed Summer Institute. That is when we started by having six LD workshops presented. It kicked off the Maine LD team. That was the first time the bridges information was integrated into our state GED training. Our state GED Administrator is part of this Maine LD team. You'll see as one of our outcomes of his being on that team, I think, has had a good impact on our project.

We began our monthly meetings October 99. What is exciting about this team is that it is facilitated by adult education with the staff development specialists at the Center for Adult Learning and Literacy, but it is hosted by the Department of Labor. It is the beginning piece of our collaboration and a key piece of being an interagency team. The first workshop was developed in October 2000. The Principles of Effective Instruction was from May 2001. Those were developed by the Maine LD team. It was a true team effort that pulled those two workshops together. We are excited that we have a big end ta-da, I guess you say, for our project in Maine. Our 2002 Maine Adult Summer Institute - the theme of it-you just received a brochure - is adults with learning disabilities. We have 47 workshops being offered all on the topic of learning disabilities. We have the national Bridges training coming. We have slots for 20 agency members and 40 adult-education practitioners to become Maine Bridges trainers. We are excited that this will be the culminating event for our state. It is ending this project. You will see at the very end of our presentation what our next steps will be and what we're primed and ready to do.

One of the key things we're ready to do is facilitate a statewide learning disabilities task force. That is one of the things that the team is recommending. We're working hard to see how we would do that - to work on this screening and assessment piece from book II and on an integration of services for adults in Maine so that we can have a seamless system going from Department of Labor Human Services to Adult Education. That is one of our key pieces.

The key piece when we looked at all the data, all the materials-everything we had to get ready for this presentation, one of the questions that they sent us was what was the key outcome for your state for Bridges to Practice. The key outcome for us was the Maine learning disabilities team and the fact that that team was an interagency team with nine members representing nine different agencies. From that-we considered that like the center spoke of a wheel. From that team everything-all the work came out of the there with all the connections that all the folks on that team had. It was a wonderful question. Shannon said, why did we pick that model? Where did that come from? Why did we do it differently? She said, all six states do it that way. Why did Maine do the team model. It began back with-one of the strengths this grant was built on was the New England learning differences team. We had all been meeting for a couple years through our New England Resource Center. We had developed a toolkit, had started meeting and doing training. We started going to Connecticut to their conferences and doing presentations. Also in Maine we had a math team. A group of math practitioners started working to use the math lessons and workshop coming out of Massachusetts - the great work they were doing with math instruction in adult basic education. Some of those math team members have gone to be part of our national assessment piece. It is a great model for our state - to get practitioners involved to see how the work in their classroom is connected to national initiatives. That is one of the key pieces of our team. That is why we brought a practitioner here with us to share that. She can talk to you about how that works from her perspective.

It is facilitated by the Center for Adult Learning and Literacy, which is our organization. We are the staff development project for the Maine Department of Education. We are also the state literacy resource center and a partner with the Maine Department of Education in integrating initiatives throughout Maine adult education. In case you are wondering who the partners were on that team, we have for the Department of Education our GED Administrator, the Department of Labor, Literacy Volunteers of Maine, our State Planning Office and their Americorp contact, the Center for Adult Learning and Literacy, adult education practitioners, directors, and teachers. We worked hard from the very beginning to get those agencies all represented on this team.

Also, I want you to realize that when we talk about all the work done in Maine, it wasn't just because I am here presenting as part of the three-person team. One person did not do this work. We wanted to document to see the team that we had to have in place in our state to work towards all these outcomes that we've worked on: the Director, myself, of the Center for Adult Learning and Literacy and my perspective; the staff development specialist, Shannon; our state GED Administrator-he worked hard on integrating Bridges into all the GED training; the facilitators of our learning disabilities workshops; and the interagency members. It took this broader team of all of us together to work on integrating Bridges into a systemic form in the state of Maine.

What was my role in the beginning? If you visit the website of Bridges and see that bridge, when you live here in Maine you know that one of our icons is that green bridge that many of you had to drive across if you drove into the state. I'm usually the one person leaving this state going to the rest of New England and connecting with folks. I saw myself as the bridge to the New England practitioners and what was going on in national research. I was the bridge bringing that information back to the State of Maine to practitioners in all of our agencies. I began as part of that first training putting the bridges information together. I attended the New England learning disabilities advisory team meetings, participated in the development of the New England model. We were very excited to go to the Cape and down to Newport, Rhode Island to participate in that. Our whole nine-member team went to both of those training sessions too. That was an integral piece. I recruited all the members to begin the Maine team, co-facilitated the New England Bridges training, and participate on the Maine LD team. I'm still bringing that national perspective to the practitioners and the work that is being done in Maine and serve as a bridge between New England and Maine practitioners. That has been my role in this project.

Now I'm going to turn it over to Shannon, who is our staff development specialist. She joined the project about midway through. She will share with you her part and role in the Bridges in Maine.

Shannon Cox:
I'm with the Center for Adult Learning and Literacy. I've been with Center for about two years. One of my primary job responsibilities was to facilitate the LD team in the State of Maine on behalf of adult education and the Center for Adult Learning and Literacy. How have we put that team together? The team was active in meeting when I came into the state. I continued to facilitate monthly meetings that were sponsored by Department of Labor. We would all make the trek to Augusta once a month for these meetings. I also attended the Bridges symposium in Virginia in March 2001. It was a great experience for me to see the larger group of folks from all over who were doing Bridges across the country be in one place at one time and update on training information that was out there in the field. What I have done with that particular kind of training in carry that information back to those monthly team meetings to keep the State of Maine abreast of what is happening at the national level.

The Maine adult education contact for the regional LD workshops. We also have used this Maine team as a training team. We have three or four people on the team who are terrific trainers, with whom I have worked putting together workshops-Faye Olson being one of those folks. How have we done that? Once we had put together the overview workshop, which was a broad-based general informational workshop on learning disabilities and the effect with adults, we put together the first workshop. We test-piloted it across the State of Maine to see how it would go. We continued to tweak and fine-tune that. Initially most of the requests were coming from adult ed practitioners from local programs across the State of Maine. Lately we have started to see-especially, I would say, in the last six-to-ten months is an increase in requests for training from other agencies who need that awareness piece. From there, once we had started the overview workshops, we went in an created what we were calling Effective Teaching Strategies Workshops for adult ed practitioners so that we could get to the heart of the instructional concerns that practitioners have. We put together those two workshops. I serve as the regional contact. If there were a request across the State of Maine for an LD workshop, the request will come into the Center-to me. I will carry the request out to the team to see who is available to hit the road and go into training.

