The San Diego CWELL Project was developed from findings and recommendations of
the California Workforce Literacy Task Force, the Secretary's Commission on
Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS), and research on the functional context
education learning process provided by Sticht, Armstrong, Hickey, and Caylor
(1987), in their study, Cast-off Youth: Policy and Training Methods from the
Military Experience.
The California State Legislature
created the California Workforce Literacy
Task Force in 1989. After a yearlong study of the educational system for
out-of-school youth and undereducated adults in California, the Task Force
noted that there were many different educational organizations offering basic
skills, vocational, and work-related education in the State of California. Over
800 million tax dollars were being spent on these educational endeavors, but
there was no system of accountability in place, no set standards, and little
evaluation information available. The minimal information that was available
indicated that students stayed in a program of study for an average length of
80 to 120 hours and made little, if any, improvements in learning as measured
by California's Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System.
Another finding of the Task Force
was that although many of the youth and
adults being served tended to be those commonly referred to as "at risk,"
defined as "among the most difficult to educate and train," the majority of
administrators and teachers serving this population were not professionally
trained for this work. They determined that over 1,000 organizations were
providing adult literacy instruction, but most of the teaching was being
conducted by volunteers. They also noted that there were no programs in
California's university system where teachers could be educated and trained in
the best methods of instructing and serving the needs of California's
undereducated youth and adults.
According to The San Diego CWELL
Project Report of Progress (Sticht,
1994), the major findings of the Task Force found no programs anywhere in
California, or the rest of the nation, to prepare professional educators who
could do the following:
- Work with "at-risk" youth and adults to develop school-to-work programs that
integrate the teaching of vocational and academic skills into "workforce
education" for workplaces.
- Develop new technical training so that out-of-school, undereducated youth and
adults can save time and efficiently learn employability and technical skills
for jobs while mastering powerful cognitive skills.
- Develop family education programs that serve both children and adults at ages
across the lifespan, therefore truly engaging educators in "lifelong learning"
and the intergenerational transfer of values and skills.
- Serve populations in settings as diverse as the State correctional
facilities; city jails; Job Corps camps; adult basic and secondary education;
and multinational, high technology industries.
Based on these and other findings,
the California Workforce Literacy Task
Force (Sticht, 1995) recommended the following:
That the Legislature establish a network of field stations for
action research and evaluation on adult education in association with campuses
of the California State University and Community College system, oriented to
developing information about California's workforce skills needs, abilities of
the non-college bound workforce, and the development of improved methods of
education and training for non-college bound youth and adults; further that the
Legislature require the California State University and Community College
systems to establish a formal program to educate and train a cadre of adult
educators that can work with the spectrum of education, language, and learning
needs of California's undereducated youth and adults. (p. 3)
Although the California Legislature recognized and acknowledged the findings
of the Task Force, they did not allocate funds to
support the implementation of its recommendations.
The California Workforce Literacy
Task Force was formed and began studying the
system of education for out-of-school youth and undereducated adults in
California just prior to the formation in early 1990 of the Secretary of Labor
Elizabeth Dole's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS). The mission
for SCANS was to "define the necessary functional and enabling skills which
society must provide to every child by the age of sixteen." Thomas Sticht,
president and senior scientist of Applied Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences,
Inc., a nonprofit organization that conducts research and development leading
to improved methods of education and training for undereducated youth and
adults, was asked to serve as one of the SCANS commissioners. At SCANS' first
meeting, Sticht made a presentation on functional context education and its
application to preparing youth and adults with the basic skills needed for
work. After conducting studies of the cognitive science research literature
related to the importance of learning in context, SCANS staff held a meeting
with a number of cognitive scientists to determine the usefulness of the
functional context education concepts. Based on that research, the mission
statement for SCANS was drafted and stated "We believe that these skills are
best learned in context and especially in the context of realistic workplace
problems. Thus, the teaching of functional skills will require the most radical
change in educational content since the beginning of this century."
According to Sticht (1997b),
"functional context education is an approach to
education that is based upon a cognitive science theory of cognitive
development, learning, and instruction" (p. 1). Sticht identifies literacy as a
key component of functional context education because of the important role it
plays in all schooling and instruction. He believes the general thesis that
literacy is something one must "get" in one program, which is then "applied" in
another, is misleading. The argument of functional context education is that
literacy is developed while it is being applied. His research has shown that
students do not need to reach a "prerequisite" level of literacy before they
work on content skills. This is contrary to the more common belief that
literacy must be a separate program, which is then applied in another course of
study. Sticht (personal communication, August 11, 1997) has conducted intensive
research and his careful documentation supports the idea that for the large
numbers of youth and adults who read between the 5th- and 9th-grade levels,
literacy and content skills education can be integrated. With this theory,
there is no need for special "remedial" literacy programs to get students to
"prerequisite" levels of literacy before they are permitted to study the "real
thing."
