Reflections on Workplace Education: Teachers Talking to Teachers by
Pamela Letourneau-Fallon, Kate Taylor
Laura Chase, Candice Kramer
Judith Lashof, Judy Palmer
Dorothy Ziegler, and studentsBetter Education Skills Training Program
Vermont Institute for Self-Reliance
128 Merchants Row
Rutland, Vermont 05701
Introduction
In this document, we have attempted to reflect on what we believe teachers need to know in order to teach in the workplace. We have discussed the changing workplace, educational philosophy, program design, teaching practices, and the context of the workplace. We actually have structured our writing by forming questions, essential questions which we had to answer for ourselves within the context of planning and implementing our program with several different bussinesses. Students' quotations and teacher narratives have been included as illustrations.
We are committed in workplace education to helping workers meet the changes that the workplace has made in their lives.
Preface
The purpose of this document is to engage other workplace educators in thinking about the ideas and issues we have found to be important in shaping how we conduct our workplace education program. This document reflects what the Better Education Skills Training (B.E.S.T.) team has learned in five years of conducting workplace literacy programs in Vermont funded by the US Department of Education. In our discussion that follows, you will note reflected two unique aspects of adult literacy in Vermont. First, we use a learner-centered approach and are not constrained to use any standardized test. Second, we employ full-time teachers hired for their ability and interest in workplace education. The B.E.S.T. programs teaches SCANS foundation skills in reading, writing, math, communication and problem-solving. B.E.S.T. provides comprehensive workplace education programs, including need and demand assessment, individual learning plans, customed-designed workshops and classes, and evaluation. This document is one of a number of staff development and curriculum products to be produced as part of our three-year workplace education grant. [Note: The following excerpt is one section out of five in the original 50-page document: The Changing Workplace; Program Design; Beliefs and Theories; Practices; and The Business Culture.]
Practices
How can we help learners to learn?
Inquiry is an ongoing process in our workplace education program. Since the focus of our program is learning to learn, we are reflecting and communicating often with each other and our students about the problems we need to solve and our resulting learning. Sometimes a question has come up in class, and we go back to it in order to work cooperatively together for solutions. We hope that every student walks away from that class with a new or different awareness about themselves or an issue or an action plan. Sometimes students arrive at an awareness that in some situations they really can't, given certain circumstances, do what they would like to do to solve a problem. Learning is a process. Once students begin to realize that learning is something they can take charge of, not something that is done to them, they begin to recognize parallel processes around them. They can identify how they learn most easily, and then accommodate their learning and cognitive style to maximize their learning, whether it is in the work or classroom environment. Because workers today are confronted with an incredible amount of changes on every front, learning how to access, comprehend, retain and apply information appropriately has become a vital tool for surviving and thriving.A student brought in this problem: a machine should have been retooled for a new size part, but stop-gap measures were being used. It took us a whole class to figure out what the problem was, and the second class brainstormed possible remedies. Finally, the group helped the worker to clarify a plan to go to the supervisor with a list of the alternatives the group had come up with. The supervisor then agreed there was a problem and listened to the worker's ideas. Laura, B.E.S.T. staffThis inquiry process began as I heard my students talking with the language of "what if's." What if they had stayed in school? What if they had married someone different? What if they had worked harder in school or not frivolously wasted money when they were...? The list went on and on. My inquiry became, "If I knew then what I know now... " I began to collect these comments, these fabulous pieces of advice, on a giant piece of newsprint, which I hung on the wall. More recently, I started several inquiries around our program. We wanted students to be apart of our study guide because everything that we do focuses on them. They have shared some pretty powerful anecdotes from time to time, and we decided to get them to put some thoughts on paper. This process has allowed them to stop and take stock. It has been worthwhile for everyone. We get essential feedback about the effectiveness of our program, and our outside evaluator gets the sense, I hope, that the evaluation instruments that we have used to this point are inadequate in terms of evaluating the types of changes that are taking place. We get to see what areas we need to go back to and students get to articulate and validate the learning that they have done. It continually takes the stuff that we are doing in class and gives them a forum to connect it back to their real lives whether it be at work or home. A sampling of comments:
Pamela, B.E.S.T. staff
How do we teach the problem-solving process?
The majority of our workplace education students come to their classes right off the job. Because of this, often they bring with them the problem and related emotions that they are caught up in the middle of. This opportunity presents ripe challenges to assist students, as individuals and teams, to launch into a full-blown problem solving activity. This opportunity to work through a problem in a safe, supportive setting allows workers to take an active role in their work teams, participating and making a difference instead of hanging back. Their new found confidence complements their ideas and solutions because now they have a forum to be heard before taking their ideas back out onto the shop floor.Like the problem solving process, where the problem solver defines the problem, brainstorms possible solutions to the problem, implements and evaluates solutions, the reading and writing processes follow a similar pattern. As students begin to recognize the fact that reading and writing are ongoing processes and not a static state of right or wrong, good or bad, perfect or imperfect, they begin to recognize their opportunity for growth as learners. Students actively take part in the writing and reading processes in our workplace education classroom.