Also we've got constant participation in learning disabilities professional development for myself. Through Bridges funding I was able to attend the international LDA conference in New York City a year ago. It's been good for me to have that larger exposure to some of those national conferences to get updated information.

One of the key members of our team is Andy MacMahan [sp] who has been active in the project from the beginning. He is our state GED Administrator. The thing that is valuable about having Andy on the team - one, he has been there since 1999. He went through the initial New England Bridges training. He also presented the GED for special needs workshop on July 27, 1999. He started that work several years ago and has continued forward. He has been terrific about integrating Bridges information into the Maine GED examiner training. One of his responsibilities as that State Administrator is that he, under contract, has to do at least one Administrator's training per year in the State. He has been very good about integrating the Bridges information into that training. He does participate and have that contact as somebody who is on the State DOE team. He also has GED responsibility. He is also responsible for the LD portion. That has been encouraging. He also has been good about participating in learning disabilities professional training. There were a team of five of us who went to the international LDA conference a year ago. It has been good to have that connected-ness with other agencies. You have Department of Labor, LDA, anybody else who is in that group who has an agency background. It has been good to have that collaboration and sharing of information.

With our workshop facilitators-it's a key team of three folks who are out there on the road who will do the requests as I contact them in the meetings and ask if they are available to go out and hit the road. Most of the time they say, I'll squeeze it in somehow. Where do you want me to go? They have been responsible for co-facilitating requests for regional workshops from 2000 through present. We just did one not too long ago, which Faye did. They all participate in the monthly meetings. One of the other benefits of having that team connection and having those monthly meetings is that we're able to connect. The trainers may be the ones who are out on the road. We have other team members who don't necessarily serve as trainers, but who serve as team members. It has been good to have that sharing of information too. As the trainers are out on the road, they can bring those concerns back to the larger group and back to the agencies in terms of the things they are hearing, the types of questions that are being posed around LD in the state. There is a good collaboration and sharing of information at that level also. These particular facilitators have also participated in professional development from the international conference in New York City a year and a half ago to Maine LDA conferences to regional conferences that they've attended. Also, they are very good in that when they receive training or professional development, they integrate that new information into those workshops so that they are constantly being updated and revised as they information changes and becomes more current. Faye was just at the NASLIN conference in April. We are going to pick her brain for Summer Institute. It is good for me. I don't have to do all the traveling. Folks will go out and bring this stuff back to me, which is terrific.

Sequence of work at call - the interagency members who are on that team. Some of those folks have co-facilitated workshops within their own agencies. There is a team member, Anne Shank with the State Planning Office, who works directly with Americorp. She is very good about incorporating LD information into the workshops that she does for folks she works with through Americorp. They also participated in the 1999 New England Bridges training. They are very good about recruiting trainers within their agencies. That is what we have seen blossom and flourish in Maine. As requests have come in from other agencies, we have come to the realization that we also need to expand our base of trainers and get trainers in place within those agencies so they can speak a common language to their own folks. They are very good about integrating Bridges into agency training, Department of Labor, Americorp. Gail Dyer is our Department of Labor contact. She has been very good about trying to put together some LD workshops around workforce development and the effect of LD in the workplace. They are very good about participating in monthly meetings and also around professional development.

The two workshops that we have put together are the Overview, which is based on book I of Bridges, and then the Principles of Effective Instruction for LD Learners, which is based on Bridges book IV. Adults with learning disabilities will be included in the CALL 2001-2002 workplan. Those of us on staff at the Center for Adult Learning and Literacy have a yearly workplan that we put together. LD and the issues around LD are part of my direct workplan. I communicate with Evelyn and also with Andy MacMahan, who is with the state team. I work very closely with Andy on other state initiatives. LD is one of his responsibilities. I have a coordinated workplan with other folks.

Informational workshops are also integrated into the CALL brochure. We have a brochure of workshops that we produce for the field of adult ed across the State of Maine with about 18 workshops or so. I'm not responsible for all 18 of those. Each of us on staff have different specialty areas. It is a brochure that folks can look at. The LD workshops have been printed in that brochure and put out to the field. Since we have used that format we've seen-I told Evelyn it was a blessing and a curse. It's wonderful to get the information out there, but the workshop requests have gone up so rapidly that we've been scrambling to build capacity in terms of the number of trainers we have across the State. It's been hard to keep up with the number of actual requests. The number of workshop requests have increased from seven in 1997 to 50-plus in 2002. We have a small group right now of about four people who are key facilitators in that training. My work in the coming year is to expand the pool of trainers who are available to go out there and hit the road.

Documented outcomes at the statewide level. We've had 800-plus participants who have been trained in Maine LD workshops between 1999 and July 2002 with the estimation for Summer Institute. Typically Summer Institute will capture anywhere between 250 and 300 people. Bridges to Practice trainers - we have two people in the state right now - Evelyn. I'm part way through the intermediate. There are those of us in the state that would like to pursue Master Trainer status. We will be working on that. It's getting ready to be written into my own work-plan very quickly.

Bridges to Practice - Maine trainers. We currently have eight at various levels and a projected number of 20. We feel that is a good, solid number. If we could get 20 people trained in the State of Maine, it would be wonderful. Also, a lot is being done at the Bridges training at the Summer Institute is what we are hoping will happen. Five Maine adult education LDT members attended that 2001 international LDA conference, which was wonderful. Those professional development opportunities are key to keeping folks current in the field and to bringing back the latest information. We've tried to use that. A couple folks who are willing to go - we try to make sure we get them to those key conferences like the NASLIN conference-the larger LDA conferences, to carry that information back so in turn we can get it out to agency members and out to adult ed practitioners to keep them up-to-date with what's happening.

