Sample Activity

Rethinking Instruction and Participation for Adult Basic Education

4. Your Experience in Relation to the Topic (30 minutes)

• Explain that this first activity is designed to allow participants to talk about their own experience in relation to this topic before discussing the theories and concepts contained in the readings.
• Participants should break up into groups of two or three depending on the number of participants. Allow 20 minutes for the small-group discussions.
• Post the “Quotations” newsprint. Use these quotations in conjunction with the “Discussion Questions” newsprint to facilitate a discussion of participants’ experiences with self-directed learning efforts.
  
  

Quotations:

• “Individuals with higher skill levels are less likely to have engaged in self-study efforts to improve their skills or prepare for the GED. Individuals at the lowest levels of skills are the most likely to engage in such self-study efforts….”
• “…a substantial reservoir of individuals may be actively trying to improve their skills, and programs are not reaching or are unable to serve them through their current offerings.”

(Quotes from “Program Participation and Self-Directed Learning to Improve Basic Skills” by Stephen Reder & Clare Strawn. Focus on Basics, Vol. 4, Issue D, April 2001, p. 17)