What is a vaguely defined problem? One without a definite set of rules or procedures to follow or a definite goal. For example:
Our needs survey told us that a construction firm's employees had a very strong interest in applied math for construction. To provide maximum flexihility and meet a range of learning styles and math abilities we decided to deliver the same content in two diffierent formats. The first format was a series of fast-paced individual workshops on the list of topics identified by the employee planning team. The second format was an individualized self-paced class. The first night of the workshop, I had a student at each extreme. One quickly caught on to the presentation and asked questions and contributed ideas. The other nodded his head and when asked if he understood said yes. I was doubtful, so I went and sat next to him. I saw he was not using the approach (unit conversion ratios) that I was teaching. When I pointed this out, he said defensively, "You don't have to use the same method as long as you get the right answer." I agreed and asked him to show me his method. His method was only partially correct and from continued observation, I saw that he made calculations without judging the reasonableness of his answer.I found I could not teach him my procedures; instead, I guided him in refining his own procedures. No matter how incorrect his approach, I had to observe it and ask him to explain it until I could identify those elements of the method or concept he correctly understood and affirm them. Then I explained what was wrong with his incorrect elements and showed him workable approaches. After class, I talked with him and urged him to consider the self-paced class because in that class he could learn his way and not be frustrated. He commented that he was always frustrated at learning and asserted that it was his choice whether to continue to come to my class or attend the other class. I agreed and said he would always be welcome in my workshop, but for his own success in learning I recomended he try the other very small self-paced class. We left it at that. I was pleasantly surprised the following week when he attended the self-paced class.
Judith, B.E.S.T. staff
How do we teach the writing and reading process, with and without workplace materials?
When students need to work on a piece of reading or writing they brainstorm all that they know about the specific subject. During the pre-reading part of the reading process. students explore the entire piece of reading before they actually begin the task at hand of reading. They read the title and subtitles, they look at the graphic organizers (charts, pictures or diagrams), they scan for unfamiliar vocabulary, and they raise questions they have about the text based on the information they have gleaned from the previous steps. Then they read the text trying to visualize the material as they go. If they are reading a set of work instructions, they should actually picture in their mind's eye themselves completing each step of the process. By using the visually strong right hemisphere of the brain, they are increasing their chances of comprehending and retaining the information. When they have finished, they return to the questions they posed during the prereading part of the process, and respond to them according to their learning style.The writing process advances in much the same fashion. Once students have brainstormed all the pertinent details about the particular writing assignment, they can then work on putting those details in to complete sentences. Often sentences fall into place from there, but writers can elect to share their rough drafts with their fellow classmates for feedback. Once the student writer has received feedback, he can make changes, editing into a final draft. The class itself serves as a team to enhance the writer/reader's learning process. Because each class member represents a different approach to a learning problem, whether it be a reading, writing or communication problem from the workplace, every student has the opportunity to benefit from the experiences and diverse processes of the others.
How does computer instruction help students learn contents?
One of our consultants, Mike Hillinger the creator of LexIcon responsive texts for computer use, has developed "Responsive Text" programs to teach blood-borne pathogens, Total Quality Management, and HazComm (among others) for our students and teachers to use. Responsive Text is an interactive computer program format that shifts some of the burden of "making sense" of the text for the reader to the material itself at the reader's request by speaking words, defining words, presenting background information, and guiding the reader in monitoring comprehension. It can be used to enable readers who range from poor to proficient to improve their reading skills while studying the workplace content. The programs are designed to encourage students to choose options in which to learn more information, to take self-correcting quizzes, and have words pronounced and defined, but the computer programs are not used alone. Teachers encourage class discussion and other activities to help students make meaning of the material, connecting it to their lives.How does the workplace instructor handle the diverse needs in her classroom?
Just like the public school, the workplace education classroom contains many students with immensely different needs, strengths and weaknesses. English as a Second Language (ESL) students often find themselves in regular classrooms with students who are learning disabled or other students who might just want to brush up on reading, writing, math or computer skills, and we wouldn't have it any other way. In our program, we have had the luxury of working with consultants who have had the expertise to assist us in accommodating instruction to the individual needs of all of our students. By bringing all of these learners together in a heterogeneously mixed group, students learn to appreciate the diversity in learning styles.The students' strengths and weaknesses complement each other well, and often times they work together. This can in fact be tricky if there is a huge chasm amongst the skills of the individuals; if some students feel that they are impeding the progress or speed of the class, their self esteem will be negatively impacted. We often begin class with a warm up exercise that we go through as a group, and then students break up into smaller groups or as individuals to start working on their independent goals. Depending on their individual skills, goals and learning styles, some students are more comfortable working on their own while the instructor can spend more time with the students who need more intense instruction, moving fairly regularly amongst all students.