One of the other documented outcomes - the inclusion of Bridges information into the GED training that Andy is responsible for. I know that in the initial concept of the grant, one thing they wanted to see was an increase in the number of LD accommodations on the GED. We've gone back and taken a look at the number of accommodations that have been requested in the State of Maine. In 1999 we had three requests. In 2000 we had 28 request. The same number in 2001. In 2002 we're not quite halfway there yet. We'll see what the numbers look like. If you look at the difference between '99 and 2000, it's a marked increase from a total of three requests up to 28. We were very pleased to see that.

One of the things that I've also noticed in doing the overview workshops (I'm also responsible for doing GED training across the State of Maine). The encouraging thing is to see the end result in a sideways way. When you are out there doing the GED workshops, I'm noticing an increase in the types of questions around LD. One thing begets another. I'm sure the overview workshops are working. We're seeing practitioners ask better questions trying to get to better information. They want to know what kind of accommodations are out there. What can they ask for. What kind of documentation do students need to be able to get those accommodations. Things are starting to percolate, which is wonderful.

Also, another documented outcome -inclusion of the Bridges information into the reading essentials for adult literacy training, which Evelyn does which we call REAL and the creation of the CALL literacy state resource center learning disabilities collection. There were things in the collection when I came to CALL. I have continued to use funding to continue to build that collection. The collection is available through the CALL website. We have an online database. Folks can go in there and type in any particular topic. It may be any type of learning disability topic. It will search the database. It will pull it up. They are able to check those materials out through the State Literacy Resource Center for thirty days at a time free of charge. We will ship those out to anywhere in the US. We've had requests from all over the country. I've had some from Europe. Primarily it's from practitioners within the State. At this point right now we have over 100 pieces in the collection of print and multimedia materials.

At the statewide level we're getting ready to kick off our Summer Institute. We're in high gear right now as you saw with our printed brochure. The highlights of this year's coming Summer Institute - CALL will be providing a week-long opportunity for in-depth study on the topic of adults with learning disabilities. As a team-the DOE team and the CALL team - we meet fairly regularly. We talk about things that we would like to see happen at the Summer Institute, what we would like the topics to be. We truly are going to use this year's Summer Institute as in institute, we are stepping away from the conference format and providing about a 4.5-to-five day strand around LD. I am thrilled about it. I think it's going to go beautifully. I'm quite excited. We have used the Maine LD team for the planning and coordinating of this Summer Institute. We took our monthly LD team meetings and used them as the initial planning meetings for the Summer Institute. We tried to capitalize on all the professional development and training that those team members have had to help us figure out what the key topics would be, who we would like to have present - those types of things. We went to the folks we knew had the knowledge. That model worked beautifully.

NIFL Bridges to Practice training will be provided for adult education and agency practitioners and trainers. This is the part that I'm really excited about - to be able to have that opportunity at Summer Institute for agency folks to come in and receive state-of-the-art learning disabilities training. I have been all over the State going to GED workshops and have been talking to people-talking up the Institute and saying what a great opportunity this is. You need to take advantage of this. You need to get to your agencies and your communities that you work with as adult ed practitioners. Having them get folks to go through this training would be wonderful.

We are also going to be integrating Equipped for the Future into the Bridges book III training-the planning information training through the use of EFF goal-setting process and the use of the EFF quality model. That is workshop where Evelyn will be the primary facilitator. We are encouraged. We're getting ready to meet in about a week to start the planning for that particular workshop. The Maine LD team is very interested in working on that crosswalk between EFF and the Bridges materials. This will be a great test pilot for us to see how we might be able to do that in Maine.

Also the LD workshop facilitators at the Summer Institute in terms of using that team as the thinkers about how to do this Institute. We needed to see if we could get there and what kind of topics we needed to work with. They were terrific about saying there are great resources within the State of Maine. There are great regional resources and there are great national resources. Let's see if we can build on this. That is indeed what we have done. We have facilitators coming in from local, state, and national perspectives, which in my mind will present a great, well-rounded Institute.

Faye Olson, who is one of the LD team members, is going to talk about the practitioner level, which is terrific. This is the world in which she works. I'll turn it over to Faye.

Faye Olson:
It's a privilege to be part of the learning disabilities team in Maine. My motivation to participate came from about 14 years prior experience in the world of adult education. I had just moved from the State of Oklahoma where in about 1997, they began a state initiative around learning disabilities. When I came to Maine I was at a family literacy task force meeting. Evelyn invited folks to be part of the learning disabilities team and I said, "I'm in". It seemed like the natural progression from where I had been. I think as a adult education practitioner, my first priority has been actually seeing the learners, seeing them struggle, seeing them get to a certain point and then not being able to continue because of a learning disability. I'm passionate about the topic of learning disabilities and how it affects the adult learners.

I organized my presentation around my four roles-in other words, around the four different hats that I wear. One, I am a member of the Maine learning disabilities team. On that, I've been very fortunate to make connections. The first part of my small piece of this presentation is to talk about the connections that I've been able to make that have impacted everything else that I do. My connections with the CALL staff have been a wonderful, very great staff development opportunity as well as the DOE staff, especially in terms of meeting with Andy MacMahan. I'm preparing students for the GED. He is the GED examiner. There is nothing like having the source there when you have a question about that. Also adult educators from the fields of adult education, whether they be other teachers or directors as well as Literacy Volunteers of America, which we consider to be part of adult education in the State of Maine. It was interesting as an adult educator to participate on a team filled with other agency representatives. It's been really helpful to gain that perspective not only to be able to facilitate workshops, but to be able to take that information back when I am working with my own students in terms of referring them to other agencies.

The second piece, the other hat that I wear that I try to squeeze into my full-time teaching world is facilitating the LD workshops in Maine. That has been a wonderful opportunity to gain a statewide perspective, to meet teachers from across the State of Maine-not only teachers but also agency folks who have been at the workshops to get the big picture of what is going on within the State of Maine. That has been extremely enlightening.

The other piece that I have felt is important for me is being able to participate in state, national, and even international training. I know we've mentioned this. As I've listened to Evelyn and Shannon speak, I am hearing them say over and over again how we've gotten to participate in the training. As a adult educator, it's valuable not only to interact with the professionals within my own state, but to able to go out to the State of Connecticut or the NASLIN conference or the LDA international in New York and to interact again with professionals in the field.