Sticht not only served on SCANS, but
also served as chair of the California
Workforce Literacy Task Force. Functional context education and Sticht's
research findings from extensive studies of military training programs became
the basis for the SCANS recommendations, as well as for the recommendations
from the California Workforce Literacy Task Force.
CWELL was developed and has been
implemented over a six-year period. Officials
from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation reviewed the California Workforce
Literacy Task Force's report in 1991. Upon completion of their review, a grant
was provided to the Applied Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, Inc., and
President Thomas Sticht, to prepare a report showing how the Task Force's
recommendations could be implemented. CWELL was established through a second,
two-year grant from the Hewlett Foundation in 1992. The Lila Wallace Reader's
Digest Fund provided an additional three years of funding to CWELL with a focus
on research and development to better understand how English as a second
language (ESL) instruction could be integrated with instruction in vocational
education.
According to the CWELL Report of
Progress (Sticht, 1995),
The CWELL provides a working model of how the California State
University and California Community College systems can work together to meet
the recommendations of the California Workforce Literacy Task Force for
professional development and action research to improve the education and
training of California's out-of-school, undereducated youth and adults. The
CWELL is an innovative project to understand and improve adult education in a
local context. (p. 5)
According to Armstrong (personal
communication, August 12, 1997), a member of the Consortium, "The CWELL was
created as a qualitative project to influence the way people learn and teach,
not as a quantitative study to measure or produce data."
CWELL is an innovative project to
improve adult education in local contexts.
CWELL is a collaborative partnership between the San Diego Community College
District Continuing Education Division (SDCCD/CE), San Diego State University -
Department of Educational Technology (SDSU), and the Applied Behavioral and
Cognitive Sciences, Inc. These organizations are working together to meet the
needs of new immigrants and undereducated youth and adults for noncollege
credit education and training.
Each of the partners contributes to
the San Diego CWELL Project in a number of
ways. These contributions are presented below.
The San Diego Community College District Continuing Education Division
The SDCCD/CE provides the state adult
programs, including high school
completion, ESL, classes for older adults, job training/vocational classes,
business classes, classes for the disabled, parenting, child development, and
consumer and home economics classes. Adult education, continuing education,
night school, and community services are all part of SDCC/CE's commitment to
learning for a lifetime.
In order to implement the California Workforce Literacy Task Force's
recommendation to establish "field stations for action research," SDCCD/CE has
developed a field station called the CWELL Action Research Center (ARC). The
mission of ARC is "to research new methods for meeting the needs of youth and
adults for workforce education and lifelong learning." As part of their
commitment to making this part of the CWELL work, SDCCD/CE provides facilities
for the ARC, and part-time staff, including an ARC coordinator, Barbara
McDonald, research staff, and teachers who receive stipends for conducting
original research to improve instructional services. The CWELL ARC office is
located in the heart of San Diego's inner city at the Mid City Continuing
Education Center. There are four additional SDCCD/CE centers that serve the ARC
community.
The ARC community includes 212,800
people out of the total population of
approximately 2.5 million in the greater San Diego area. The ARC community is
comprised of students who attend classes at one of four sites. These include
the Centre City Skills Center, the Caesar Chavez Center, the Educational
Cultural Complex, and the Mid-City Center. The student population is ethnically
diverse with a large population of minorities, many of whom are refugees.
Overall, the ARC community is socially, educationally, and economically
depressed compared to the greater San Diego area.
San Diego State University - Department of Educational Technology
The College of Education, Department
of Educational Technology, San Diego
State University (SDSU) has developed the Workforce Education and Lifelong
Learning Specialist (WELLS) program as part of the Master of Arts in Education
graduate degree. The program is designed to implement the California Workforce
Literacy Task Force's recommendation for professional education for educators
of out-of-school youth and adults.
Applied Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, Inc.
