There has been a surge in non-traditional adults who are English language learners seeking educational opportunities through distance learning in the United States since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020. However, current professional development for ESL Adult Educators in Distance Learning may not fully support best teaching practices,…

Adult learners require supports and services to help them successfully transition into taking on the demands and expectations of college students. Transition programs have grown in popularity as a means to aid adult learners as they transition to higher education. Unfortunately, previous research on adult learner participation in transition…

As traditional classroom settings are transitioning to online environments, teachers now face the challenge of using this medium to promote effective learning strategies, especially when teaching older age groups. Because adult learners bring a different set of understandings and skills to education than younger students, such as more job and life…

The General Educational Development (GED[R]) Tests, established in 1945, helped determine soldiers' high school qualifications for the workforce, as they returned home from WWII. Because many soldiers dropped out of school to join the military, achieving a certain score on the test was a way for them to demonstrate that they had attained high…

Background/Context: Educational researchers have long sought to understand the factors that enable or constrain persistence in non-formal family literacy and adult education programs. Scholars typically posit three sets of factors influencing persistence: situational (learners' life circumstances), institutional (programmatic factors), and…

Project IMAGES (Improving Management of Adults/Guiding and Educating Staff) was conducted throughout Pennsylvania to provide two three-hour training sessions for the special needs of both experienced and inexperienced staff of adult basic education programs. Instruction was given in the counseling areas of age variance management and the…

With a fifty-year history of commitment to serving adults, Widener University's University College recently volunteered to participate in CAEL's (Council for Adult and Experiential Learning) Adult Learning Focused Initiative (ALFI) by using the Institutional Self-Assessment Survey (ISAS) and the Adult Learner Inventory (ALI) from the ALFI…

The purpose of this research was to describe the status of and factors that influence adult learning and to provide information to help policymakers foster adult learning programs in rural Pennsylvania face a unique set of challenges and obstacles. These include serving a diverse group of rural adults who need a variety of services, a changing job…

A project provided more than 800 adult educators in Pennsylvania with a wide range of staff development activities and instructional strategies for teaching students with learning differences and multilevel abilities in the same classroom. It established a model for staff development that built upon previous projects and used a variety of delivery…

A research project assessed the needs and desires of deaf adults living in northeastern Pennsylvania for adult and continuing education. Using a project-developed questionnaire and sign language, four researchers interviewed 150 deaf persons between the ages of 20 and 83 who were living in six counties in northeastern Pennsylvania. Of those…

This study investigates how poverty and residential mobility affect adult persistence and participation in family literacy (FL) programs. Combining data from interviews with directors and participants from a sample of FL sites in Pennsylvania, this study examines (a) the perceptions of practitioners and adult learners regarding the role of…

The 1993-94 PASSAGE newsletter was established to create a customized educational/career-development/work-related informational publication for Pennsylvania's adult learners and educators. The project's main objective was to provide timely workplace and job skills information to Pennsylvania's adult learners, unemployed/underemployed individuals,…

This document examines emerging issues and opportunities for community-based organization (CBO) involvement in welfare reform. The document begins with a brief section of background information on past CBO involvement in helping families move from welfare to work. The next section answers policy questions pertaining to the following issues: (1)…

The following are among 50 papers included: "The Politics of Planning Culturally Relevant AIDS Education for African-American Women" (Archie-Booker); "Developing White Consciousness through a Transformative Learning Process" (Barlas); "Executive Businesswomen's Learning in the Context of Organizational Culture"…

A staff development program was conducted to provide adult educators in Pennsylvania with information about adults with learning differences and information about using alternative instructional tools and techniques to instruct such adults. The following four training sessions were developed: (1) Teaching GED (General Educational Development) Math…