The crux of it, the heart of all of this is what I take back to the classroom with my own students, connecting more effectively with adults who have learning disabilities, families with learning disabilities because I am in a family literacy program at the present time. It's been interesting - I am in a school setting. Within that school setting, to have a learning disabilities perspective, I've been able to interact with the special education staff in a much more effective manner than previously when I was involved in the Family Literacy Program. That has been a great connection. In fact, our special education director-coordinator is very adamant about referring individuals into our program because she sees the connection and the need. That has been fun.

In terms of the documented outcomes that I've gotten to be part of, I can't stress enough the fact that I am a member of this Maine learning disabilities team. First of all, it's by choice. It's not something that I had to do. It wasn't part of my job description. It was something that I chose to do. I kept attending. I would not have kept attending if the meetings had not been meaningful to my own work. I felt like I could contribute as well. Sometimes we talk about sharing the resources as a footnote, as an extra thing but I can't think of a single meeting that I attended where there wasn't some resource that was shared, some additional information that was shared that I wasn't able to take back, whether I was facilitating a workshop or to my own students. Also, learning about the other agencies by being a member of a team. You don't always have that opportunity as an adult educator. I can't stress that enough. Sometimes as an adult educator in my experiences, I've been isolated from the rest of the world. This has been a wonderful outcome. We also were able to do a study circle around the book, How People Learn. This is another resource that we were able to bring back - talking about effective teaching strategies. We liked this book. Evelyn brought it to the team with a lot of enthusiasm. We especially liked the title. It wasn't just how children learn, which is very common in the world of educational books on this topic. It was how people learn. We went through a guided discussion process throughout each team meeting. It was great because it was one of those things as a busy person, you don't always have time to sit down and read through a book even as wonderful as How People Learn. Knowing that we were going to be discussing it at the coming meeting made it a lot more meaningful.

Also, my involvement in terms of helping to plan the LD workshops - the two, the Overview and the Strategies piece - was fun. I had fun doing that-trying to pull the pieces together, trying to make it interesting, applicable, thinking about the audiences that we have had. It has been fun being part of a team doing that, not trying to do that in isolation, but being part of a team. Interacting with Shannon, I can't tell you how many times we've redesigned the Overview workshop or the strategies workshop. Even though we have a basic "this is what we want to do", we keep redesigning it because we have different audiences that we're presenting to. I have to say, this whole thing about having a Summer Institute focused on the topic of learning disabilities is like a dream come true. In 1999 we were saying, wouldn't it be great if we could have a Summer Institute around this topic and almost not thinking that it would ever be possible. Now it's a reality. That is a very exciting outcome. Also, as part of this, although my school district and my different jobs have allowed me to participate in the meetings, they wouldn't pay mileage for me to go there. It was nice to be able have that financial support as well in order to be able to participate.

In presenting the workshops, there are some key points. Within the workshop setting-I'm glad that Evelyn shared that this is not one of those workshop settings. We do try to model-in other words, practice what we preach. If we are going to expect teachers to leave the workshop and have any kind of change in their teaching strategies, it is very important that we are modeling those strategies within the workshop without necessarily calling them out - just by the way we present. It has also been valuable, I think-both adult educators and agency folks where I've facilitated a workshop - to have someone there who can speak about adults that I'm currently working with. I think that adds a lot of validity to my presentation. We've also received very positive feedback about the importance of the Overview piece. We have come to the conclusion that it is not enough, even if they say, all we want are the strategies, we always need to do some form of overview within that. We find people coming up saying, I didn't realize that. It has been interesting. Some of our adult educators have a background in special ed. Even some of those folks don't have a clear picture about the issues behind learning disabilities. That has been valuable.

Also giving participants-modeling the best practices of Bridges Book IV - giving participants an opportunity to do hands-on activities, not just talking to them, but having them-giving them an opportunity to practice. We have found - it's interesting. Often times I've present with two others, Judy and Anita. They are two LVA folks. We present together. Although we've also done-I've presented individually. We've each done that. We find we get the most positive feedback when we have three voices. I think that is very valuable. I think we've modeled our presentation today on that very thing. It's nice to hear from different people different perspectives. Everybody has something different to add.

Also, the opportunity for me-this next statement provided an opportunity for personal LD professional development. What better opportunity. You learn by doing. Your accountability when you facilitate a workshop goes way up. If you are standing there talking to practitioners about what they should be doing, then you had better be doing that in the classroom. It's been a boost for me - that accountability, knowing that I am going to have to go out and present and share this with individuals. On the times when it wasn't part of my day-today, this is part of my contract for my current full-time position. When it's on a weekend or something of that nature, it was nice to be able to be remunerated just a tiny bit for my time. I think that's important when you are looking at that. It puts a value on what you're doing and what you're contributing.

It's interesting in terms of stressing all the different conferences that I've been able to attend and other team members have been able to attend. I still like our workshops and our presentation and our knowledge. Everything has been enhanced by those opportunities. When I attend the LDA conference, I connected again with Nancy Payne whom I had been trained by in the State of Oklahoma. Interestingly enough I saw her again at the NASLIN conference just a few weeks ago. It's been nice connecting with individuals like that. You read books. You think you'll never get to meet the author of the book. Laura Wisal [sp] did a wonderful presentation on emotions being a critical piece in teaching. She printed it down at the NASLIN workshop, information that I hope to help integrate into our summer workshop.

One thing-a bullet that we didn't get up here is that in 1999 I had the unique opportunity to go back to the State of Oklahoma with Andy MacMahan, our state GED examiner. We got to see the state from a totally different perspective. When I was in the State of Oklahoma, I was a practitioner and I was very focused. I did state training from time-to-time on different initiatives. I was focused on what I was doing. I kept saying, I'd like to see this great one-stop center in Oklahoma City. I'd like to get to sit down and talk to Linda Young in detail about how the state task force is going around learning disabilities. In 1999, the State of Maine sent me back to Oklahoma so that I could do that. That was exciting for me to be the ambassador of the piece to bring that connection together. It was a lot of fun. Also I'm going to be attending the Bridging the Gap training coming up by the American Foundation for the Blind, I think in two weeks or something. I'll see you there, June. The financial support to be able to have these training opportunities-I'm passionate about this. If I really wanted to go to a conference my husband and I would probably find a way to make it happen. It's nice when you have a state that is behind you and feels like what you do is valuable, so they support you to be able to bring this back.