Thomas Sticht, cognitive psychologist,
serves as the San Diego CWELL
Project Coordinator. He provides advisory and technical services to both the
San Diego State University and the San Diego Community College District. His
role in the project is to assist with the development of the WELLS degree
program--the new Master of Arts Specialization in Workforce Education and
Lifelong Learning. He also teaches the introductory course in the program. For
the SDCCD/CE, Sticht provides technical advisory services to and works
part-time with the ARC director and staff to help design, conduct, and report
studies on workforce education and lifelong learning such as Family
Workplace Literacy Programs: A Note on the Intergenerational Transfer of
Literacy from Fathers to Children and Functional Context Education and
Adult Literacy: Historical Perspectives for Workforce Development. He also
tracks research findings from research and development centers throughout the
United States, as well as internationally, and shares these findings within the
ARCs and the WELLS graduate program.
ARC and WELLS have key features that establish the San Diego CWELL Project as
an exemplary site in regards to the learning process.
ARC has the following features:
- Resident and external research scientists with internationally recognized
expertise in cognitive science, educational psychology, testing, assessment,
evaluation, adult literacy, technical training, and the application of these
disciplines to the educational needs of youth and adults.
- Teacher-as-researcher program in which teachers and administrators
participate in the conducting and reporting of original grassroots research to
improve the practice of adult education in the ARC community.
- Adult student-as-researcher program in which adult students participate in
the conducting and reporting of original research projects to better understand
the need for, barriers to, and methods for adult education from the adult
learner's perspective. According to the CWELL 1992-1994 Report of Progress
(Sticht, 1994), the student research/writing project serves the following
purposes: it provides a forum for adult students to voice their opinions and
thoughts about the educational service delivery system in which they study, as
well as how education has affected them as students, adults, parents, and
citizens; it provides an opportunity for administrators, staff, researchers,
and teachers to gain insight into what their clients are thinking about the
current system and how more effective methods of service delivery may be
incorporated; and it provides an opportunity for students to conduct
educational research as a method of empowerment, information-seeking, and
improvement of critical thinking, analytical, and writing skills. Student
research and writing contests are the principle stimulus for encouraging
participation of adult students as researchers.
- Graduate students from the San Diego State University who are enrolled in the
new WELLS program participate in the activities of the ARC.
- A research dissemination program is available that includes the publication
and distribution of the Community Exchange newspaper three times each
year, conducting four Saturday seminars a year, and an annual conference on
important issues facing adult education.
- Research and development conducted within a coherent conceptual framework
office that includes the social basis of cognition; the human cognitive system;
a developmental model of literacy; a constructive, information processing
approach to teaching and learning; and the intergenerational transfer of
cognitive abilities and educational attitudes from parents to children.
- Research and development of scientists, teachers, adult students, and
graduate students working in the ARC orchestrated by the conceptual framework
to improve the participation of adults in education, achievement in and outside
the classroom, and the prevention of future learning and schooling problems of
children.
WELLS has the following features:
- A concentration in Educational Arts and Technology so that adult educators
will possess mastery of education theories, instructional design, interactive
computer, and telecommunications technologies for the design and delivery of
adult education. The WELLS program was established in response to the expanding
role that technology is and will be playing in providing education to
out-of-school youth and adults. Technology is a key to reaching populations in
diverse settings and at critical times when lives are in transition and access
to education and training is sought. WELLS students will be knowledgeable and
skilled in using a variety of technologies for education, including traditional
classrooms, lectures, and texts, but also computer-based interactive media and
television for distance learning. WELLS develops competence in working in teams
made up of various content specialists to analyze learning objectives; to
design, develop, and deliver education and training; and to evaluate learning
outcomes and program effectiveness.
- A command of cognitive science applied to the learning, education, and
training needs of youth and adults who are undereducated or in other ways in
need of special instructional methods and contents.
- An understanding of culture and human resource policies and practices,
including special emphasis on educational policy and practice implications of
cultural diversity in the adult population of the United States and the
diversity of settings in which adult education takes place.
- Participation by WELLS graduate students in work experience internships in
business and industry in a variety of settings to enhance the performance of
personnel through the diagnosis of performance problems; the development of job
aids; or the design, delivery, and evaluation of instructional programs for
adults.
- Development and maintenance by WELLS faculty and students of an electronic
network for communicating with ARC and other research and development centers
and labs around the world.
CWELL has served as a vehicle for the
development of a partnership and
collaboration between two major educational institutions, San Diego State
University and the San Diego Community College District. CWELL has helped break
down the barriers between these institutions, resulting in new opportunities
and relationships for students, staff, and administration and establishing a
new way of doing business.
