The CREATE Adult Skills Network is funded by the Institute of Education Sciences to build knowledge about using technology to support teaching and learning.
Every year in the U.S., over a million adult learners participate in programs to improve their literacy, English proficiency, and other foundational skills to prepare them for further education and rewarding jobs. Millions more need these programs, but cannot access them. This can be because their schedules don’t allow them to attend traditional in-person classes, or because they lack the technology skills they need for more flexible distance education options.
“Technology-enabled instruction” uses online tools and strategies to make learning available to a wider population of learners. Technology can provide access to additional learning opportunities and accommodate adult learners’ need for flexibility as caregivers and employees. Technology-enabled instruction is a promising strategy for enriching and expanding educational opportunities for adults both in and out of the classroom.
However, there is little research to help practitioners, prospective learners, and policy and funding stakeholders identify effective technology-based approaches that can build adult skills.
The CREATE Adult Skills Network (the Network), facilitates the development, adoption, and evaluation of technology-supported interventions to build adult foundational skills and academic attainment. The Network’s research teams focus on a variety of approaches to using technology to improve or measure adult skills development.
American Institutes for Research (AIR) leads the Network in collaboration with its partners, Jobs for the Future, and the EdTech Center @ World Education, Inc, in the following activities:
- Engaging stakeholders from adult foundational education, workforce development, and postsecondary education to develop resources that help people better use technology to support adult learning.
- Expanding the research base on adult foundational education to address knowledge gaps.
- Communicating and disseminating research and best practices to help develop capacity to use and benefit from research on technology-supported interventions for adult learners.