A piece that you are not going to see on the slides, is the impact. I want to tie this all back together. The heart of it is what I do with my students in the classroom. It's been wonderful to gain more of an awareness of the patterns of learning disabilities within families. It's one thing to read about it. It's another thing to see it in action. I was counting up this morning. In at least half of the families that I work with there is a pattern of learning disabilities within the family. It's been great. I've gotten to show the Fat City video to families. I have an ongoing dialog with families around the issues of learning disabilities and how they can cope with their children who may have Attention Deficit Disorder or a learning disability.

Also, being able to participate actively in the PET. That comes from the LD connection, being able to have conversations with the special ed staff, being able to say what my knowledge level is, getting information from our special education person as well. Then when I am in the meeting I am able to ask questions that the parent may not ask. Also, I think it is important with all the students I deal with, whether they have a learning disability or not, to be able to apply the effective teaching strategies from Bridges book IV. The awareness of agencies and services, I've had opportunities to refer families and adult learners to agencies with a greater degree of knowledge than I would have had about that particular agency had I not been part of this team. It's important to note that I am a full-time teacher. What I do with the learning disabilities team is part of my professional development plan. My school district has been gracious enough to allow me to do these things. I feel very fortunate from both sides. I'm thankful for the school district and for CALL and the support that I've had.

I think it's back to Evelyn.

Evelyn Beaulieu:
Thank you, Faye. That is why we thought it was so important to have you hear the voices of all the different levels. If we had just come in and said, oh, we developed a Maine team as research-based staff development - it's one thing to see it on a sheet of paper. It's ongoing inquiry. It's our financial support. It's providing professional development materials. That's one thing. You see the impact of it and how it does impact the practitioner in the classroom. We thought, one of our key outcomes is setting up our staff development in this research model to disseminate the information from Bridges so it begins getting across all agencies and practitioners in our State.

Now I'm going to share with you my responsibility back up at the regional level. In the beginning one of the New England connections that we had is with the New England Literacy Resource Center. I myself am a board member. I go to those quarterly meetings and hear what is going on in the rest of New England. If there is an opportunity where another state is doing a project that we can connect with or new information - I don't know how it got by me, but that does happen occasionally - I bring it back from that board meeting. I have a place to share. It doesn't just go on a list. We have a focused place. If it's learning disabilities information, we have a team where that information will go. We say, how shall we integrate it into our staff development model in the State of Maine. It's great having that model. We did build upon the learning differences team prior to Bridges in 1997. That team started out all this research having a lot of fun. With that basic philosophy that they were sharing with you, as a practitioner in the classroom, how can I help these teaching strategies with these learners that I know have a history-patterns of learning disabilities. How do we start providing services for them? That was the original connection.

We started in 1996 going to the Connecticut conference. It was the closest connection we had to be able to-believe it or not. You can do it in a day-leave our state on the bus and bring the whole team of folks down to attend for the day and get back before the clock strikes midnight that night. It was our closest connection regionally in New England for us to start that professional development model for the learning disabilities team. Also what was great from my perspective in the beginning of Bridges was feeling that I wasn't the only trainer on learning disabilities we had to bring to Maine. Being part of the New England region, there was a whole pool of folks out there with different expertise and different focus and things to help kick us off. The background-I did the historical overview, we kicked it off in 1999 and we pulled from New England folks to do that. That was another connection that we had on the New England level.

Some of those outcomes from connecting to New England was that in 1999 Pat Anderson came up and kicked off Bridges training doing Book I. Everybody got so excited. I remember that room. It was packed. People said, this is great stuff. Where did you find her? We said, she is next door down in Connecticut. Would you like to have her back? Pat did a wonderful job kicking off our staff development for the LD team. As we said, eight of our adult ed practitioners received the Bridges training. Not only were they able to get the training, but-the first time, I think we were at the Cape. We began connecting with practitioners from other states. If they taught in family literacy or if they taught in the ABE classroom or ESOL, they were connecting right at the very beginning with other practitioners. That was one of our documented outcomes.

The Bridges built upon the work that we had already started in New England. I think this was a big plus for us. I felt we weren't starting at ground zero. We weren't starting with a new project. In education we tend to have cycles and topics that are hot that come and go. We wanted to show that this was not just the latest grant that the Center was involved in. It is building upon the work that this team had started. We had the toolkit that was out there. The field was familiar with it. We're very excited. Now we are going to bring the national research perspective to this. It helped notch up the staff development.

Also on of the exciting strands of the Summer Institute, I think by now you know the theme - our Summer Institute coming up this year. One of the strands we have in it is technology. Everyday we have different technology workshops. One of their facilitators is Jeff Carter that I've connected through the New England Literacy Resource Center. He is going to using the internet with LD learners. Also right now we have right ongoing-Celia Colembach [sp] is the coordinator of the New England Literacy Resource Center. She is facilitating a study circle for us right now on learning to think and learning to learn. That is the next ongoing inquiry. She had reviewed the first one. We had kicked off the team with how people learn. This is the next book that the group has been working on, participating in that ongoing inquiry model of staff development knowing that we don't have to do it all. Within New England there are wonderful resources and people to pull from to help us put our plan for staff development for learning disabilities in Maine in action.