The San Diego CWELL Project has
created ways to produce new knowledge. The
project has employed collaborative learning in problem solving and has engaged
the learner in inquiry and knowledge construction. This has been accomplished
through innovative research conducted by students, teachers, and cognitive
scientists. This research has been documented through journals, the
Community Exchange newspaper, seminars focused on teacher research, and
annual conferences.
As a result of information gathered
from ARC's students, teachers, and
cognitive scientists, three books are in the planning stages (B. A. McDonald,
personal communication, August 12, 1997). One book will focus on the potential
of journal writing as an educational tool; more than 2,000 pieces of writing
are presently being reviewed as part of this book. A second book will assess
the teacher-research process; this book will highlight 24 research projects
conducted by teachers. The research projects focus on student participation and
achievement. Examples of these research projects include Life History of ESL
Students, Factors Affecting the Achievement of ESL Students, and
Families Learning English Together. The third book will focus on the
monolinguistic nature of the Caesar Chavez Center, where the majority of ESL
students speak Spanish as their first language, compared to the multilinguistic
nature of the Mid-City Center, where as many as nineteen different languages
are present in the ESL classroom.
Through documentation of the San
Diego CWELL Project, a new concept of
learning process is illustrated. Teachers act as researchers and play a
significant role in their own staff development as they learn about their
students and design appropriate classroom activities and teaching methods. This
is contrary to traditional staff development where teachers attend seminars and
workshops conducted by outside experts.
An open entry/open exit policy for
noncredit courses that allows students "to
enter a class when there is a space available, learn what they want to learn,
and leave when they want to leave," has been identified by cognitive
scientists, administrators, and faculty of the CWELL as a challenge to the
educational process. This is a learning process managed by learners with
guidance by staff. Teachers have difficulty preparing their classroom
activities and spend much time remediating because student participation in the
classroom changes on a daily basis. Tracking students and their progress is
challenging under these conditions. While the open entry/open exit policy has
been implemented in education and training organizations across the nation,
there has been little evaluation of the instructional consequences of this
policy.
Due to lack of funds, the San Diego
CWELL Project will end as a focused project
in December 1997. This project has relied upon the generosity of private
foundations, and the current funding cycle will end with the calendar year.
According to Consortium members--Thomas Sticht, San Diego CWELL Project
Coordinator; Augustine Gallego, Chancellor of the San Diego Community College
District; Barbara McDonald, Director of the CWELL ARC; and William Armstrong,
Director of Office of Research and Planning, San Diego Community College
District--the San Diego CWELL Project has been successful.
The CWELL partners will sponsor
a conference in spring 1998 that, according
to Gallego (personal communication, August 11, 1997), will be a national
discussion on lifelong learning. This will be an opportunity to focus on the
role that community colleges, community college faculty and students, and the
surrounding community play in creating a lifelong learning environment. The
conference will look at ways to provide opportunities for each of the
stakeholders and participants to create a collaborative learning process that
will make classrooms action research centers. The intent of the conference is
to assess the San Diego CWELL Project and to look at how it can be developed
and taken to a larger scale in order to encourage every faculty member to be a
researcher and every student an involved learner in the classroom. This event
will also provide an opportunity to gather input from business and the
community in order to determine what they need from adult education programs.
Based on the study of the learning
process as represented in the San Diego
CWELL Project, the following design implications appear warranted:
- Learn in Teams: Students, working in study groups with the guidance of
teachers and community-based resource persons, can produce products and
services valued by the larger community and strategic to improving higher
education.
- Engage in Action Research: The learning experiences inherent in
producing the products and services noted above provide very authentic
opportunities to address the learning outcome recommended in NDTYI.
- Use Functional Context: The functional context of producing externally
valued products and services enhances the involvement and engagement of
learners and provides practice in knowledge construction, so much a part of the
information/knowledge age.
- Rely on Partnerships: Partnerships with other institutions of higher
education, government agencies and organizations, and the wider community can
serve to enhance the supporting infrastructure for learning process and
organization to reach high standards in learning outcomes.
- Incorporate Technology: Technology is very important to accessing,
synthesizing, and communicating information as part of the learning process.
Study Author
|
Reid Haglin, University of Minnesota Extension Service, St. Louis County,109A
|
| | | | |
Washburn Hall, 2305 E. 5th Street, Duluth, MN 55812, (218) 726-8705
|
Site Contact
|
Barbara McDonald, Director of CWELL Action Research Center, Mid-City Center,
|
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5348 University Avenue, San Diego, CA 92105, (619) 265-3452
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