ALaN WA Newsletter – December 2014

Welcome to edition 15 of the Adult Literacy and Numeracy Network of Western Australia Newsletter!

Views expressed by contributors to the newsletter are their own and, unless expressly stated, do not reflect the opinions of their employers/organisations.

This contents page links individually to each article enabling you to go immediately to those of your choice. Alternatively, if you go to the main blog link, you can access the articles by scrolling down the page.

We welcome your comments and contributions to our newsletter. If you are an Adult Literacy/Numeracy practitioner in Western Australia or indeed, anywhere in the world, we invite you to subscribe and comment. If you are interested in joining the GoogleGroup for our network, please visit our “How to join” page and complete the online form.

This is our last newsletter for 2014 – the next one will be late January or early February 2015. We wish you a safe and peaceful break and look forward to sharing again in the New Year.

Contents

1. The CAVSS Experience – A Snapshot from a CAVSS Lecturer

2. Literacy Research Matters

3. Call for presenters – WA Adult Literacy Council Conference 2015

4. Keynote speaker at the WAALC Conference

5. Recent Academic Research

6. NCVER Online Survey – extended deadline

7. Conferences coming up in 2015

8. PD coming up in 2015

9. Collaborative Numeracy Workshops

10. Report on ACAL 2014 Conference Keynote

 

 

Literacy Research Matters

Looking for that critical research report, journal article or conference paper?

The VOCED & ALADIN online databases may help you.

VOCED is a free international research database from NCVER relating to workforce needs, skills development, and social inclusion. It encompasses vocational education and training (VET), higher education, adult and community education, informal learning, and VET in Schools. International in scope the database contains over 63,000 English language records, many with links to full text documents. You can easily search by keyword or ‘Browse’ by author, title, journal or subject.

Adult Learning Documentation and Information Network (ALADIN) , is an initiative of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning. It was created to support networking and capacity building between documentation centres and libraries in the area of adult learning and literacy. Today it comprises of 96 documentation centres in 47 countries in all regions of the world, from complex university libraries and research units, to small NGO resource centres and some virtual collections. The National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) is an ALADIN member organisation.

KEEP UP TO DATE: New research is collated into a bi-monthly ALADIN Online Alert located on the ALADIN News webpage – no ‘subscription’ or signup required. Find out about recent online and full-text information in the areas of adult learning, adult literacy, lifelong learning and technical and vocational education and training (TVET).

Jane Jones

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

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

LLNP Innovative and Research Project Funding round

The Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIISRTE) through the Language, Literacy and Numeracy Program (LLNP) is seeking submissions for grant funding to undertake innovative pilots or demonstration models and/or research based projects that lead to an enhanced delivery of language, literacy and numeracy (LLN) training for adults.

If you are interested in increasing the English language, literacy and numeracy skills of adult Australians, have experience in the field of adult literacy, or would like to pilot projects that can be replicated and sustainable then your submission is welcome.

Submissions for the LLNP Innovative and Research Project funding close COB 31 August 2012.