Cross talk [unintelligible]

Evelyn Beaulieu:
It's been exciting. One of my key philosophies is helping practitioners in the State of Maine connect with national initiatives. Bridges is the fifth national research project we've been involved with that involves practitioners at a local level. It's been an important piece of our philosophy of staff development in the State of Maine. Through the National Institute, we're involved in Bridges to Practice. We're also one of the states that has put in writing, I guess it is, that we are implementing Equipped for the Future. We thought for our Summer Institute, another wonderful opportunity is putting together the workshops Shannon mentioned that will begin pulling together the Maine LD team and our Maine Equipped for the Future implementation team on May 13. We're going to begin the discussions of what are the crosswalks between Bridges, between-I'm doing this. It will be Book III. It's the planning piece, so planning. A key piece of that in Equippped for the Future is the goal-setting process. We will be doing a crosswalk of those two pieces. The second half of Book III is curriculum development. This report has just come out from the State of Maine on a two-year research project on developing what does the ideal Maine adult high school curriculum look like. The team, facilitate by Shannon, has developed four tools that will be wonderful tools that will cross-walk with the curriculum work that is in Book III for planning instruction for adults. We're excited about this. We think it's the first time that these kind of crosswalks have happened with these two national initiatives. [unintelligible]

We've been involved with the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy. We've had practitioners involved in the adults with multiple intelligences project and also the staff development research project with Chris. Also, we were part of-I found out as I was just sitting here - the adult motivation study with John Comings [sp]. Those are the five research projects that we have practitioners - different programs, different levels. I feel like I am just the conductor. I just make sure that I am the information flow from these national projects to the field and also the coordinator to make sure they get a chance to participate. It is very exciting. We do have team members that are bringing that national perspective of the NASLIN conference, the different conferences to make sure that Maine practitioners at our Summer Institute-it's their professional development. They will know when they participate that they are getting the latest research, the state-of-the-art of adults with learning disabilities. We're excited about that.

The national research - the documented outcomes is in integrated into the two workshops. That will soon be, by our Summer Institute, three. We'll have books I, III, and IV workshops developed and out there and ready for the field. We have two practitioners in the adults with multiple intelligence. We've have Jennifer Cromley, [sp] a NIFL Fellow. It's exciting. You are all on the very tip of State of Maine. Late April isn't the best month to be here if you're from the south. You are probably getting with people who want to come back to this state. We have our Summer Institute the last week in June. We call and ask people nationally and regionally if they want to come to our Summer Institute. It's amazing the wonderful, positive feedback. They say, Maine in June. Let me think. It's not a hard decision. It's an advantage being three hours north of here. People love to come here and be part of our Summer Institute. That is one of the things we are very fortunate to have. Jennifer was trying to get to as many states as possible. She was literally waiting for our phone call. She said yes. I have been planning to see you. Everybody I hear about who has a Maine connection I say, call her. Tell her to have me come up there. We are very excited to have Jennifer come up and kick off sharing practitioner work with practitioners. That is what we do in Maine. Also, another national connection is Jeanne Ericson. I don't know if any of you have had a chance to participate in her workshop. She is from Wisconsin. Last year she did our first kick-off training on brain research. Last year our focus at the Summer Institute was family literacy. She did it from that perspective. She said she would go back and develop a two-day brain research staff development on adults and the effect of alcohol and chemicals on brain development in adults. Would we be interested? I asked, would you like to come back? She is from Wisconsin and had never seen the ocean before and had never been on the coast. She fell in love with the state. She asked if she did this could she come back. She will be a key piece and one of our national researchers and national perspective folks that will be back at our Summer Institute. It is beginning to take on a life of its own. That is one of the fun pieces of our Summer Institute.

Another documented outcome, we're excited to have the Bridges to Practice training available at our Summer Institute. One of our documented outcomes is our LD team is getting overwhelmed with requests. Once we put the information in our brochure it went out to 132 programs in all our agencies, as Shannon said, the good news was we got the word out. The bad news was that everybody called. We found out quickly that you can depend on the core group of dedicated adult practitioners. Also we learned that our workshops by adult practitioners are for that audience. Going to other agencies we have learned that you had better have people from that perspective, from that agency so that there is someone on that team who can answer those specific questions. As Faye said, when adult ed practitioners ask her, how does this work in the classroom, she has got that information and the validity of that workshop is raised in those practitioners' eyes. If we are doing it for an agency, they ask us. How does this fit into my case load? If you can't answer that question, then they begin to be skeptical about your information and why you are there facilitating that workshop. That is why we're excited to have the training come to our Summer Institute to give us broad base of practitioners in Maine.

Also, from another perspective, we're going to have Alise Klein come do one on confronting prejudice issues in film and television. You may wonder what is that connection to LD. She does do a lot of work, especially ESOL on adults with learning disabilities. That is her background. You can read her bio and find a little information about her in the brochure. She brings a wonderful perspective of adults in LD, especially with ESOL to the Institute. We call it an innovative workshop for day three of the training integrating Bridges book III and Equipped for the Future quality model. The third component of that is the Maine adult ed curriculum tool. We're excited to see those in action. Then Jeanne will be here doing the implications of alcohol and other substances. You see how the four years, when they were on the bus with me down to Cape Cod, the team folks back in '99 saying, wouldn't it be great if we could bring this to Maine. I always tell folks, be careful what you ask for in our State you just might get it. You can see, it has taken-you can't say one year, well, next year let's just pull a topic out of our hat. We needed this broad base of experience, of support, of perspective to bring together this kind of Summer Institute. We're excited about that.

For now, one of the components is all the Bridges books-remember at the very beginning of this grant they were talking about how can you document systemic change. What does it take to create change in your State? I think from our presentation you've heard that we've changed quite a bit over the few years. We have learned what components have to be in place for those four different levels for systemic change to occur. That is the piece that we will be sharing with you now. Shannon is going to give you that local program perspective.

Shannon Cox:
In terms of systemic change components at the local program level, one thing that we've discovered that needs to be in place for that to happen are that all members of a local program with adults need to be trained with learning disabilities training. It's important. They need to have that information to be able to integrate. Also, the learning disabilities information needs to be integrated into that program's vision and mission statement, which would be a huge step forward in many cases. Also, the administrators need to be trained about the legal implications of adult with learning disabilities information. They need to support their instructors with the resources and materials to provide inclusive education - practices that support learning for all students. It's that idea of thinking outside the box, looking at the larger picture, making sure that they are conscientious in trying to meet the needs of all the folks that walk into those adult ed programs.

Also, the instructors need to have the opportunity to receive LD training and that there is paid staff time-professional development time for instructors to be able to participate in that. Maine is like many states in terms of adult ed funding and the resources that are available, especially at the local program level. In order to be able to support teachers to get that kind of training, there needs to be structure and money in place to afford them that opportunity. That is hard. It's not always there. We've been talking to administrators about making sure that when they set their yearly budgets they look very seriously at their staff development monies and how they intend to use those. Also, local adult ed programs across the State of Maine need to conscientious in putting together staff development plans. Each teacher should have a personal professional development plan in place. LD should be a component within that plan so they are receiving training as part of that.

