Featured Resources

Description Produced by the Equity in Adult Education Research workgroup of the Institute of Education Sciences-funded Collaborative Research for Educating Adults with Technology Enhancements (CREATE) Adult Skills Network, this brief intends to shed light on DEIA conditions, opportunities, and challenges as they manifest in AFE. As a network, we are particularly interested in the application of technology to promote foundational skill development and the implications of centering DEIA in this process. Having insight into the DEIA context of AFE is important for researchers as they approach their work, especially those who are relatively new to this area of education. As generators of new knowledge and as contributors to enhancing extant knowledge in AFE, researchers play an important role in capturing the AFE landscape to inform policy and practice. We encourage researchers to integrate a DEIA lens in their work, recognizing that such integration requires some background on DEIA issues in the particular context of AFE. We therefore offer this paper to researchers, as well as policymakers, practitioners, advocates, and others to increase understanding of DEIA in AFE. Subsequent CREATE publications will address a DEIA-focused approach to research in more depth.

Description The National Skills Coalition recently published recommendations and new ideas for improving the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) in the report, Creating an Equitable, Resilient Workforce System. The report provides a series of recommended activities towards strengthening WIOA so that is adequately resourced to deliver high-quality skills training that supports the assets and aspirations of working people, helps small businesses who hire locally and invest in their workers, and advances racial equity and pathways to quality jobs. 

Description Today’s college students may have grown up around technology, but that doesn’t mean they have the skills to thrive at school or work. Knowledge gaps remain a major barrier to success, particularly affecting low-income students. How can higher education institutions more effectively teach, assess, and measure digital skills? The Chronicle surveyed more than 1,200 faculty, higher ed leaders, and students to find out. The study discovered that: 78% of students said colleges strongly contributed to their digital proficiency 36% of faculty and leaders think their college instructors are “somewhat unprepared” or “not at all prepared” to teach digital skills Only 15% of faculty and 16% of leaders think students are very well prepared to use digital tools in a work environment

Description The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 includes new requirements and incentives to strengthen the link between its Title II -- adult education -- and the overall workforce development system. This report from a national evaluation of Title II examines the extent to which local adult education providers’ instructional approaches and coordination with other agencies in 2018-19 reflected this link and highlights the challenges providers reported collecting related performance data. A compendium provides detailed tables supporting the policy report. For more information about this report, visit the IES site here. 

Description These aggregate frameworks provide a structure to support learning in five subjects relevant to adult learners: Civics Education, Digital Literacy, Financial Literacy, Health Literacy, and Workforce Preparation. They include domains, topics, and subtopics in each subject. The frameworks were developed by aggregating existing curricula, assessments, and frameworks used in adult education and compiling insights from organizations and individual instructors. Use them to support Teaching Skills That Matter-aligned instruction, to locate and use resources in SkillBlox, or as a checklist for planning instruction and assessment. 

Description Recent activities and events spurred adult educators’ interest in digital technologies, including the Barbara Bush Foundation Adult Literacy XPRIZE competition; the development of digital products by adult education publishers; and the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted adult foundational skills programs to shift from in-person classes to virtual instruction. As interest in digital technologies grows, the need for information about how to implement these technologies and what works for whom under what conditions also grows. Although some form of technology has been used to teach adult foundational skills for at least 3 decades, the knowledge base about the implementation and effectiveness of technology with adult learners is limited. The recent expansion of technology use in adult foundational skills programs suggests the need for increased efforts to develop knowledge and evidence about the types of technologies and tools that can be used effectively to assist adult learners in enhancing their foundational skills and facilitating their lifelong learning. Author: Judith A. Alamprese, Principal Scientist, Abt Associates Read the attached article below for the full paper.

Description Throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, teachers delivered instruction in new ways, drawing on technology tools and digital resources to support learners whom they could not teach in person (Belzer et al., 2020). To succeed, teachers had to redefine their work—especially in the way they planned or designed instruction (Vanek, in press). This break from traditional instruction served as a laboratory of sorts and illustrated the promise of educational technology (hereafter, edtech) for improving and enhancing instruction. To explore and learn from the ways that adult educators are experimenting with digital technologies, the final convening of the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences–funded Center for the Study of Adult Literacy included a session focused on this topic. The session titled “Leveraging Digital Technologies for Adult Foundational Skills Instruction” provided an opportunity for attendees to hear about promising strategies, resources, and practices that became visible through technical assistance provided by the EdTech Center@World Education to teachers, program administrators, and state-level leaders leading up to and throughout the pandemic. Authors: Dr. Jen Vanek, Director of Digital Learning and Research at The EdTech Center@World Education Jeffrey Goumas, Senior Technical Advisor at The EdTech Center@World Education Read the attached article below for the full paper.

Description Conceived and convened by the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, the first-ever National Action Plan for Adult Literacy is a multisector, multiyear initiative to transform adult and family literacy for millions of Americans by driving inclusive, collective action to address systemic challenges over the next five years.

Description In the first year of the Digital Resilience in the American Workforce (DRAW) initiative, Jobs for the Future (JFF), World Education, and Safal Partners launched a landscape scan to better understand what training resources and approaches are most relevant for educators seeking to increase foundational digital literacy and digital resilience for an adult learner population. Over the past decade digital literacy has emerged as an essential skill for personal, civic, educational, and career success. Yet few adult education professionals – including, but not limited to, those teaching in AEFLA-funded programs – have been trained to help learners develop the confidence, self-efficacy, and digital resilience they need to adapt to today’s digital demands.

Description The Office of Educational Technology (OET) at the U.S. Department of Education is actively looking for ways to promote digital literacy. OET believes that one effective way to support digital literacy is through innovative educational technology (edtech) tools created by a diverse array of developers who have a range of different backgrounds, life experiences, and education. This report, coauthored by OET and WestEd staff, is aimed at agencies interested in supporting edtech or digital literacy accelerators, as well as education leaders interested in supporting strategies to address misinformation. This report examines the following questions about the DLA: What did OET and WestEd learn from research and the current state of the field of digital literacy to develop and scale innovations? What were the problems teams were trying to solve? What did OET and WestEd learn when teams applied their innovation to the identified problem? What are the barriers to new innovations in the digital literacy space? What best practices can OET and WestEd extract from the accelerator and apply to future thinking? Based on OET and WestEd’s work with the DLA, what recommendations do we have for federal agencies to support the field of digital literacy?