Keynote speaker at the WAALC Conference

2015 WAALC State Conference

Keynote Speaker – Michelle Circelli NCVER

Michelle Circelli, a member of NCVER’s Research Management Branch, manages commissioned research projects funded under the National VET Research Program. Michelle also undertakes research and consultancy projects for NCVER and has a particular interest in adult literacy and numeracy. Michelle was the 2013 Fulbright Professional Scholar in Vocational Education and Training and spent four months in the United States at the end of 2013 undertaking research into measuring success of adult literacy and numeracy programs with the Californian Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office and the federal Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education (formerly the Office of Vocational and Adult Education).

Michelle’s keynote address will discuss the work undertaken during her Fulbright Scholarship in late 2013, highlighting the good, the bad and the ugly of particular approaches used in the United States to measure outcomes from adult literacy and numeracy programs. In recent years in Australia there has been increasing investment in programs and a greater acknowledgment of the importance of literacy and numeracy for social and economic participation. However, we know little about the returns on this investment for funders and providers, or outcomes for learners – what works for whom and why? How do we know if a program is successful? Indeed what ‘outcomes’‚ are we measuring to determine success?

Margaret McHugh

Recent academic research

Research into the discourse of “at-risk”

Some of you may be interested in this recently completed Master’s Thesis, Just_Whose_Story_is_it.  You will recognise the human subjects of the research in the profiles of some of your students. The research argues for socially just schools and illustrates how some students are positioned so that they do not receive just treatment.

Margaret McHugh

NCVER on-Line survey – deadline extended to 19 December

NCVER Online Survey

The NCVER is conducting a survey on behalf of the National Foundation Skills Strategy (NFSS) Project.

If you teach or help people develop their English language, literacy, numeracy or employability skills they need your help!

There have already been 586 valid survey responses submitted – an unprecedented response rate according to Michelle Circelli at NCVER.  Responses from WA comprise around 8% of the total received so far.

The project team are excited about the strong response and eager to gather more evidence and information. Please complete a short survey at:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/foundationskillssurvey

Margaret McHugh

Conferences coming up

Conferences 2015

WA Adult Literacy Council 2015 State Conference at Central Institute of Technology on 16th and 17th April, 2015. The conference is titled Great Expectations: literacy, the individual and the economy.

ACER Research Conference 2015 – Learning assessments: Designing the future. 16-18 August, Crown, Southbank, Melbourne
A conference to connect  teachers, education leaders and policy makers with the latest assessment research to inform teaching and learning.

ACAL National conference 2015 – Resilience, Risk, Preservation – held held at the Adelaide Zoo in  Adelaide on 24th and 25th September 2015.

PD coming up from December 2014

Teach Me Grammar 2015

Teach Me Grammar is available again for next year if you are interested in Teach Me Grammar checkout the GoogleGroup or visit Teach Me Grammar Program 2015 to get more information and the application form.

Collaborative numeracy: working together to build numeracy skills in adults

Collaborative numeracy: working together to build numeracy skills in adults is a program of  professional development for teaching numeracy to adults and young people in vocational training  and other adult learning contexts. For more information on this and application forms see the article that follows this one.

Applications need to be in by 5pm Monday 19th January 2015

The Collaborative Numeracy Workshops

Collaborative Numeracy

In 2014 Beth Marr delivered a series of extended workshops for adult numeracy teachers in Western Australia. This very successful program will be offered again in 2015. You are encouraged to apply, but numbers are strictly limited. Applications will be assessed once the application period closes on 19th January 2015.

See Collaborative Numeracy 2015 information for applicants for more information and download the Application Collaborative Numeracy 2015

The program consists of three workshops, each of a day and a half, scheduled for February, March and April. You are required to attend all three of the workshops.

Previous participants have said:

“ It was pure luxury to be able to explore and experience cooperative logic.”

“Every single thing we did was useful. It extended my thinking, knowledge and strategies. Loved it.”

“Making sense of algebra.”

“Hands on is a much more interesting and engaging way to include students with different abilities.”

“Making learning social.”

 Margaret McHugh

Report on ACAL 2014 conference Keynote

ACAL Keynote Professor Stephen Reder

Professor Stephen Reder’s research takes a longitudinal perspective and examines how formal education programs fit into the lives of adult learners. This approach reverses the usual approach to educational research and program evaluation which generally focuses on the way that students fit into programs.

Professor Reder’s Keynote address at the recent ACAL conference in the Gold Coast can be found in PowerPoint form

Here is the website for the Longitudinal Study of Adult Learning (LSAL)

The LSAL research followed almost 1000 early school leavers aged from 18 – 44 at the beginning of the study. The research analyses the relationship between adults’ participation in formal programs and their self-study efforts and what happens to their literacy scores (a proficiency measure) and the wider impacts on their life-long and life-wide literacy development and use.

The research is highly technical, but some of the key findings include:

  • People who participate in both formal programs and self-study activities achieve greater proficiency and greater economic gain (an increase over non-participants of an annual income of US $9000 – $10,000). These gains happen over time.
  • These long term beneficial effects are not evident in short term accountability measures for programs, but the short-term measures that programs are forced to use are the ones they must use to program improvement.

Margaret McHugh

WA Adult Literacy Council 2015

The WA Adult Literacy Council is pleased to announce that the 2015 State Conference will be held at Central Institute of Technology on 16th and 17th April, 2015. The conference is titled Great Expectations: literacy, the individual and the economy.

Please note that the conference is at a different time of year from formerly. Put the date in your diary now!

 

 

Conferences coming up

Conferences 2014

This year in Freemantle from the 3rd to the 5th of December. The Australian Tertiary Education Network on Disability – ATEND,  is holding its Pathways 12 Conference 2014 which brings together a range of professional and academic staff to identify and remove barriers for people with disability participating in higher education and training.

Conferences 2015

WA Adult Literacy Council 2015 State Conference at Central Institute of Technology on 16th and 17th April, 2015. The conference is titled Great Expectations: literacy, the individual and the economy.

ACER Research Conference 2015 – Learning assessments: Designing the future. 16-18 August, Crown, Southbank, Melbourne
A conference to connect  teachers, education leaders and policy makers with the latest assessment research to inform teaching and learning.

ACAL National conference 2015 – Resilience, Risk, Preservation – held held at the Adelaide Zoo in  Adelaide on 24th and 25th September 2015.

PD coming up from November 2014

Webinar 28/11/2014

Coming up on November 28, 2014 (time  10:00am West Australian time 11:30am ACST, 1:00pm AEDT) there is an ACAL webinar. “A remote solution to strengthening workforce capacity in LLN”   For more information and to register your interest visit the ACAL website

The presenter is Ros Bauer was the 2013 Australian Training Awards Winner – Excellence in Adult Language Literacy Numeracy Practice. She is currently working with Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse learners in the remote Northern Territory community of Yuendumu where she is delivering the Develop Foundation Skills in Vocational practice Skills Set. Ros is delivering to 3 trainers in community, who work with Warlpiri adult learners and young people

Teach Me Grammar 2015

Teach Me Grammar is available again for next year if you are interested in Teach Me Grammar checkout the GoogleGroup or visit Teach Me Grammar Program 2015 to get more information and the application form.