Local adult ed administrators should have policies in place for the transfer of students from day-school special services into adult ed. Maine has been faced with this. For the last couple year we've seen a huge increase in our 16-to-20 year-old population in adult ed. I see it many times when I'm out on the road doing GED workshops - the comments that are coming in. A lot of those folks are coming in from the day-school system into adult ed come in with special ed services in tow or some type of documentation. Part of what we've been trying to do in the LD workshops is talk with practitioners about what that means. Also, we talk to program administrators about what that means, what the implications are for them as Administrators in terms of compliance and non-compliance issues. The idea is that we are no longer working in a system in adult ed where we can put blinders on around the issue of LD. We've got to be proactive about this.

From there, the idea of forming regional multi-agency teams trained to provide a seamless system for adults. Evelyn spoke to that fact. We need to build a system and build capacity across the State of Maine. I know a lot about LD from my teaching background. I'm a great generalist. I read a lot. I try to take in as much information as I can. I'm not a DHS case worker. To go in and talk to folks who work in other agencies, we need to train a pool of trainers within those agencies who can speak to the needs of the folks that they work directly with.

Systemic change components at the statewide level. The idea is that one state agency cannot be responsible for statewide training. Adult ed and the Center for Adult Learning and Literacy in Maine have been a great vehicle, but we've realized our limitations. Thus we need to build capacity. We need a multi-agency team to individualize the training for each organization. Also, it will take federal funding to continue the work that we've begun in State of Maine. We often talk about being on the verge of something. Sometimes we're not always sure what. We can feel it coming. The great thing is trying to figure out what to do next.

Adults with learning disabilities should be included in the State's overall Strategic State Plan. One of the great things about the State of Maine, not being native Mainer and coming in and looking at the state system, is that we have that close collaboration between the Department Ed adult ed division team and the Center for Adult Learning and Literacy and that there is that connection and communication going back and forth. I was talking about the development of my personal work plan this year. I do that in conjunction with Evelyn and with the state team. We can all sit down and ask in terms of learning disabilities, what is it that we want to accomplish this year. What can we work into your work schedule? How much can we handle? Those types of things.

From there, the State has statewide multi-agency task force. This is where we are. The State of Maine is on the cusp of getting ready to try to put together a state LD task force around adult ed. We have multi-agency folks that are meeting with this smaller team. Now we're ready to grow that team and build capacity on the statewide level also. From there, the learning disabilities information is integrated into state service providers' vision and mission statements so that we all start looking at the bigger picture. We try to build that seamless system, be cognizant of what each of our roles are, how we service the adults that we work with, and how to build a system in which there is a better sense of transition from one program into the other or from one agency into the other.

One of the other systemic change components at the statewide level is that the State GED Administrator integrates the Bridges training information for LD accommodations into the GED Administrator training and also into those larger GED informational workshops that we've been doing. Maine has done a lot of GED training this last year because of the changes to the new test. We've tried to be very forthcoming in talking about the increase in LD accommodations to get the word out to the field that there are such things and that people can request those and how to go about getting those.

Another one of the systemic change components. Full time employees who are responsible for the organization, facilitation, support and development of team products. This is where I see myself in this part of the system and my work with CALL. It is part of my workplan. I spend a lot of time facilitating different teams across the State, the learning disabilities team being one of the bigger teams or more important teams. Also the connection of statewide staff development for adult education. The idea is that we build a seamless system between the Center for Adult Learning and Literacy and our statewide team in which we have an integrated plan on how we are going to deliver staff development services across the State of Maine. The state team comes to CALL and says these are the initiatives we would like to work with. Let's figure out a way. Then Evelyn and the rest of us at CALL sit down and say, how can we provide the best staff development out there around these particular initiatives. It's good to have that type of connection within a system to build those staff development programs.

Full-time employees at the Center for Adult Learning and Literacy whose yearly plan is organized at monthly meetings in conjunction with the Department of Ed. Evelyn and I have a meeting with Andy on Thursday of this week getting ready to formulate my workplan for the next year. What are we going to do with LD? How are we going to do it? What resources do we have available? What are the things that we truly need to get to? How much can we manage?

Evelyn is going to speak about the systemic change components at the national level.

Evelyn Beaulieu:
These are all the different pieces that we've found and learned that need to be in place for us to get to where we are and also some of the missing pieces that we have in order for us to be on the edge of something. One of the pieces that is integral-we kept thinking about what it is we want to share for another state to be able to pick up this model and put it into another state. One of the key pieces is to have a regional network. I think in New England, that is one of our strengths. Even though we're all very independent states, we do come together and meet and share. That is a very important component of our model.

We need a communications system. We always share when we're out there talking in the workshops and learning disabilities with the national websites, with the national special collections on learning disabilities so that information isn't just sitting out there on the websites. We're connecting practitioners to it. It's wonderful having a place to go to in order to begin finding out what is available for resources on adults with learning disabilities. That is a key piece to have in place. Also, a place to collect all of the state projects - things that have worked well. We're quite well versed in what's going on in Maine. We will be more so by the end of tomorrow about what is going on in New England, but also other things going on across the country in the other hubs that can help us in our work in the State of Maine. Having a national place to collect those is a key piece. This is the piece where you can see we are on the verge. Funding is something that we-it can be a stumbling block for us moving to our next steps. We're also thinking about what is in place so that we know what we have to do and are ready to do so we know how to be very specific in asking what that funding will do for us. We're excited about that.

Also, from the national perspective we have resources, ongoing training, and workshop facilitators. We've connected with folks for three years now at our Summer Institute who come in and share information with our practitioners. We include our state and local practitioners in ongoing research projects. We talked about the five national ones and also some of the regional New England projects. That is something that is a wonderful opportunity that comes from the national perspective.