We realize that some differences in learning styles and approaches are cultural. Some students have a strong tradition of authority, and they may consider it disrespectful for students to ask questions when the teacher is talking or even to question what the teacher says.
Should the communication process be taught to all students?
As I have experienced a great variety of workplace settings I believe that most all employees could benefit from a class on communications. I can foresee the probability of offering the communication process to whole departments in some of the businesses we work with.
Laura, B.E.S.T. staff
Examples of Warm-up Exercises
Exercise: Objectives/Skills/Learning
When I have worked with some students I have had to question, at first, if they couldn't understand what I was saying in English, or if they were conditioned not to speak out in class or ask questions but rather to nod their heads politely. I eventually found in most cases that they did understand the questions I was asking them in English; they just weren't accustomed to being asked questions by a teacher in this manner. One student was very apprehensive about attending an ESL class although I sensed that she definitely wanted to understand and speak English more effectively, hut something was keeping her from getting more help. I asked her why she didn't want to participate. She said, "I do, but I have to check with my husband first." I realized, then, that much of her apprehension was cultural specific. It is likely that in her culture woman do not make such decisions with out permission from their husbands. Many ESL students from this same company were apprehensive about the classes. One way to make them feel more comfortable was to offer the classes at the work site. Also, we have been using one ESL worker from the Worker Education Committee to act as a spokesperson and motivater to get the ESL students excited about taking classes.
Judy, B.E.S.T. staff
What are the SCANS Skills? How can they be incorporated and assessed in workplace education classes?
The well-being of American business in this competitive global economy depends on the well-being of the educated employed. This interdependent relationship is becoming more and more formalized as time goes on. Schools and businesses have begun to talk about the different skills graduating students need to have in order to succeed (attain and retain a job) in the business world. This interaction precipitated the SCANS (The Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills) report. In 1990, the Secretary of Labor brought together representatives from education. business, labor and government. The Commission spent a full year interviewing people in everv different type of job from every level and recorded the skills and competencies these people needed to do their job successfully. Their final report, Learning a Living: A Blueprint for High Performance, highlighted three areas of foundation skills and five areas of professional competencies.
The three foundation skills are basic skills, thinking skills, and personal qualities. Basic skills include reading, writing, arithmetic/mathematics, listening and speaking. Thinking skills include creative thinking, decision making, problem solving, seeing things in the mind's eye, knowing how to learn, and reasoning. Personal qualities include things like responsibility, self esteem, sociability, self-management and integrity/honesty (Learning a Living, p. 16). The five competencies address the areas of interpersonal skills, information systems, technology and resource-management skills. Interpersonal skills include: participating as a member of a team, teaching others new skills, serving clients/customers, exercising leadership, negotiating, and working with diversity. Information management includes: acquiring and evaluating information, organizing and maintaining information, interpreting and communicating information, and using computers to process information. System management includes: understanding systems, monitoring and correcting performance. and improving and designing systems. Technology skills include: selecting technology, applying technologies to the task and maintaining and troubleshooting equipment. Skills involving time, money, material and facilities, and human resources management, fall under the general resource competency. This general area addresses the identification. organization, planning and allocation of resources in all of those sub areas mentioned above (Learning a Living, p. 12).Top of PageThe SCANS foundation skills and competency lexicon is an importance reference point for us. That is not to say that we teach the SCANS skills and competencies in isolation; we don't. I begin each of my brush up classes with a warm up. These activities vary in terms of content and process, but they introduce and reinforce many of the SCANS material in an integrated manner Each of my brush up students has different personal and professional goals. Some of them are working on improving their reading comprehension, some of them are trying to improve their spelling or writing in general, a number of them are working toward taking their GED, and some of them are trying to get a handle on specific math skills. One day we could fill out a crossword puzzle that focuses on word families or homophones and in the next class we could be completing a cooperation puzzle. Whatever we do, it is a collaborative process that culminates with students reflecting on their learning content and process. This encourages students to communicate with each other and actually put down into -writing what learning has just gone on. We talk about our own learning styles, so students are empowered to utilize their strengths and strengthen their weaker areas, when confronted with a problem, learning situations in disguise on a daily basis. Since every student is introduced to the reading, writing and problem solving process, s/he has a very concrete process to use when approaching any of those types of tasks.
Pamela, B.E.S.T. staff