The importance of having financial assistance for practitioners to be able to go and be able to attend ongoing professional development. I think you've heard that theme. We wanted to make sure that you heard important things over and over again. We realize that is a key piece. Even though we're coming off a four-day visit from the US Department of Education in our state last week. They had forwarded to me a two-page list of questions about the Bridges project that they wanted to come and ask about. When I saw that list of questions, I said that one of the key pieces is that I make sure that I let folks know that Maine was not the sole grantee of all that Bridges work. We only had a budget of $35,000 over four years to do all this work that we're sharing with you today that we've been able to accomplish in our state. My goal was to put in perspective for those folks our piece, what our original goals were, what our workplan was, what our documented outcomes were. There are a lot of other wonderful questions and wonderful things going on nationally. This has been our key piece of the Bridges work for the last four years. I share that with everybody. We didn't do everything in Maine. For $35,000, I think we did some very exciting pieces of that.

What are we on the verge of in the State of Maine? Sometimes the staff says they feel like they are ready to jump off a cliff. They want me to go first. They say they'll follow. Sometimes we think we're going into that-we were talking at breakfast. I live just a few miles from Stephen King, who is a wonderful writer. He always comes up with things you can't even imagine. That is where we are looking to the future. We know what we need to have in place, but even four years ago we couldn't imagine where we would be now. The last recommendation from the Maine learning disabilities team is that we want to have a formation of a statewide adults for learning disabilities task force. That sounds great. Where is that coming from? It is modeled on our very successful statewide family literacy task force for which we've had national even-start funding for the last four years to get that in place. That task force brought together all the policy makers from all the service agencies. Our First Lady in our state was the chairperson of that task force. They also sponsored our statewide reading excellence act grant. They are also very aware and doing the recruiting for the agency trainers for this. That grant is also at the end of the funding. For adults with learning disabilities to be able to find funding somewhere to be able to continue that work and have that be the next focus. We aren't just starting from scratch with this concept. We have a successful model in place. The funding may change. We want to keep that statewide task force model going. We had some great outcomes from our family literacy task force. As Faye mentioned, she has been a member of that. I want that for learning disabilities. I want to be able to use that model and have us go forward.

We would have four goals for that statewide task force. We are now poised and ready to begin doing the research into the assessment tools - the Book II - and the screening tools out there. What can we have in common? What can we do for adults with that seamless system in Maine? A common referral process. The last that we have in place - the common training for service providers. That is one of our outcomes of participating in this grant for four years. Also, the individualized training to meet individual agency needs will be an outcome of our Summer Institute. You can see, we already have two of the four outcomes in place.

This work needs to be connected to the State Strategic Plan. I'm not sure if every other state has gone through that. In Maine we have gone a process that began last June of bringing together all the stakeholders for people that provide services to adults. We've put together a comprehensive state strategic plan for adults in the State of Maine - Maine Adult Education. That was facilitated from the Workforce Investment Act. It was required that we all begin working together and talking and developing this common referral process. I can even tell you the objectives. Adults with learning disabilities is on the team that is working on increasing access for adults to the system within the State of Maine. We're in the plan, but there is no funding to move it forward. As Faye has attested to, all the money that we've ever made - that $35,000 - went to support practitioners to be able to take place. My salary and all my work has been in-kind from the Main Department of Education. Shannon's has been a match and has been in-kind. We haven't taken any of the grant money to fund any of our positions. We have used it all for the focus of involving practitioners. Now that the Bridges funding is ending we don't have that piece to be able to continue supporting practitioners to be a part of this. That is one of the needs that we have.

Looking to the future, we're excited. I think you got that point too about our Summer Institute. We need funding for the Maine LD team.

One of the things that I've talked about is that workshop for Book III, integrating Equipped for the Future, Bridges book III on planning, and our statewide curriculum tools that have been developed. I've been researching and reading about those three tools the last two weeks. I can see the connection. It's going to be exciting. We've been talking mostly about the upcoming Summer Institute. Also, all that work is integrated in our reading research, the reading series that I facilitate in the state. That would be another whole presentation. With that now being the focus of the administration, all the reading research in our state, it's all right there. Reading research is integrated into our staff development model. If anyone looked ahead and saw the back page of our Summer Institute brochure, the 2003 Maine Adult Summer Institute theme will be reading essentials for adult literacy. We're excited about that piece also. That will be one of our next steps.

One of the things that became quite evident last week with US DOE folks was asking about the impact of having this team and this training out there in the state. I said, that's a great question. The project wasn't set up to get that information. That is what we would like to have as part of our task force - to set up-now that we will have the 20 agency trainers. If we had a statewide task force, we also would have in there an evaluation plan built right in from day one so we could research that project and what kind of impact has this training had-the interagency team had on practitioners in the classroom. That is one of the things that we've learned is to develop that and have that there right from day one. That would be an important piece to have. Based on all the evaluation that we've gotten back from our staff development and things we've been doing since 1999, that is where the model for the task force has been coming from. We haven't pulled it out of the air. We take all the feedback we get from all the workshops, all the meetings, interviewing the team members to ask what would be the best next steps for the State of Maine. That is where this information has come from. I did have it in there. In the Strategic Plan it's objective six, project two - proof of services for adults with learning disabilities. It's in the Strategic Plan. We have a team ready to go. All we're missing is that funding piece to help that project move forward.

We want to look forward to researching that common assessment framework. In the State of Maine we would have very unique tools to integrate because we've been part of the Equipped for the Future assessment process for two years. We have five programs in the state that have been part of that research model. We have a pool of practitioners to pull from that experience, a pool of practitioners from Maine adults with learning disabilities. For our next Summer Institute wouldn't it be great to have funding to pull those folks together to bring that information for our common assessment framework with agency folks. You can see, we have big thoughts and dreams in our state. We're ready to go.

There is the contact information. From this day forward if you have any questions or think of things down the road, you have my contact information, Shannon's and Andy's from the statewide GED administrative perspective. We didn't put Faye's on there. As she said, she is a full-time teacher. If you ever want to get any questions to her, you can use my contact or Shannon's. We see her once a month. She is an integral part of the team. That was put on here because we shared the draft of our presentation with the US DOE folks. Dr. Tooly [sp] was quite excited about having this in hand. He said, we don't have any people to give credit. Maybe people want to know it came from Maine. That is also why we put that information in there.

That concludes what we've been doing for the last four years in the State of Maine. Hopefully from three different voices, you've heard the different levels of feedback, the focus of the group. We're most excited about what we're looking ahead to. We'll stop the presentation now. We have time for questions.

Last updated: Thursday, 10-Sep-2009 16:01:55 EDT